Alvarez’s tense shoulders relaxed slightly, a grim smile spreading across his scarred face. The priest blessed us, and Nicholas turned to face me. He lifted the heavy lace veil, his hands surprisingly gentle as he framed my face. For a fraction of a second, as he leaned in to seal the vows with a kiss, I saw something shift in his eyes. A flash of regret? Or perhaps admiration for a girl who refused to break under pressure?
His lips touched mine. They were warm, contrasting sharply with the freezing cold of my skin. It wasn’t a romantic kiss; it was a seal on a contract signed in blood.
The reception was a nightmare disguised as a celebration. We were ushered into a grand dining hall where a massive feast had been prepared, though nobody seemed to have an appetite. Alejandro Alvarez sat at the head of the table, drinking heavily from a bottle of expensive tequila, while his captains whispered in the corners of the room.
Nicholas sat beside me, occasionally placing a hand on my waist or leaning in to whisper meaningless pleasantries for the benefit of the watching eyes. To anyone else, he looked like a attentive, powerful husband. To me, he felt like a warden.
“Eat something,” Nicholas murmured under his breath, sliding a plate of untouched food closer to me. “You’re going to need your strength.”
“For what? The next part of your lie?” I whispered back, keeping my smile fixed on my face as Alvarez toasted toward us from across the room.
“For survival,” Nicholas replied coldly. “Alvarez is suspicious. He didn’t expect Sofia to agree to this marriage so easily. The real Sofia hated me. She tried to run twice before tonight. If you act too submissive, he’s going to realize you aren’t her.”
“You should have told me that before the ceremony,” I hissed, my teeth clenched.
“You were too busy trying not to faint. Now, drink your wine. Look annoyed that I’m ignoring you. That’s what Sofia would do.”
I did as I was told, pulling my hand away from his and staring sullenly at the table. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alvarez nod in approval. The charade was working, but every second felt like walking a tightrope over a pit of fire.
By midnight, the Alvarez faction finally began to pack up. Alejandro stood, staggering slightly from the alcohol, and walked over to our end of the table. He slammed a heavy hand onto Nicholas’s shoulder.
“Take care of her, Barrera,” Alvarez growled, his eyes shifting to me. “She has her mother’s temper, but she is the blood of our family. If a single hair on her head is harmed, our truce ends, and I will personally burn El Paso to the ground.”
“She is safe with me, Alejandro. You have my word,” Nicholas said, his tone perfectly respectful yet carrying an underlying thread of steel.
Alvarez leaned down, his foul, alcohol-laden breath washing over my face as he planted a rough kiss on my cheek. “Goodnight, little bird. I will see you at the family summit on Thursday.”
My heart stopped. A family summit? A full gathering of the cartel, where people who had known the real Sofia for years would be staring at me in broad daylight. I looked at Nicholas, but his expression remained a flawless, impenetrable mask.
“Teresa!” he called out.
The older woman appeared from the shadows of the hallway. “Yes, Don Nicholas?”
“Take her to the master suite. Lock the doors from the outside. No one enters or leaves until I return from the docks.”
“Wait,” I said, stepping forward, the heavy silk dress rustling around my ankles. “You can’t just lock me away. You said I would be safe here. What happens on Thursday? How am I supposed to fool an entire family of people who actually knew her?”
Nicholas took a slow sip of his drink, staring at me over the rim of the glass. The dark, dangerous aura that had surrounded him in my father’s kitchen was back, magnified tenfold by the exhaustion of the night.
“By Thursday, I will have found the people who pushed Sofia’s car into the river,” he said, his voice dripping with venom. “And once they are dead, the threat to the alliance dies with them. Until then, you learn her voice, her habits, her history. Teresa has videos, journals, everything. You will memorize them until you believe you are Sofia.”
“And if I can’t?”
Nicholas walked over to me, stopping just inches away. He reached out, his thumb brushing against the dark red lipstick on my lower lip, smudging it slightly. “Then you become just as dead as she is.”
He turned on his heel and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with Teresa. The old woman gave me a look that was a mixture of pity and stern warning, gesturing for me to follow her up the grand staircase.
