<b>Chapter </b><b>51 </b>
“Mine”
Her stomach twisted.
It should have made her furious. She wasn’t his. She wasn’t anyone’s to im. And yet..
Her chest ached in a ce she didn’t have the words to name
The silence of the room swallowed her whole, and Nivera <b>sat </b>motionless on the cold floor with her knees tucked to her chest and her forehead reding lightly against them.
Alejandro’s voice–calm, low, unapologetic–yed on repeat in her mind like a cursed melody she couldn’t tum aff
“He deserved to die for what he did to her. And he did.”
“No oneys a finger on what’s mine and walks away breathing.”
She shut her eyes tight as if darkness could protect her from the weight of those from the raw, brutal possessiveness in histone
At first, back in the car–when they left the wedding–when she suspected Alejandro was behind it all, she remembered that sensation of disbelief.
That someone like him, someone so maddeningly difficult <b>and </b>cold, had quietly pulled strings in the shadows. Not for power. Not for leverage. But for her.
And when he denied it, cing doubts in her mind, she had managed to <b>put </b>those feelings aside
But now?
Now there was in
was no pretending
Alejandro had been behind Nathaniel’s confession. Alejandro had covered her tracks. Cleared her name. And then killed the man who had ruined her.
She was right; there was no way Nathaniel woulde clean on his own ord.
But then again, the situation scared her. What could Alejandro have possibly done to an arrogant and powerful <b>man </b>like Nathaniel to get him to confess?
As she thought about it, she realized that no matter how dangerous she thought Alejandro was<b>, </b>he always managed to prove that he was much mone dangerous.
And with the way he was calm and collected, he wasn’t even worried about being caught and going to jail.
Stay away from him, he’s dangerous, the voice in her head whispered, but her heart refused to stop pounding for a man whose intention was to destroy her
For close to <b>a </b><b>year</b><b>, </b>she’d been swimming in <b>disgrace</b>, Job offers disappeared overnight. Brand campaigns pulled her face from billboards.
People whispered behind their hands, calling her a <b>liar</b><b>, </b><b>an </b>opportunist, and <b>a </b><b>drama </b>queen trying to sink a powerful man’s reputation.
No one had stood by her
Not the modeling agencies. Not even her so–called friends, not her <b>fans</b>.
It was only him.
He didn’t even have to say a word about it. No press releases. No fanfare. Just quiet, decisive action which had hit the nail on the head,
And the fact he didn’t brag about it or expect gratitude.
One would have expected him to try and use it to get something from her, but he didn’t do soch,
Hiver pressed her hand against her chest and sat back against the wall as her thoughts continued to swirl, colliding and shing like weaves in a series
She didn’t know what to make of Alejandro. One minute he was this domineering brute who took away her passport and locked her in his manosnikka ar viin in a twisted fairytale.
And then the nest… he was calling her mine and doing inspeakable things to the people who hurt her.
He’s dangerous, she reminded herself. He’s controlling. He lies. He’s a Garcit.
But as much as her mind shouted warnings, another part of her whispered hack:
He was also the only one who believed you. Even if he never said it out loud.
She wrapped her arms tighter around her legs and tilted her head back, letting it thud lightly against the wall
And then there was that moment,
In the car. That breathless, unbearable stretch of silence before she leaned in, as it drawn by a gravity neither of them understood.
That almost kiss had thrown her off more than anything. Not only because she wanted it but because of what she saw in his eyes.
Hesitation.
Not hatred. Not arrogance. It was something like… fear.
Like he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
It was the first time she had seen fear in Alejandro’s eyes, <b>and </b>that expression had haunted her since.
It didn’t belong on the <b>face </b>of someone like Alejandro someone who wielded power like a weapon, who crushed lives with ease.
But it had been there. Raw. Vulnerable.
And now, with everything she’d heard….
His uncle knew who he truly was<b>, </b>so there was no need to keep up the act with his uncle?
Unless…It wasn’t entirely an act anymore.
Her stomach did <b>a </b>weird, ufortable tip, one she hadn’t experienced in a long time.
“No. Don’t even go there.” She <b>muttered </b>inwardly.
She still hated him.
Right?
She thought of the night he’d mmed the door in her face. The first time she met him–how cold and judgemental he was. How he stripped her of dignity just by looking at her like she was nothing.
That man <b>was </b>not someone to give grace to
But people were never just one thing. And that was the problem.
Alejandro was a man capable of snapping a neck without blinking–and still capable of brushing his fingers over her bruises with a tenderness that <b>didn’t </b>
20
make sense.
He had killed a man for touching her. A monster, yes. But still, he had made that decision:
<b>Quietly</b>.
Brutally.
Irrevocably.
For her.
And
I maybe that was what terrified her most.
Because if he were only cruel, only ruthless, only a captor… it would be easy to hate him.
But he wasn’t.
And now, with the weight of truth crashing down on her shoulders, the way she saw him was starting to shift.
The fact that she couldn’t wrap her finger around it was frustrating.
Alejandro was a man built from pain and sharpened into precision. A man who didn’t love gently–probably didn’t know how to love at all
But he had protected her. Lied for her. Killed for her.
And deep down…in some corner of her soul she didn’t want to examine too closely…
That part of her didn’t hate it.