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Public Air
publish date:
2026-05-03 16:19:42
Latest chapter
TO HATE, TO TOUCH, TO RUIN Bad Music, Worse Men
At a table near the wall, a woman was dancing on top of a plastic chair. Two of her friends cheered. In another corner, a couple was arguing while still holding their drinks, an admirable level of emotional efficiency. Someone dropped a glass. The shards were immediately kicked under a table by a server who didn’t even look back.I set my empty glass on the bar.Nicolás held out his hand. “Dance?”I looked at his hand.Clean. No ring. No bloodstains. No expensive watch that could buy a small apartment. No murderous aura.Refreshing.I took it.The dance floor was hot and too crowded. Bodies moved close, but no one really touched me until I allowed it. Nicolás danced well enough not to be embarrassing. His hand drifted near my waist once, then stopped when I looked at him.I moved with the music, letting the bass take over my mind little by little. My T-shirt slipped on my shoulder. My hair started coming loose from the clip. A thin sheen of sweat gathered at the nape of my neck. I clo
TO HATE, TO TOUCH, TO RUIN Women Like Me
In the foyer, two of Papa’s men were already standing there like they had come out of the walls.Not the overly obvious kind. They wore dark jackets, ordinary faces, extraordinary bodies. One of them, Diego, a man in his forties with a small scar near his chin, looked at my sandals with an expression that was both deeply professional and deeply pained.“Señorita.”“Don’t.”He shut his mouth.I took a car key from the marble bowl by the door. Not the most expensive car in the garage, and not the fastest either. A low black SUV normal enough not to make everyone on the road immediately think cartel princess, though the plates probably still screamed I have family problems.The Medellín night air touched my skin as soon as I stepped outside.Warm. A little damp. Smelling of earth, exhaust, night-blooming flowers, and a city that never really slept.I got into the car, started the engine, then looked in the rearview mirror.One black car came to life a few meters behind me.At the far end
TO HATE, TO TOUCH, TO RUIN Public Air
This night, I decided to go out.Not run away. Not do something stupid like disappear without a bodyguard and end up on the eleven o’clock news with a dramatic caption and a blurry CCTV photo.I just wanted to go out.There was a small difference there. Usually ignored by the men in my life because they were too busy equating a woman moving with a national security threat.I stood in front of my bedroom mirror and stared at myself very seriously for three full seconds.The oversized white T-shirt fell almost to mid-thigh, the fabric soft from being washed too many times. There was a faded print across the chest, some American college logo I had no idea where Javier had gotten. Underneath, I was wearing Javier’s dark gray boxers, which I had found in a pile of clean laundry near the family room.I didn’t know they were his when I put them on.Okay. I knew a little.But Javier was at the office with Jevan, handling the Serrano oil company that supposedly controlled half of Colombia and
TO HATE, TO TOUCH, TO RUIN Sunglasses, Secrets, and Stupid Men
I opened my eyes again, staring up at the blue sky between the coffee leaves, and the sentence I’d just read resurfaced in my head like an annoying song.[You never see him. You just know when he’s there because everyone else starts acting careful.]“Yes,” I muttered under my breath. “I know.”But that wasn’t the part that made my throat feel bitter. It wasn’t the fact that Zach knew we were going to Los Angeles. It wasn’t even the way he texted like my neck was property of the Romano family.What made me sick was the simple part. The part too domestic for my life.Papa had only mentioned the L.A. trip at the family dinner table. And I had only mentioned it in one chat.Bogotá & the Idiots.That was it.Two circles. Two possibilities. And one of them leaked.I lifted my phone off my chest, unlocked the screen again, and opened the old chat with the +39 number. The two messages were still there neat, cold, like fingerprints on glass.[Your neck is empty.][Don’t go to Los Angeles witho
TO HATE, TO TOUCH, TO RUIN The Coffee Grove and the Ghost I Googled
Papa’s coffee grove stretched behind the mansion like a small world that didn’t care who married who or who got kidnapped by whom last month. On the left side, there was Mama’s chili patch, not big at all but guarded like a national border.I dropped onto the oversized rattan daybed beneath a cream canvas umbrella. The linen pillows were warm from the sun. My bare feet touched the fabric and immediately went limp. Medellín’s late-morning air had that infuriatingly perfect temperature, with the smell of damp soil from watering, coffee leaves, and something sweet from flowers whose names I never remember.On my stomach, my new phone lit up.In front of me, Gemma and Sofia were already running like two rejects from a finishing school for toddlers.“DON’T STEP ON ABUELA’S PLANTS!” I yelled without lifting my head.“OKAAY!” Sofia shouted back from far away, which usually meant yes, but later.Gemma, craftier and calmer, didn’t shout anything. She just looked over her shoulder while she ran
TO HATE, TO TOUCH, TO RUIN Found, Forgotten, and Everything In Between
Morning in the Serrano house never understood the meaning of the word slow.Somewhere down the hall, a blender roared to life. Children’s laughter bounced off the walls. The old kitchen radio murmured soft reggaeton. And someone—God knew who—had already started yelling about shoes before the sun had even fully hauled itself up.I stood at the kitchen sink, fingers curled over the cold granite edge, letting the faucet run for a second before I shut it off again.My neck felt… bare.Instinct tugged my hand upward, stopping halfway. Upstairs, in the drawer of my room, rested a single piece of sea-glass on a chain, engraved with one small word on the back. Found.“If you stand there any longer, the floor’s going to get depressed,” a warm, raspy voice called from near the stove.I blinked, lifting my head.Aunt Marisol stood before the big stove, spatula in one hand, cast-iron pan in the other, a red checkered apron cinched around her waist. Her dark hair, streaked with white, was twisted
TO HATE, TO TOUCH, TO RUIN You Hold Me, He Haunts Me
We lay on the bed with the lights off, the only glow coming from the balcony, slipping across the pale linen sheets.Matteo pressed in behind me, one arm locked around my waist. No space. His breath landed steady on my neck, but his grip never fully eased. There was always a hint of pressure, like
TO HATE, TO TOUCH, TO RUIN Scarred by His Shadow
Dinner at the Serrano house never stayed quiet. Unless you were dead or had just shot someone. I hadn’t done either today, so the clatter of silverware mixed with laughter, muttering, and dramatic stories like always.I scooped arroz con pollo onto my plate for the third time. There were empanadas,
TO HATE, TO TOUCH, TO RUIN A Staircase Worth Running For
A few hours after that conversation, I woke again as the plane’s wheels kissed the runway with a gentle thud. Through the window, Medellín greeted me with a pale pre-dawn sky and the silhouette of mountains framing the city like an old painting.Jevan didn’t say a word as we disembarked. He simply
TO HATE, TO TOUCH, TO RUIN No More Stone Walls
The helicopter touched down in a town that felt like it belonged in a fairytale, faded old buildings, cobblestone streets, and salty air laced with the scent of toasted bread from cafés that either opened too early or stayed open too late.But that wasn’t what made the place different.What made it
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