The master suite was massive, dominated by a king-sized bed with dark velvet hangings. But as soon as Teresa stepped out and the heavy click of the deadbolt echoed through the room, the luxury felt like nothing more than a gilded cage. I collapsed onto the bed, burying my face in the pillows, finally letting the tears I had held back all night flow freely.
I wept for my mother, who was probably still crying in her apron. I wept out of hatred for my father, who had ruined my life for a stack of poker chips. And I wept out of sheer terror for the ghost I was being forced to become.
Hours passed. The rain outside turned into a violent thunderstorm, lightning flashing through the high, arched windows, casting long, twisted shadows across the room. I managed to peel the heavy wedding dress off, leaving it in a crumpled white heap on the floor, and changed into a simple silk robe Teresa had left out.
I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the blood-stained pistol in Nicholas’s hand, or the lifeless, identical eyes of the girl in the photograph.
Around three in the morning, the storm reached its peak. A massive crack of thunder shook the entire house, rattling the glass panes. Right after the echo died down, I heard it.
A faint, scraping sound.
It wasn’t coming from the hallway where the locked doors were. It was coming from the balcony outside the bedroom windows.
I froze, my breath catching in my throat. I slid out of bed, keeping low to the floor, my eyes locked on the heavy sheer curtains obscuring the glass doors to the balcony.
Another flash of lightning illuminated the room.
Through the sheer fabric, I saw a silhouette. A tall, broad figure standing out in the pouring rain, staring directly into the bedroom.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Nicholas had said the perimeter was secure. He had said I was safe here. I looked around the room frantically, searching for anything I could use as a weapon, my hand closing around a heavy silver candlestick on the nightstand.
The silhouette moved. The balcony door, which I assumed was locked, creaked open with a slow, agonizing groan. The wet, cold wind rushed into the room, blowing the curtains inward like ghostly wings.
A man stepped into the bedroom, dripping water onto the hardwood floor. He wore tactical gear, a dark mask covering his face, and in his hand was a silenced pistol. He didn’t look around the room; his eyes locked directly onto the bed where I had been sleeping just moments before.
He raised the weapon, pointing it at the empty sheets, his finger tightening on the trigger.
Realizing the bed was empty, he paused, his head snapping toward the side of the room where I was hiding behind a heavy armchair.
“Sofia?” the man whispered. His voice wasn’t filled with malice. It was filled with utter, breathless shock. He raised his left hand, pulling down the dark mask covering his face.
The lightning flashed again, brightly illuminating his features. It was a young man, no older than twenty-five, with piercing blue eyes and a expression of profound disbelief.
“My God, Sofia…” he breathed, taking a step toward me, lowering his weapon completely. “Nicholas told everyone you were dead. He told your uncle your car went into the river. I thought… I thought I lost you. I came to kill him for what he did to you.”
I stared at him, my mind spinning into complete chaos. This man knew the real Sofia. He loved her—I could see it in the raw agony in his eyes. And he thought I was her.
If I told him the truth, that I was a fake, he would realize Nicholas’s deception and might kill me to keep the secret. If I played along, I was betraying Nicholas, the only man keeping my family alive.
Before I could make a choice, the heavy oak doors of the master suite were suddenly blown off their hinges with a deafening blast.
Nicholas stood in the doorway, his coat soaked with rain, his face twisted in a mask of pure fury. In his hand was the same blood-stained pistol from my father’s kitchen.
“Step away from my wife,” Nicholas growled, leveling the weapon at the intruder.
The young man didn’t hesitate. He spun around, grabbing me by the arm with a grip like iron, pulling me in front of him as a human shield, the cold barrel of his silenced pistol pressing hard against my temple.
“She’s not your wife, Barrera!” the man screamed back, his voice echoing over the thunder. “And if you take one more step, I’ll blow her brains out right here!”
Nicholas didn’t lower his gun. His dark eyes locked onto mine, and for the first time, I couldn’t read his expression at all. His finger rested firmly on the trigger.
