Chapter 4

 

My back slid down the bedroom door until I was sitting on the cold marble floor with my knees pulled up to my chest. The tears came again, hot and fast, and I didn't even try to stop them this time. What was the point? Nobody was watching. Nobody cared.

Alejandro never loved me. He never even liked me. From the very first day of our marriage, he had looked at me the way you look at a bill you didn't expect. An obligation. A burden. A mistake he couldn't undo because his family's reputation demanded he keep up appearances.

I had spent years trying to make him see me differently. Cooking his favorite meals. Staying quiet when he came home late smelling like whiskey and someone else's perfume. And what did I get? A husband who handed me to the monsters without a second thought.

The worst part was knowing that he truly believed I had drugged him that night. Tricked him into sleeping with me just to trap him. He never once considered that maybe I had been just as drunk, just as scared when the consequences caught up with us.

No more. I was done chasing a man who saw me as a chain around his ankle. I was done begging for scraps of affection from someone who would rather watch me die than admit he was wrong. From this moment forward, Alejandro Montero was nothing to me. A name on a piece of paper that I was going to tear up the first chance I got.

"Oh, are we done crying now? Or should I come back in another hour when the floor is completely soaked?"

I gritted my teeth. Xiomara's voice slithered through my mind like smoke, lazy and mocking and deliberately provoking.

"Go away," I muttered under my breath. "I'm not in the mood."

"You're never in the mood for anything useful. That's the problem." Her tone sharpened, the teasing edge replaced by something harder. "You sit here weeping over a man who treats you like furniture while an apocalypse is coming. You have bigger things to worry about than his opinion of you."

"I know that!" My voice came out louder than I intended, cracking at the edges. "You think I don't know that? I just died, Xiomara. I just got thrown off a building by my own sister and eaten alive by monsters. Excuse me for needing five minutes to process!"

"Five minutes? You've been on this floor for twenty." A pause. "I counted."

[WARNING. SYNCHRONIZATION DROPPING. CURRENT LEVEL: 35 PERCENT. HOSTS ARE ADVISED TO RESOLVE EMOTIONAL CONFLICT IMMEDIATELY.]

"Great," I whispered, pressing my palms against my eyes. "Just great."

Another knock at the door made me flinch. Harder this time, more urgent.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand, pulled myself up, and grabbed the first decent outfit I could find from the closet. A simple black dress, nothing flashy, nothing that would draw attention. I changed quickly, ignoring Xiomara's commentary about my fashion choices, and opened the door.

The man standing in the hallway was tall, broad shouldered, with close cropped hair and a rigid military posture that looked completely wrong on a household servant. He kept his eyes lowered, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression carefully blank.

César.

My blood ran cold. The last time I had seen this man, he had been one of the two who grabbed my arms and dragged me to the railing. His hands had gripped my wrists so tight they left bruises. And here he was, standing in a servant's uniform, pretending to be nothing more than hired help.

"Ma'am, Mr. Montero asked me to escort you to the dining room." His voice was low, polite, perfectly rehearsed. "If you'll follow me, please."

Every muscle in my body screamed at me to slam the door in his face. But the old Mia, the version of me that existed in this timeline, didn't know any of that yet. So I locked my jaw, buried the rage beneath a cold mask, and stepped into the hallway.

"Lead the way." My voice came out flat and empty, and I kept my eyes straight ahead as we walked.

"Oh, this one." Xiomara's voice curled through my thoughts with sudden interest. "I can see him in your memories. He's one of the men who held you down, isn't he?"

I didn't answer. I didn't need to. She was already flipping through my past like pages in a book, pulling up images and moments I had tried to bury.

"Stop that," I hissed under my breath, keeping my face pointed forward while César walked three steps ahead. "Stay out of my memories. I didn't give you permission to look."

"I don't need your permission, little flower. We share a soul now. Your memories are my memories." Her voice dropped into something almost tender, which somehow made it worse. "Besides, you have such interesting ones. This husband of yours, for example. The things he whispered to your sister when he thought nobody was listening..."

"I said stop!"

The words exploded out of me before I could catch them, echoing down the marble hallway like a gunshot.

César froze mid step. His whole body went rigid, and then he was on his knees, his forehead nearly touching the floor, his hands trembling at his sides.

"I'm so sorry, ma'am! Whatever I did, I apologize! Please forgive me, please don't report me to Mr. Montero, I'll do anything, please!"

His voice was high and panicked, and for a moment I just stood there staring at the back of his head, completely thrown by the sudden display. In my past life, this man had been a stone cold soldier. Seeing him grovel on the ground like a terrified child was so strange it almost made me laugh.

"Get up." I forced my voice into something calm. "I wasn't talking to you. Keep walking."

He scrambled to his feet, bowed twice, and turned back around. I could see the sweat staining the back of his collar as he resumed walking.

Inside my head, Xiomara let out a low, satisfied chuckle. "Pathetic creature. Now step aside, little flower. I know a shortcut."

Before I could argue, I felt the shift. Like someone reaching inside my chest and flipping a switch. My spine straightened. My shoulders pulled back. My chin lifted, and my eyes went cold, and every step I took suddenly carried a weight that didn't belong to me.

Xiomara had taken control.

I could still see through my own eyes, but I wasn't the one driving anymore. I was a passenger in my own body as Xiomara turned sharply left, ignoring the hallway César was leading us down, and cut through a narrow corridor straight to the main staircase.

César called out behind us, but Xiomara didn't slow down. She moved with predatory grace, and every servant we passed pressed themselves flat against the wall.

As we descended the grand staircase, my eyes locked onto a woman standing at the bottom with her arms crossed and her hip cocked to one side. Bleached blonde hair, designer dress, diamond earrings that caught the chandelier light.

Jazmin. Alejandro's cousin. The loudest, nastiest, most poisonous woman in the entire Montero household.

"Well, well, well." Jazmin stepped directly into our path, blocking the bottom of the stairs with a smile that was all teeth and no warmth. "Look who finally crawled out of her room. What took you so long, sweetheart? Were you upstairs rehearsing how to pretend you belong here?"

Xiomara didn't stop walking. She descended the last three steps with a slow, deliberate calm that made Jazmin's confident smile flicker for just a second.

"You know, it still amazes me that Alejandro actually married you." Jazmin's voice dripped with venom as she looked me up and down like I was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe. "A roadside trash heap who landed a Montero through a cheap little one night stand. Must be nice to spread your legs and wake up in a mansion."

She leaned in close, her lips nearly brushing my ear, her perfume thick and suffocating. "But don't forget what you really are, sweetheart. You're nothing. You'll always be noth..."

The slap came so fast that Jazmin never even saw the hand move. Just as she leaned in to deliver her final insult, Xiomara, in full control of my body, struck with swift, merciless violence, triggering a sudden, agonizing shriek from Jazmin that left the rest of the shocked family gasping in horror.