Chapter 3 Lessons In Steel And Silence

• (POV: Isabela Montoya, Age 11)
• His heavy footsteps faded away, eaten by the thick silence that rushed back in. Gone. But it still felt like he was here—a cold spot in the air, the ghost-smell of smoke and metal, his low promise echoing in the quiet: I will make them pay.
• Isabela stayed crammed under the table, legs screaming with cramps. The rush of terror drained away, leaving her shaking, bone-weary. But his order—Stay. Don't move. Don't make noise—held her pinned tighter than any rope. He’d promised revenge, yeah, but those eyes… cold, dark, reflecting the violence on him. How could she trust that? But defying him? That felt even scarier.
• How long? Minutes felt like hours, time stretching strangely. Silence pressed down, broken only by her heart hammering her ribs and, far off, the faint crackle-pop of something still burning.
• Then—different sounds. Outside. Cutting through the stillness. Not the sharp, chaotic violence of the attack, but something different. Gruff shouts, sharp commands echoing from the direction of the main courtyard. The sound of heavy things being dragged. A pained grunt, quickly stifled. A brief, desperate plea cut short by a guttural order.
• They were still here. Not that man – his footsteps had faded in the other direction. These must be the others. The attackers? No, the commands sounded different, more controlled. Perhaps his men? Men who answered to that calm, dark-eyed young man?
• Fear warred violently with a desperate, morbid curiosity. The young man had promised to make them pay. Was this… was this the payment? She gasped, air catching in her throat. Hide, hide, hide—her body shrieked the command. Shut your eyes! Block it out! But she kept looking. But a part of her, the part that had seen her mother's courage before it was extinguished, the part that now clung desperately to his terrifying vow as the only solid thing in a collapsing world, needed to see.
• Every muscle protested as Isabela, shaking, tried to uncurl her cramped limbs. Agonizingly slow. She needed to see. The library windows looked out on the side courtyard – lemon trees, jasmine... usually. Inch by torturous inch, she crept towards the window-facing edge of the huge table, staying flat to the floor. The velvet runner brushed the ground, hiding her. She edged her head up – just a fraction – putting her eye to the dark slit between the velvet runner and the floorboards. Bulky furniture shapes blocked most of the view, but she caught sight of a patch of the courtyard stones, harshly bright under the sun. And her stomach twisted into a cold knot.
• Three men knelt there. Not two—three. Clothes ripped, faces raw and bleeding. One was crying helplessly, broken words spilling out. Another stared blankly ahead, eyes wide with shock or resignation. The third strained against the grip of two larger men who held his arms pinned roughly behind his back. These were the strangers. The ones with the harsh voices. The ones who…
• They looked smaller now. Less menacing. Just broken men kneeling in the harsh afternoon light, stripped of their weapons and their bravado. Around them stood perhaps half a dozen other figures – men dressed in dark clothing similar to the man’s, their faces grim, watchful. They moved with a quiet efficiency, their presence radiating a similar kind of controlled danger Isabela had sensed in the young man who’d found her.
• And then he stepped into her line of sight. The strange young man.
• She spotted him almost immediately—standing alone, away from the kneeling men. He was near the broken edge of the fountain, pieces of stone crumbled around its base from the fighting. His torn outer shirt was gone now, leaving just a dark undershirt that clung slightly, showing how lean and strong he really was. Blood still tracked slowly from the cut near his temple, but he didn't seem to notice or care. He wasn’t looking at the captured men, not directly. His gaze was distant for a moment, sweeping over the damage to the estate – a scorched section of wall, shattered terracotta pots – his expression unreadable, carved from stone.
• One of his men approached him, spoke briefly, gesturing towards the kneeling attackers. He gave a short, sharp nod. No deliberation. No hesitation.
• He turned then, facing the captured men fully. And the chilling calm Isabela had seen earlier settled over his features again, colder now, sharper. He walked towards them, his boots crunching softly on stray gravel. The sobbing man fell silent, his pleas dying in his throat as the man approached. All eyes were on him. Even from her hiding place, Isabela felt the weight of his presence, the absolute authority radiating from him.
• He stopped a few paces before the prisoners. He didn't speak. Didn't need to. His silence was an indictment, his presence a verdict.
