The chapel in the hills was older than memory, a stone hut clinging to the mountainside like a prayer weathered by centuries. Alejandro drove them there himself, a single SUV with no escort, his hand resting on Mariana's thigh the entire winding climb. She watched his profile in the morning light, the sharp planes of his face softer than she had ever seen them. Last night had changed something. He had wept in her arms, bound and blindfolded and stripped of every defense, and this morning he had woken her with kisses, slow and reverent, his mouth tracing a path from her collarbone to her navel before he spread her thighs and worshipped her with his tongue until she came against his lips. There had been no rush, no command, just the quiet intensity of a man learning to be tender.

Now they stood inside the chapel, the air thick with candle smoke and the scent of wild marigolds. The Santa Muerte painting loomed above the altar, her skeletal hands cradling a globe and a scythe. Alejandro crossed himself with a familiarity that spoke of childhood, his fingers moving from forehead to chest to shoulders.