Chapter 29 A Serpent's Gift

• (POV: Isabela Montoya)
• The silence in my room was a lie. I tried to act calm. But underneath, the basement room screamed in my memory. Muffled cries. That sharp crack. The thick smell of blood and fear. They all came back when I closed my eyes. Sleep was no escape. Only nightmares. Sometimes I was in the chair. Worse, sometimes I was beside Mateo, watching like him, with his cold, empty eyes.
• Hours, maybe days, blurred together. I existed in a state of numb shock, moving through the motions required of me – meetings with wedding planners whose cheerful talk of flowers and fabrics felt obscene, forced meals under Quino’s worried gaze. Brief appearances where Papa expected me to look like a contented bride-to-be. Everything felt like a dream, fuzzy and distant. Everything except the fresh, sick memory of the torture. And the choker. Still tight around my neck. It felt heavier than before. Weighted down. It reminded me, with cold fear, what Mateo did to people who crossed him, people who touched what he called his.