<b>Chapter </b><b>151 </b>
The room was cloaked in shadows, the only source of lighting from therge t–screen television mounted on the wall
On the screen, Alejandro sat in a tailored suit, exuding charm and authority as he gave an interview to a polished reporter whoughed too easily at his words.
The camera zoomed in on his sharp profile, themanding set of his jaw, the arrogance hidden beneath the easy smiles he offered the public.
From theer of the dim room, a man leaned back in an armchair, his form a silhouette against the shifting glow of the television.
A half–filled ss of whiskey rested in his hand, the amber liquid catching what little light there was. His gaze with admiration, but with something colder, sharper, hungrier.
He studied every twitch of Alejandro’s jaw, every flicker in his gaze, every measured word that fell from his lips.
was fixed–no, drilled–onto the screen, not
The ice in his ss clinked softly as he shifted, raising the ss to his lips. He sipped slowly, savoring the burn of the alcohol.
Even as he drank, his attention never wavered from Alejandro’s face on the screen.
The smile Alejandro shed at the reporter drew a faint curl of distaste across the shadowed man’s mouth.
The door creaked open, spilling a thin slice of light into the room and another man stepped in, closing the door softly behind him.
He stopped beside the chair, his eyes lifting to the television. He studied the image on the screen–the very public, very powerful Alejandro–and then lowered his gaze to the man in the shadows.
“How long do you n on watching him like this?” the neer asked, his voiceced with irritation. “Every night, it’s the same thing. Interviews. Reports. Security footage. When are we going to strike?”
The man in the chair didn’t move right away. He swirled his whiskey in the ss, ice knocking gently against the ss.
His silence stretched until it began to tell on the one who had just entered. Finally, he set the ss down on the table beside him and leaned forward, his face still hidden in shadow.
“If I wanted to attack Alejandro,” he said atst, his tone quiet but edged with steel, “I would have done so a long time ago<b>.</b><b>” </b>
The standing man frowned, impatient. “Then what are we waiting for? Every day we stall, he grows stronger, harder to touch. People fear him. He thrives under attack. He’s not going to break easily.”
The seated figure tilted his head, as if acknowledging the truth of those words. Then, with a flick of the remote, the television screen changed. Alejandro’s face vanished, reced instead with a new video.
Nivera.
The recording showed her at an event, smiling politely as photographers snapped their cameras, her beauty luminous even under the harsh shbulbs.
In another clip, she walked down a runway, every inch the professional model, poised, graceful, untouchable.
Yet the man in the chair watched her with the same unyielding intensity he had given Alejandro, though this time a low hum of satisfaction rumbled in his chest.
The standing man–Victor–shifted uneasily. “Her?” he asked, disbelief curling around the single word.
“She’s nothing but a fling. Another pretty distraction he’ll discard when he’s done, like the rest of them.”
“Is that what you think?”
Victor nodded. “<b>It’s </b>what everyone thinks.”
From the chair came augh–low, deep, carrying both amusement and mockery. “Victor,” the shadowed man drawled, “I have told you time <b>and </b>again…observe. Closely. Do not take things at face value. You’ve been watching him, but you’ve been blind.”
Victor’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing, forcing himself to listen as the man continued,
“Everyone,” the man repeated, his tone thoughtful, his gaze never leaving the screen where Nivera’s figure moved across it.
He leaned back again, immediately carrying the ss of whiskey abandoned on the table.
“But you are not everyone, Victor. You are meant to see what others cannot. And what you fail to see here is the very key to bringing Alejandro to his
knees.”
Victor crossed his arms. “Exin.”
“She is not like the others. Look at him when he’s with her.” The man gesturedzily toward the screen where the video looped through clips of Nivera her smiling, her turning her head shyly, herughter caught mid–frame.
“Do you see it? His eyes. The tension in his body when she’s near. The way he tries–oh, how hard he tries–not to care, yet he does. He cares more than he should. More than he ever has.”
Victor frowned, his skepticism battling with curiosity. “You’re saying she’s different.”
“Watch the way he looks at her. Watch the way he bends his rigid rules for her. He tolerates no one – but she is in his house and has been his woman for months now.”
“Hmm, you’re right,” Victor agreed as he pondered upon the man’s words.
“Alejandro thrives on pain. He wears it like armor. I know this, because I’ve seen it. Because I’ve lived it. If we captured him, if we broke his bones, tore his flesh, he wouldugh in our faces. He has suffered before. He has survived before. It would mean nothing.”
The man leaned forward, the edge of his profile barely visible in the flicker of light from the television. His lips curved into something cold, something triumphant.
He pointed to the screen, to the woman who had unknowingly be the centerpiece of their conversation.
“But if it is her…” His voice dropped to a whisper, as lethal as a knife sliding into flesh.
“If it is Nivera–if she is taken, if she is made to suffer, if she is broken–then he will unravel. Because deep inside, Alejandro knows it will be his fault. His arrogance. His violence. His inability to protect what matters.”
Victor shifted uneasily, the conviction in the other man’s voice cutting through his earlier
doubts.
He stared at Nivera’s face on the screen, radiant, oblivious,pletely unaware of the danger brewing in the shadows. “You believe she’s the key.”
“I don’t believe,” the man said, rising smoothly to his feet, his tall form finally breaking free of the chair.
He picked up his whiskey, finishing it in a single swallow, before setting the ss down with deliberate care. His gaze never left the moving images of Nivera.
“I know. She is the key. She has always been the key. For years, I have waited for the right piece to fall into ce, and now it has.”
He chucked before he spoke once more. “She
the weapon he never sawing. <i>And </i>the beauty of it is… she doesn’t even know it herself.”
Victor’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “So what do we do? Take her”
“No,” the man said sharply, his tone cutting through Victor’s impatience.
<b>08:11 </b>Mon, <b>1 </b>Sept
He leaned forward again, the light briefly catching his features before the shadows swallowed them whole once more.
“The n is not simply to take her. That would be too crude, too predictable. We will weave our way into her life. We will make her question her own mind, her own heart. We will make her doubt the very i ground she stands on. And when she turns to Alejandro for salvation…” He paused, savoring <b>the </b>words. “He will be powerless to save her.”
The man chuckled, a sound that carried no warmth. “We watch. We wait. And when the time is right…” He gestured toward Hivera’s face frozen on the
vulnerability. “We take her. And then we will watch Alejandro burn from the inside out.” screen, her smile caught in a moment of unknowing
“And if Alejandro discovers it’s us?” Victor asked.
“Then let him. Let him rage. Let him tear apart his world searching
of this – was his doing.”
Victor finally nodded, resigned. “As you say, Boss.<b>” </b>
for an enemy he cannot find. The harder he looks, the more he’ll realize that this – <b>all </b>
He was finally grasping the full scope of the n. He cast onest look at the screen where Nivera’s image lingered, her soft smile frozen in the frame.
Victor turned toward the door, his mind racing with the implications. Before he could step out, the man’s voice stopped him.
“Remember this night, Victor. Remember what you saw. For when Alejandro finally breaks<b>, </b>it will not be the de or the bullet that did it.”
Victor hesitated, his hand on the doorknob, before ncing back. “Then what will it be?”
The man’s gaze lingered on the screen, on Nivera’s unknowing figure, his expression unreadable in the dim room.
“Her.”
And with that single word, the screen went ck plunging the room <i>into </i>total darkness.
AD
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