• Air hitched sharp in her throat. She desperately wanted to shrink back, vanish into the darkness under the table. Just pretend it wasn’t real. But she couldn’t. Couldn't move. Couldn't look away. Frozen. Her gaze was fixed on the scene, drawn by a horrific fascination.
• The man raised his hand. Not in a wave, not in anger. A simple, almost casual gesture. One of his men stepped forward, pressing something cold and metallic into his waiting palm. A gun. Sleek, dark, deadly.
• He didn’t even glance at it. His eyes remained locked on the kneeling men. He shifted his stance slightly, weighting himself. The movement was fluid, economical. Practiced.
• Isabela remembered Mama’s hand, gentle on her arm, just yesterday. “Violence solves nothing, Isabella. "Strength comes from kindness, Isa." Mama's whisper, clear as if she were right there, patching her knee after the bike spill. The memory flashed so vividly it almost hurt—a sudden, sharp sweetness completely out of place against the ugliness unfolding in the courtyard. Kindness felt like a fragile fairytale creature in this new world made of smoke and steel.
• He lifted the gun.
• There was no grand speech. No declaration of justice. No interrogation. Just cold, swift, brutal finality.
• BANG!
• That sound—crack! —split the air. Clean, decisive. Nothing like the messy gunfire earlier. Isabela jolted, mashing her palm against her mouth, choking back the scream building in her chest. The first man slumped forward, body hitting the paving stones with a flat, final sound.
• BANG!
• The man beside him folded instantly, like a puppet with cut strings. No cry. Nothing.
• The third, the one who had been struggling, let out a strangled cry as Mateo turned towards him.
• BANG!
• Silence. Again. But this silence wasn't empty. It was thick with the immediate, visceral reality of death. Three bodies lay still on the sun-warmed stones. His men didn't flinch. They watched their leader, their faces impassive.
• He lingered over the fallen men for just a moment, gun held slack by his thigh. Wisps of pale smoke ghosted from the barrel's dark opening, vanishing almost immediately into the heavy warmth of the afternoon. A tiny, fleeting sign of the violence just committed. His expression remained unchanged. No triumph. No regret. No anger. Only a chilling efficiency, as if he had merely completed a necessary, unpleasant task. Like tidying away tools after a job was done.
• I will hunt them down. I will make them pay. I promise you.
• The words echoed back, louder now in her mind. And suddenly, sickeningly, it clicked. That promise wasn't just for later. It was for now. This bloody scene... this was him making them pay. The understanding landed cold and heavy in her stomach. This was paying. This swift, brutal erasure. This wasn't like the stories Papa read about knights and justice. This wasn't about fairness or courts or laws. This was about power. Raw, immediate, lethal power. And the young man wielded it without hesitation. He was the force that decided who lived and who died in the ruins of her world.
• A wave of dizziness washed over her. Bile rose in her throat. The gentle lessons of her mother seemed like whispers from another lifetime, fragile and utterly inadequate for the reality confronting her. This was the language spoken now. The language of bullets and blood and silence enforced by the boy-man with the cold eyes and the blood on his face.
• Deep within the terror, something else began to stir. A confusing, disturbing flicker of… awe? Not admiration, not respect, but a primal understanding of his absolute control in a situation where she was utterly helpless. He was dangerous, terrifying, the architect of this horror, but he had also promised… He had killed the men who killed her mother. Fear remained, sharp and overwhelming, but now it was tangled with this new, complex awareness of his power, a power he had, in a way, wielded on her behalf.
• The young man lowered the gun, handing it back to one of his men without looking. He said something low, directive. The men nodded, beginning to move with quiet purpose towards the bodies.
• Then, he turned.
• Slowly, deliberately, he faced the direction of the main house. Towards the library. Towards her hiding place. He was just a dark shape against the blinding courtyard sun, his face lost in shadow. But somehow, even across the distance, she felt his eyes locked onto her hiding spot. It was a heavy, unnerving pressure. Did he know she was watching? Had he known all along? Had this gruesome display been partially for her benefit? A lesson? A warning?
• Her heart slammed against her ribs. Instinct took over—head down, body pressing back, seeking the deepest dark under the table. The picture wouldn't leave her mind: him, standing there surrounded by death, turning... looking right at her. Silence flooded back, heavy and suffocating, carrying the acrid tang of gunpowder. And with it came the chilling weight of understanding: this cold violence was the real power in her family's world. And who now held it.