Chapter 19: Ride to Las Condes

Rayén

The air inside the private terminal smelled of expensive leather, aviation fuel, and the metallic tang of an impending disaster.

Across the marble coffee table, Mateo hadn’t looked at me in twenty minutes. He sat with his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles looked carved from ivory. Every few seconds, the rhythmic tapping of his shoe against the polished floor rattled through my ribs like a ticking detonator.

He thought I didn’t know about the transfer orders stamped with his family’s crest sitting in my coat pocket. He thought I was still his loyal protector, the shadow paid to bleed for him, completely blind to the fact that his father had slated me for liquidation the moment our feet touched Chilean soil.

“The storm clearing over the Andes is delaying our takeoff,” Mateo said, his voice flat, stripped of the warmth that used to bleed through when it was just the two of us in the training rooms. He didn’t look up. “Another thirty minutes.”

“I don’t mind waiting,” I replied, forcing my breathing to stay slow, measured, human. “Gives us time to review the perimeter protocols for Santiago.”

That pulled his gaze up.

His dark eyes locked onto mine, heavy with something treacherous and bruised. There was a time when I could read every micro-shift in Mateo’s face—the subtle tilt of his mouth when he was hiding a joke, the slight darkening of his brow when his father’s expectations weighed too heavily on him.

Now, a vault door had slammed shut between us.

“Protocols,” he echoed, a bitter, breathless laugh slipping past his lips. “Always the professional, Rayén. Do you ever stop being a weapon? Even for an hour?”

The jab hit me square in the chest, but I didn’t let my pulse spike. I couldn’t afford to.

“Weapons keep you alive. You tend to forget that when you’re looking at maps instead of line of sight.”

“Maybe I’m tired of being kept alive if this is what it costs,” he muttered, turning his face toward the darkened glass of the terminal window.

Rain streaked down the exterior pane, distorting the flashing yellow lights of the tarmac outside.

My hand moved instinctively beneath the fold of my heavy wool coat, my fingers skimming the cold, familiar ridge of the steel hilt strapped to my forearm.

The metal was an anchor.

He knows, a voice whispered at the base of my skull.

Or he’s pushing you to break first.

“You’re acting like a man going to his execution,” I said softly, leaning forward.

The space between us shrank, packed dense with years of unspoken words, shared blood, and the suffocating weight of duty.

Mateo’s eyes snapped back to mine, sharp and raw.

“And you’re acting like someone who isn’t dragging me into a trap.”

The accusation hung in the dead air between us, suffocatingly loud.

“A trap?”

My voice dropped to a whisper, laced with a coldness I didn’t entirely feel. Beneath the armor, my heart was hammering against my ribs, heavy and aching.

“I have caught three bullets for you, Mateo. I buried two men in the desert so your father wouldn’t see your mistakes. Don’t speak to me about traps.”

“Then tell me what’s in your pocket, Rayén,” he demanded, his voice cracking, the polished facade finally splintering to reveal the panicked, exhausted man beneath.

He stood up abruptly, towering over the table, his breath coming in ragged hitches.

“Tell me it’s not the authorization order for the Las Condes safehouse. The one where my uncle takes people who don’t come back.”

My heart plummeted into a dark, bottomless shaft.

He didn’t know his father wanted me dead.

He thought I was taking him to the slaughter.

The misunderstanding was a jagged blade tearing through what little trust remained, but before I could tell him that the blood on the floor was going to be mine, not his,the heavy double doors of the private terminal clicked open.

Two men in tailored dark suits stepped into the lounge.

They didn’t look like airport security.

They walked with the heavy, low-center-of-gravity stride of contract mercenaries.

“Señor Mateo,” the lead guard said, his voice clipped as it echoed off the marble walls. “The flight plan has been canceled. Orders from the patriarch. The roads are cleared, and ground transport is waiting outside.”

Mateo went utterly still.

The blood drained from his face, leaving his skin a ghostly, sallow gray.

He looked down at me, his eyes wide and pleading, filled with sudden, agonizing terror.

He thought this was my doing.

He thought I had called them in.

“Rayén…” he breathed, the sound torn from his throat.

“I didn’t call them,” I said, my voice barely audible as I slowly stood up, keeping my body between Mateo and the two men.

