Chapter Nine

I climbed the stairs on heavy legs, my vision blurred with tears. Every step felt like a struggle not to fall apart. When I reached my bedroom, I shut the door behind me and turned the lock with shaking fingers.

Click.

It was a soft sound, but it felt like a scream inside my chest.

I leaned against the door, breath catching, and slid down to the floor until my knees met my chest. And then the tears came—hot and furious, as if they’d been waiting for too long, as if my body had been holding them in since the moment I saw that empty classroom.

I buried my face in my arms and sobbed.

It didn’t matter how many years had passed.

It didn’t matter how many walls I’d built, how many layers I’d wrapped around myself to keep him out.

One mistake—one act of Theo stepping back into our lives without permission—and suddenly, I was that girl again.

The girl who had been dragged into hell.

And I remembered it all.

The door had flown open with a crash, shaking the very bones of the house. The air felt thick with panic as three men stormed in—dark suits, harder eyes, the smell of power and violence clinging to their skin.

Before I could even scream, they had my father by the collar, dragging him from his chair like he weighed nothing. His book hit the ground with a soft thud that somehow sounded louder than anything else.

“Let me go!” Javier shouted. He had fire in him. Always had. But it didn’t matter. One of the men slammed him down onto the floor, boot meeting rib with a crack that made me cry out.

“Dad!” I’d screamed, rushing toward him, only for one of them to step in front of me. His eyes were sharp. Cold. Unflinching.

“Stay back,” he growled.

And I did. Because one look at him, and I knew: these weren’t men who dealt in warnings.

“Please… I’ll return the money!” my father gasped, coughing blood. “I just need more time!”

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

Money?

“What money?” I whispered, my voice lost in the chaos.

The biggest of the three sneered. “You stole from Mr. Rodriguez. You know what happens to thieves.”

Theo Rodriguez.

I had heard that name whispered in corners. A myth. A curse. A shadow that didn’t just follow you—it swallowed you whole.

And now he was real.

“Stop!” I screamed, desperate. “Stop hurting him! Please!”

The man holding me back laughed cruelly. “Begging won’t help. Mr. Rodriguez will decide his fate.”

Something in me snapped.

“I want to speak to him. Theo Rodriguez. Take me to him.”

The laughter stopped. The men exchanged glances.

“You?” one of them said. “You think you can reason with him?”

“I have to try,” I said, voice shaking. “Please.”

And they let me.

They yanked me out of my house, dragged me into a black sedan that looked like it belonged to a different world entirely.

A world of men like Theo.

Inside the car, I sat in silence, fists clenched in my lap, trying to stop the fear from bleeding through my skin.

I still remember every second of that ride—the low hum of the engine, the tension in the air, the way my heart felt like it was counting down to something final.

And then, the mansion.

God, I’d never seen anything like it. Cold, beautiful, terrifying.

They brought me inside, and I was struck by how quiet it was. Like the house itself was holding its breath.

Then I saw him.

Theo, descending the grand staircase like a king in a castle built from other people’s blood.

He was younger then. But already powerful. Already dangerous. That same cold intelligence in his eyes.

And when he saw me, he didn’t blink.

He didn’t care.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“Mr. Vargas’s daughter.”

A slap. A man flinching. Theo’s fury, precise and practiced.

“Take her away. I have no interest in dealing with his offspring.”

But I wasn’t going to leave. I couldn’t.

“Please, hear me out!” I’d shouted.

And he did.

He stared at me, as if seeing something for the first time. And he gave me one minute.

Sixty seconds.

That was all it took to begin my descent into the darkest years of my life.

I curled tighter against the door, the memory playing like a reel behind my eyes. That first meeting was just the beginning.

I had no idea then what he would do to me.

No idea that I would become his message. That my body would be used as leverage. That he would rip me apart and still look me in the eye like nothing was wrong.

And now…

Now he stood in my living room and smiled like he had a right to our daughter.

He didn’t.

He never would.

I wiped my tears, stood up slowly, and crossed the room to where the light of the streetlamps spilled through the curtains.

Martha would never know that pain.

I would make sure of it.

Even if it meant going to war with the devil who once owned me.

Theo Rodriguez may have stolen years from me.

But he would not steal my daughter.