Chapter 35: Dance of enemies

RAYÉN

My thumb froze over the glowing screen of my burner phone.

Look at his left cufflink. He’s wearing the ring they took off my dead hand.

The message burned into my mind, black text against a harsh white background. It was short enough to read in a heartbeat, yet heavy enough to shatter whatever fragile ground remained beneath my feet.

My throat went dry.

The air inside the Palacio Cousiño ballroom was thick with expensive perfume, roasted meat, and suffocating tension. Suddenly, every breath felt like poison.

Beside me, Lautaro hadn’t moved.

His body was rigid beneath the dark wool of his tuxedo, his amber eyes fixed on the balcony where my mother stood in pristine white lace, holding court like a ghost who had risen from her own grave.

I didn’t pull away from him.

Pulling away would break the illusion.

And in Santiago’s underworld, the moment the illusion broke, the bullets would start flying.

Instead, I kept my right hand resting against his shoulder, making it look like a tender, protective embrace. Then I slowly lowered my gaze.

Down the heavy lapel of his midnight tuxedo.

Past the crisp white linen of his sleeve.

To his left wrist.

A polished gold cufflink was fastened against the dark fabric.

It wasn’t ordinary jewelry.

It was shaped like a double-headed condor,the ancient crest of the Altiplano family.

The same symbol my brother Aconcagua had worn on the ring around his right pinky finger since his eighteenth birthday.

The same ring he had been wearing the night the enforcers dragged him into the darkness.

A cold, sickening tremor moved through my chest and down my spine before settling heavily in my stomach.

My fingers twitched against the back of Lautaro’s neck.

The urge to pull the razor-thin titanium blade strapped to my inner thigh and drive it into his throat came so suddenly and violently that my entire body trembled.

“Rayén,” Lautaro whispered.

His voice was barely audible against my hair.

He didn’t turn his head, but his left hand, the one wearing my dead brother’s crest, tightened around my bare waist.

“Don’t break.”

“You’re wearing his ring,” I breathed.

The words tasted like copper and bile.

“You bastard. You’re wearing Conco’s ring.”

“Look at me,” he said softly.

“I will slit your throat in front of every Don in this room”

“Look at me, Rayén. Now.”

His hand moved from my waist and slid up the exposed skin of my back.

His broad palm was burning against my freezing skin. His calloused fingers spread over my spine, drawing me closer until the front of my emerald dress brushed against the lapels of his jacket.

The heat coming from his body was a brutal contrast to the cold hatred rushing through my veins.

I forced myself to lift my chin.

Our eyes met.

His amber gaze had turned almost black, turbulent with emotions he spent every second of his life burying.

Ruthless calculation.

Possessiveness.

And beneath it all, a deep, jagged grief that looked painfully similar to my own.

“The orchestra is playing,” Lautaro murmured, holding my gaze. “My mother-in-law is watching us from the balcony. She’s waiting for you to scream or draw blood so her mercenaries can open fire and declare this union a failure.”

His hand tightened slightly against my back.

“The entire High Council wants to know whether I’m a tyrant holding a hostage or a Don who has finally tamed the Altiplano bloodline.”

“I am not tamed,” I whispered.

My voice was full of venom, even as I allowed him to turn me slowly in time with the rising strings.

“I will never be yours.”

“Good,” he rasped.

He lowered his face toward mine as he guided us into a slow, sweeping turn across the polished marble floor.

“Because an obedient wife would get us both killed tonight.”

He pulled me closer as another couple swept past us.

The proximity was suffocating.

My left hand was trapped between our bodies, resting directly over his heart. Through the heavy fabric of his suit, I could feel his pulse.

Hard.

Fast.

Dangerously human.

For months, I had thought of Lautaro as a bloodthirsty monster, a cold machine built only to conquer and destroy.

But as he guided me through the waltz, his body moving with a fluid, terrifying grace that seemed to anticipate every step I took, the undeniable heat between us flared like a spark landing in dry timber.

It was a sick, twisted kind of chemistry.

Born from shared trauma.

Forged in violence.

And dangerous because it felt so real.

My heart pounded against my ribs, not only from fear or anger, but from the electricity that raced through me wherever his hands touched my skin.

“Why do you have it, Lautaro?” I whispered.

My mouth brushed the shell of his ear as he dipped me smoothly into another turn.

“Tell me before I sink my teeth into your collarbone.”

“It was a key,” he replied.

His breath was warm against my neck, sending an unwelcome shiver down my spine.

“Conco gave it to me the night he disappeared. The condor isn’t just a crest, Rayén. It contains a micro-encryption chip. It unlocks the vault beneath the port of Valparaíso.”

I stiffened in his arms.

“He would never give that to you.”

“He didn’t give it to me as a gift.”

His thumb moved lightly over the small of my back. The gentle gesture made my breath catch despite myself.

“He gave it to me as collateral. To prove that if he failed to hide, I’d have the means to protect you when the time came.”

“You’re lying,” I choked out.

But my mind was already spinning.

“Look up at the balcony,” he instructed quietly. “Look at your mother. Tell me if the woman who engineered this war looks like she’s mourning her son.”

I forced myself to look up while keeping my movements smooth.

Doña Maitén stood at the gilded railing, her silver-streaked hair perfectly styled and her cold grey eyes following every move we made.

Beside her, Beltrán, our family’s trusted Consigliere, held the sealed envelope.

His calm, grandfatherly face held no warmth.

They weren’t looking at me like a grieving mother and a loyal servant looking at a lost daughter.

They were watching us like chess players studying an unexpected move.

“She knew Conco wasn’t dead,” I whispered.

The realization settled like iron inside my chest.

“She sent the hit squads not to avenge him…”

I swallowed.

“But to finish him.”

“And to frame me so you would do her dirty work,” Lautaro added.

His voice dropped into a dark, lethal rumble.

“She gave you the blade, Rayén. She put it in your hands and sent you into my bed, hoping you’d slit my throat so she could step into the vacuum and claim both syndicates.”

The music swelled toward its grand finale.

Lautaro spun me outward, the emerald silk flaring around my legs like dark water, before pulling me back against his chest with undeniable force.

His chest rose and fell heavily against mine.

For one brief moment, as his amber eyes searched mine, the distance between us disappeared.

The hatred was still there.

Burning.

Deep.

But wrapped around it was something far more dangerous.

A shared understanding.

A lethal one.

Then the music stopped.

Polite applause scattered across the grand ballroom.

Lautaro didn’t release me immediately.

He held me close for one beat.

Then another.

His breathing was rough against my cheek before he slowly lowered his hand and took my fingers in his.

High above us, the heavy brass doors of the VIP balcony creaked open.

Doña Maitén raised her glass.

Her voice cut through the applause with icy precision.

“A magnificent performance, Don Errázuriz,” she called, her voice carrying across the ballroom. “You dance so well with my daughter.”

Her lips curved into a smile.

“But I wonder… how well do you dance when the blood on the floor is your own?”

She flicked her wrist.

The crystal champagne flute slipped from her fingers.

It fell four stories.

Then shattered against the marble floor at our feet.

Before the broken glass had even stopped rolling, the massive crystal chandelier hanging directly above the dance floor gave a sickening metallic screech.

Its heavy iron chain snapped.