“Vehicle is ready at the curb,” the guard repeated, stepping closer, his right hand slipping inside his jacket and resting casually against his chest. “We are to escort both of you to the Las Condes estate immediately.”

The air turned to ice.

Las Condes.

The trap wasn’t waiting in Santiago after a three-hour flight.

It was right outside the door, waiting in the dark.

“We take the jet,” Mateo spat, trying to steady his shaking hands, though his voice betrayed him completely. “My father said”

“Your father altered the arrangements five minutes ago, sir,” the guard cut in, taking another step forward.

The second man shifted to flank us, blocking the primary exit toward the runway.

“Please. Do not make this difficult.”

I looked at Mateo.

The rage, the suspicion, the profound sense of betrayal in his eyes was sickening, but beneath it all was an undeniable, helpless reliance on me.

Even now, believing I was his Judas, his eyes begged me to fix it.

“Get behind me,” I whispered through gritted teeth.

“No,” Mateo hissed back, his voice trembling with a mixture of heartbreak and fury. “No more orders from you.”

“Mateo, if you want to live past midnight, shut up and get behind me,” I snarled, dropping all pretense of deference.

The lead guard’s eyes narrowed.

His hand flexed inside his jacket.

“Señorita Rayén. You will step away from the principal and surrender your sidearm.”

A slow, terrifying quiet settled over the room.

The rain outside seemed to mute, leaving only the sound of our breathing.

I felt the weight of the hidden blade resting against my pulse point.

I felt the suffocating pull of the man standing inches behind me.The boy I was raised to protect, the man I was forbidden to love, and the target I was supposed to die for.

I didn’t draw my gun.

To draw meant an immediate gunfight in an open room with zero cover for Mateo.

“Of course,” I said smoothly, taking a single, deliberate step toward the guard, reaching slowly into my coat as if I were reaching for my holster.

“Rayén, don’t”

Mateo reached out, his hand catching the sleeve of my coat. His grip was desperate, terrified, pulling me back into his space.

For a fraction of a second, our eyes locked.

The raw grief in his face shattered me.

He truly believed this was the end, and that I was the one who had handed him to the executioner.

“Trust me,” I breathed, tearing my arm from his grasp.

I didn’t pull the gun.

I reached into my collar, pulled out the encrypted keycard to the Las Condes transport, and tossed it onto the glass table between us.

It slid across the surface with a sharp, high-pitched scrape.

“Lead the way,” I said softly to the guard.

The guard stared at the card, then at me, suspiciously, but he slowly nodded, gesturing toward the shadowed exit corridor that led down to the private subterranean pickup loop.

Mateo didn’t move.

He stood frozen, staring at the back of my neck as if looking at a ghost.

“Walk, Mateo,” I murmured without turning around.

We were ushered down the damp concrete ramp into the engine-throbbing darkness of the underground garage.

Idling near the exit ramp was a heavy, midnight-black armored limousine, its dark-tinted windows reflecting the harsh overhead fluorescent lights.

The exhaust curled into the damp air like thick gray smoke.

The guard opened the heavy rear door.

The interior was a cavern of black leather and absolute shadow.

“Both of you. Inside,” the guard ordered, stepping back just enough to clear his draw stroke.

Mateo looked at the dark maw of the vehicle, then at me, his chest heaving.

“Rayén… please.”

“In,” I whispered, pushing him gently by the small of his back.

He climbed in, his movements heavy and broken.

I followed right behind him.

The moment my boots cleared the sill, the heavy armored door slammed shut with a sickening, airtight thud.

The locks clicked into a heavy electronic double seal that echoed like a vault locking from the outside.

Before the driver even hit the accelerator, I felt the sharp, metallic click of a child-lock mechanism engaging from the front console.

The limousine surged forward, tearing out of the garage and plunging into the blinding torrent of the midnight storm, hurtling toward Las Condes.

Locked together in the back of the armored limo, the silence was agonizing.

The tension reached a violent boiling point.

Mateo sank into the leather seat opposite me, staring at me through the darkness with eyes full of betrayal and unspoken terror.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Slowly, beneath the heavy fold of my coat where he couldn’t see, my fingers wrapped around the cold, textured hilt of the hidden blade.