1. The Wrong Arrival

Renata Rivas closed her eyes the moment the plane's wheels touched the runway, feeling the faint jolt spread through her body, stiff after almost seven hours of just sitting. New York. Finally.

From behind the oval window, the city welcomed her with lights that never truly went out. Renata gazed far below, at the towering buildings lined up like a giant's teeth, gleaming beneath the dark purplish night sky. So far from the Mexican sky she knew, from the sound of the neighbor's rooster in the morning, from the smell of coffee her mother always brewed before dawn.

This is it. A new beginning.

She repeated the sentence in her heart, like a mantra she had already said a thousand times since the university acceptance letter arrived three months ago. Renata told herself firmly that this wasn't just about studying and graduating with a degree. It was also a promise she'd made to her mother in their small kitchen, their warm hands clasped together over the worn wooden table.

Make something of yourself, Renata. Don't be like your father. Don't let your fists do the talking.

She pushed the thought away quickly. Now was not the time to think about her mother's hopes, at least not on her first night in this city.

John F. Kennedy Airport swallowed Renata into an ocean of people rushing in every direction. Large suitcases clattered across the marble floor, flight announcements echoed back and forth in a language that still felt foreign to her ears despite years of studying it. She dragged her own suitcase. It was the only thing carrying her entire life, left behind in her hometown. As her eyes swept across the rows of people holding up name signs in the arrivals area, Renata walked away from the airport's baggage claim.

Once outside, Renata looked around, searching for her name on one of the signs. But she couldn't find it. Then she squinted at a sign that read "Miss R. R.," held by a man in a black suit with a blank face that betrayed no emotion at all.

Renata frowned. Those were her initials, but something about the way it was written felt strange.

The short message from Aunt Sofia, her mother's old friend, had been clear. She said she would send a driver to pick Renata up.

"Maybe the driver's just in a hurry."

Renata decided to ask instead of standing there guessing from afar. She wheeled her suitcase back toward the driver who was still holding up the sign.

She stepped closer. "Um… I'm Renata. Renata Rivas? R. R.?"

The man glanced at her briefly, scanning her from head to toe in a way that made her slightly uncomfortable, then gave a short nod. "This way, miss."

There was no friendly smile, no small talk like the American warmth she'd heard about in other people's stories. But Renata was too exhausted to question it. Maybe this was simply how professional drivers worked in a big city, efficient and without excessive emotion.

A gleaming black luxury car was waiting for her. Its windows were tinted so dark she couldn't see inside until the door opened for her. She got in, sinking into leather seats that felt far too luxurious for a simple family pickup service.

The city rolled past quickly outside the window. Neon lights, honking horns overlapping one another, steam rising from potholes just like she'd seen so often in movies. Renata leaned her head against the window, letting her eyes drift half closed. She was too tired to notice that the route they were taking was moving farther and farther from the busy districts, and not toward the elegant neighborhoods that usually served as backdrops for grand houses in the films she'd watched. The car pushed deeper into narrower, quieter streets. For a moment, she glimpsed old brick buildings that looked like warehouses.

She only truly realized something was wrong when the car stopped in front of a building with no name, no sign of any kind. There was only a large, heavy iron door, the kind that looked too heavy for one person to push open alone, and a single dim yellow bulb above it.

"Are we... here?" Renata asked, her voice a little uncertain.

The driver didn't answer. He got out, opened the door for her, then walked quickly toward the iron door without waiting.

Renata swallowed hard, looking at her suitcase still sitting in the trunk. "My suitcase..."

"Later," the driver cut in, not turning around. "Come with me first."

Renata frowned, unconvinced, and quickly protested, "I'm not going anywhere until I get my suitcase."

To Renata, it would be absolutely ridiculous to lose her suitcase on her very first day setting foot in this big city.

Something in her stomach throbbed uncomfortably. Her instincts told her something was off, that this clearly wasn't Aunt Sofia's house. This place was nothing like what Renata had imagined before coming here.

Renata stood frozen where she was until the driver relented and handed her the suitcase from the trunk. She took it while scanning her surroundings carefully, searching for the fastest route to safety in case the situation changed. It was a subconscious instinct that kicked in whenever she found herself somewhere unfamiliar, something her father had taught her since she was little. But Renata quickly pushed the thought away.

"You just arrived in a foreign country, Renata. Everything feels strange when you're not used to it yet," she told herself, trying to be convincing.

Maybe, she thought, this was just part of how Aunt Sofia's family welcomed guests. Maybe they had some kind of private storage space, or this was a shortcut to their actual home.

She followed the driver inside. The suitcase wheels grinding against the concrete produced a screech that made Renata even more uneasy.

Behind the iron door was a narrow corridor with cold concrete walls, lit by flickering neon lights that pulsed slowly like an unstable heartbeat. The sound of their footsteps echoed, the only noise in that silent corridor, until they reached an old freight elevator. Its doors were rusted in several spots.

The driver pressed a button. The elevator door opened with a long, grinding screech of metal.

"Get in," he said shortly.

Renata stepped in hesitantly. Her heart began beating faster than she wanted it to. She glanced at the driver, trying to read his expression, searching for something that might reassure her that all of this was normal. But the man's face stayed blank, as though bringing a foreign girl to a foreign place in the middle of the night was just an ordinary routine for him.

The elevator began descending, passing three floors below ground.

Renata counted silently, trying to calm herself with numbers, the way she always did when she was nervous. It was an old habit from the days she used to wait for her turn at her father's boxing gym, even though she herself had never really been allowed into the ring.

"Mom wouldn't like this," she suddenly thought, for no clear reason. "Mom wouldn't like me being here."

But where was "here," exactly? She didn't even know.

The elevator stopped with a soft jolt. For a moment, there was nothing but a silence pressing against her ears. That silence felt strange, as though it were hiding something behind it. Renata held her breath before letting it out slowly.

The driver reached for the door lever. "Welcome," he said, his tone almost resembling a smirk. "They've been waiting."

The elevator door opened, and the silence shattered instantly into a roar so loud it seemed to slam into her chest before her brain could even process what she was hearing. The cheering of hundreds of people, shouts mixing with the low thump of bass music, and beneath all of it, a sound far too familiar for her not to recognize, a sound that stirred something she had long buried within herself.

The sound of fists slamming into flesh and bone.