Chapter 4: Silk and passion

Rayén Altiplano POV

The smell of raw silk always reminds me of funerals. It carries a faint, dusty sweetness, the scent of money spent on things meant to cover up decay.

I stood on a small wooden pedestal inside the dimly lit backroom of a tailor’s shop in Barrio Italia. The neighborhood outside was quiet, a maze of low-slung tile roofs, cobblestone alleys, and faded pastel storefronts. But inside this room, the air was thick with the scent of steam, machine oil, and pressed wool.

Around my torso, metres of heavy cream-colored silk hung like a shroud.

“Don’t breathe so deeply, child,” Doña Carmen muttered, her dry, papery fingers prodding my ribs as she pinned the waistline. “If you expand your lungs during the ceremony, the line of the bodice shifts half an inch. Half an inch is the difference between a clean draw and a snagged blade.”

Carmen was old, her spine bent like a river willow, her skin mapped with deep, sun-baked wrinkles from seventy years in the valley. Her family had crafted dress clothes and hidden holsters for Santiago’s criminal royalty since before I was born. She didn’t ask questions about blood feuds. She didn’t ask why the daughter of a murdered Don needed a wedding dress built like a scabbard. She simply worked, a row of brass pins held tightly between her thin lips.

“Higher under the left rib,” I said, my voice low. “He’s tall. When he holds me for the traditional dance… when his arm goes around my waist, his palm will rest right here.”

I touched a spot just below my heart.

“Then that is where the steel goes,” Carmen said.

She turned toward a small wooden chest sitting on her workbench, unlocked it with a tiny brass key hanging from her wrist, and lifted out a narrow leather sheath. Inside rested a custom stiletto, eight inches of razor-thin, cold forged steel, double-edged, with a handle carved from dark, unpolished horn. It didn’t reflect the overhead bulb. It was matte, weightless, and designed for one absolute purpose: to slip between ribs without hitting bone.

I took the handle in my palm. The balance was terrifyingly perfect.

Forty-eight hours had passed since I signed Lautaro Errázuriz’s marriage charter over the shattered threshold of our safehouse. My mother was already tucked away in a quiet villa in the valley, weeping into her lace handkerchiefs, relieved that her life had been bought with her daughter’s freedom. But I wasn’t going to that altar as a victim. I wasn’t going to be the subjugated prize that united two warring empires.

I was going to be Lautaro’s executioner.

“Hold still,” Carmen ordered, taking the sheathed blade from my hand.

With precise, practiced movements, she slipped the leather casing into a reinforced pocket sewn deep between the inner lining of corsetry boning and the outer layers of heavy, pleated silk. The fabric fell over it like water. From the outside, the gown looked like a masterpiece of tragic elegance, high-collared, long-sleeved, fitting tight across my waist before spilling down into a dramatic train.

Not a single crease gave away the lethal weight hidden against my left side.

“Try to draw it,” Carmen whispered, stepping back.

I reached down, my hand gliding naturally along the fold of the dress. My fingers slipped through a hidden slit in the heavy silk skirt, touching the horn hilt. With one seamless, silent pull, the blade was free, resting flat against my forearm.

“Three seconds,” I murmured, staring at my reflection in the tall, cracked mirror before me. My face looked pale, dark shadows bruised beneath my eyes, but my gaze was terrifyingly clear. “It has to be faster. When he pulls me close, I won’t have three seconds.”

“You will have whatever time he gives you, Rayén,” Carmen said softly, her dark eyes meeting mine in the mirror. “A man who thinks he has won is always blind. Lautaro Errázuriz believes he has tamed the Altiplano blood. He will not be looking at your left hand.”

Before I could practice the draw a second time, a low, metallic chime sounded from the front counter of the shop.

Ding. Ding.

Carmen froze, her brass pins dropping onto the hardwood floor with a soft scatter. My body reacted instantly, I shoved the stiletto back into the hidden pocket, smoothing the heavy silk over my hip as my right hand slid toward the small pistol resting on the fitting stool beside me.

“Stay here,” Carmen whispered. “Do not move.”

She pulled a heavy velvet curtain across the fitting nook, leaving me in near-total darkness, surrounded by the smell of ironed fabric and my own shallow, rapid breathing.

Through a small gap between the velvet curtain and the door frame, I watched Carmen walk toward the front window. She casually adjusted a bolt of blue tweed sitting on a display shelf, her eyes cutting toward the street outside.

Parked directly across the narrow cobblestone road, idling silently beneath the shadow of a blooming jacaranda tree, was an unmarked black sedan. Its windows were tinted dark as obsidian, reflecting the dim afternoon light.

A spotter.

My chest seized, a cold sweat breaking out across the nape of my neck. Lautaro’s men. Had someone tracked me from the safehouse? Had Beltrán whispered to the new Don that his future bride was taking long, unannounced detours through Barrio Italia?

The driver’s side window of the sedan rolled down two inches. A thick, dark wrist rested on the ledge, holding a glowing cigarette. I recognized the heavy gold signet ring on his pinky finger instantly, it belonged to Morales, one of Lautaro’s top regional captains.

“He’s watching the entrance,” I thought, my heart hammering like a trapped bird against my ribs. “If he comes inside… if he demands to inspect the gown…”

If Morales stepped through that door, he would see the half-finished wedding dress, the open chest on the workbench, and the custom boning designed to hold an assassin’s steel. The truce would blow apart before sunset. My mother would be slaughtered, and I would be dragged to Las Condes in chains.

Outside, the car door clicked open.

Heavy leather boots struck the cobblestones. Morales stepped out of the vehicle, adjusting the lapels of his dark suit jacket. His eyes fixed directly on the front glass of Carmen’s shop.

Inside the curtain, I didn’t reach for my gun, a shot in Barrio Italia would bring Lautaro’s entire tactical unit down on this block within minutes. Instead, my fingers slipped back into the hidden pocket of my dress. I wrapped my hand around the horn hilt of the stiletto, feeling the cold, deadly balance of the blade.

If he opens that curtain, he dies in the fitting room, I swore silently, my breath locking in my throat.

Morales crossed the narrow street, his heavy footfalls echoing against the brick buildings. Carmen stood by the counter, her hands folded neatly over her apron, her face an unreadable mask of elderly patience.

The shop door opened, the brass bell ringing loudly into the tense silence.

“Can I help you, Señor?” Carmen asked, her voice smooth, showing not a single trace of fear.

Morales paused in the doorway, his sharp, searching eyes scanning the bolts of fabric, the sewing machines, and finally locking onto the heavy velvet curtain hiding my standing frame.

“I’m looking for the bride,” Morales said, his voice a gravelly rumble that made the skin on my arms prickle. “Don Lautaro sent me to ensure her safety.”

He took a slow, deliberate step toward the velvet curtain, his heavy hand reaching out to pull it aside.