Page 54 of Morena
1. Forgive me sister
2. But Paco nor I can go to jail, our son needs us.
III.
MATTEO
Present day
Whenyouloselife,you gain eyes that remember everything you were once blind to. Betrayal reveals itself. Love shows itself like a wound. Need becomes a map. Lies peel away until only truth remains, and in that cruel light, you finally see yourself.
When you lose your heart, you don’t just grow cold; you go numb. People can pour love into your chest until their hands tremble, but nothing answers back. It isn’t that I refuse, it is that I can’t love.
The world keeps moving, and I only watch it happen, as though it belongs to others and I am pressed behind glass.
Some people say there is light at the end. What if the end is dark by nature? When you close your eyes, the dark is all that waits. It is an empty theater until belief sparks the screen to life.
I stood before the mirror and watched my dead body hang against the wall. The chains rattled against stone. The basement door hung open, and a strip of thin light reached across the floor. I wondered how long it would take that body to rot. The thought came cold, detached. Then footsteps broke the silence.
Two sets, quick. One desperate, one heavy.
Isabella burst in first, dragging Paco by the arm as if she could force him to save me. He stopped at the threshold. His gaze fell on the body. They stepped closer, and something inside me tightened.
Death can read the end of a life, but not the life that has already passed. Seeing them there, breathing, I knew Paco’s end was already written. I didn’t like the picture I saw, the ending that will come after him.
“Morena,” I said.
She appeared beside me as though my voice was enough to summon her. Her reflection framed her face in the glass. Her fingers hovered a breath away from mine, but never touched. Since memory returned to her, something in her had sharpened. Anger lived in her now, and that anger bit deeper each day.
“Death?” she whispered, circling me. Her claws scraped my skin, and black smoke curled wherever she touched.
I caught her throat and pinned her to the mirror. Her breath stuttered in her chest, and I leaned close enough that she could see my eyes with nothing between us. The mask was gone, and she was forced to see what I was.
“I thought I made myself clear when I said you should bring them to me.” My voice stayed low. I knew she was keeping her own secrets. This was not punishment. This was just a warning.
Her body shook under my grip. She tapped my hand once, then again. “You…” she choked. Another tap, harder this time. “Are… hurting me.”
“Good,” I growled, my mouth brushing hers.
I never knew what came over me when she was near. The self I thought I owned slipped away, replaced by something darker, hungrier. I dragged her closer, one hand sliding down to grip her hips, pulling her tight against me. She curled a leg around my waist and pressed herself against me; her body was begging for mine.
“Which gates of hell do you want me to fuck you in front of?” I groaned into her ear. The sound of her moan rose instantly as my grip tightened on her hips, grinding her harder against me.
“The fourth,” she whispered, her tongue dragging slowly across my cheek. Her hands framed my jaw as she crushed her lips to mine. Our mouths collided, hungry. Tongues tangling, fighting, tasting, neither willing to surrender. I lowered us to the muddy ground.
Mud swallowed our bodies whole, but our mouths never broke. We fell through the earth until we landed hard in a place of shifting darkness. All around us stretched a room of mirrors, each pane sliding and twisting whenever we moved, building a labyrinth with no end.
I tore her clothes away. Pressing her back against a mirror, I pinned her there with my body. The glass shuddered under her body, then slid backward, the maze reshaping itself around our bodies.
She tore the robe from my body, leaving me naked, cock already hard and twitching for her. I spun her around, the mirror shattering and re-forming, twisting upside down. Her chest pressed against the glass, nipples hard against its cold surface, her eyes locking with mine in the reflection. I pinned herwrists above her head, holding them tight in one hand while the other slid down, hunting between her trembling thighs.
Her lips parted on a moan, gaze still fixed on me. My fingers rubbed her clit in tight circles, her body shivering against the mirror. She started to close her eyes, sinking into it.
1“Mírame, Morena. Los ojos en mí,” I growled, each word sharp, each syllable rising like a command carved into her skin.
I dragged my fingers down, pushing slowly into her inner flesh. Her groan vibrated against the glass as her back arched.
“Tell me what you want,” I demanded, thrusting my fingers harder, palm grinding against her swollen clit.
