—OPEN UP NOW! I’M ROGELIO VARGAS!

The name echoed through the cabin like a gunshot.

Isabela let out a muffled groan and shrank back against the wall, trembling in a way Mateo had never seen even in wounded animals.

It wasn’t just fear.

It was ancient terror.

The one who gets into the bones.

Mateo got up slowly.

He did not respond.

He approached the table, picked up the shotgun that was hanging by the door, and checked the cartridge with a sharp movement.

Outside, the bang was heard again.

Stronger.

“Don’t make me break down this damned door!” roared Rogelio. “The girl belongs to me!”

Mateo clenched his jaw.

That last sentence made his stomach churn.

He turned towards Isabela.

Her eyes were overflowing.

He shook his head repeatedly.

“Don’t open it,” she whispered. “If he comes in… he’ll kill me. Or worse.”

Mateo held the shotgun firmly.

—Nobody comes in here to take anyone away.

Rogelio struck again.

The wood creaked.

“Mateo Álvarez!” he shouted from outside. “I know you’re there! Don’t meddle in family matters!”

Mateo narrowed his eyes.

So he also knew her name.

That meant he hadn’t arrived by chance.

I had looked for it.

I had followed him.

And that could only mean one thing.

Rogelio did not intend to lose what he believed was his.

Mateo opened the door just a few centimeters, enough to peek out with the shotgun visible.

The night was black.

In front of the cabin, standing next to a sweaty horse, was a broad man with an unkempt beard, a dark hat, and small, hard eyes, the kind that don’t look at people, but at things.

Rogelio Vargas didn’t seem tired along the way.

He seemed furious.

And drunk.

“Go away,” Mateo said curtly. “This woman is my wife.”

Rogelio let out a dirty laugh.

“Wife?” he spat on the ground. “You don’t know what they sold you.”

Matthew didn’t move.

Rogelio took a step forward, barely swaying.

“That girl stole money from me and ran away like a dog. I came for what was mine.”

From inside, Isabela began to cry.

Not strong.

Not like someone who expects comfort.

Like someone who hears a sentence repeated too many times.

Mateo opened the door a little wider.

“Turn around,” he said. “And be grateful I’m talking to you before you pull the trigger.”

Rogelio’s eyes shone with hatred.

“Ask him why he secretly left Puebla,” he said. “Ask him what he was hiding when he got on the cart. Ask him what he buried behind the house.”

Mateo felt a pull in his chest.

Not because I believe him.

But because he saw Isabela’s face contort on the other side of the room.

Those words had touched something.

Something worse.

Rogelio smiled when he noticed her reaction.

—See? Even you don’t know her. I do. That girl wasn’t just running away. That girl was carrying sin.

Mateo lifted the shotgun and rested it more firmly against his shoulder.

-Long.

Rogelio spat again.

—I’ll go back with the commissioner. And when I get back, you won’t be able to hide her.

He mounted in one swift motion and turned the horse around.

But before leaving, he turned his face away.

—And tell him that this time there won’t be enough earth to cover him up.

Then he spurred the animal and disappeared into the darkness.

The silence he left behind was worse than the screams.

Mateo locked the door.

He turned towards Isabela.

The young woman was sitting on the bed, pale as wax, with labored breathing.

Mateo put the shotgun down next to the table and spoke in a low voice.

—What did he mean by that?

Isabela took a while to respond.

He put his hands to his face.

She was trembling so much that she could hardly stand up straight.

“I didn’t steal anything,” he finally said. “I swear on my mother’s life.”

Matthew said nothing.

She swallowed.

—But I did leave something buried.

The lamp sputtered.

Outside, the wind seemed to be blowing sand against the walls.

“Two months ago… he tried to sell me,” she continued, her voice breaking. “A merchant from Querétaro came to the house. Old. Rich. I heard them talking in the yard. Rogelio said I was obedient. That I was already trained. That I wouldn’t cause any trouble.”

Mateo felt his blood boil.

Isabela gripped the sheet between her fingers.

—That night he came home drunk. He tried to come into my room. I had a kitchen knife hidden under the mattress. I wasn’t going to use it… I just wanted to scare him. But he came at me and…

She was speechless.

His eyes clouded over.

—And I hurt him —she whispered.

Mateo remained motionless.

“I cut him here,” she said, pointing to her side. “Not deep. But enough to make him scream. I ran out. He fell. I thought he was going to die.”

—But he didn’t die—Matthew said.

Isabela denied it.

—No. The next day he was still alive. Furiouser than ever. He locked me up for two days with almost no water, and said that because I had attacked him he wasn’t going to sell me anymore… that he was going to break me himself before letting me go.

Mateo clenched his fists.

“Then I escaped,” she continued. “But before that, I went behind the corral… where he buried things he didn’t want anyone to see.”

Mateo frowned.

—What things?

Isabela looked up.

And for the first time, there wasn’t only fear in their eyes.

There was disgust.

—Girls’ clothes. Ribbons. Letters. Little medals. And a notebook.

Mateo remained still.

—A notebook where he wrote down names—she said, trembling—. Dates. Places. What he did to them. Who he had “handed over.” Who he had beaten. Who he had impregnated and then… disappeared.

The cabin seemed to shrink.

Mateo felt a dry chill run up his back.

“Do you have it?” he asked.

Isabela nodded.

—I brought it with me. Wrapped in cloth. I buried it here, behind the barn, the day I arrived. I didn’t want him to find it if he came looking for me.

Mateo looked at her for a long time.

Now I understood.

Rogelio hadn’t traveled so many miles for a disobedient stepdaughter.

I had come for the notebook.

For the only proof of everything.

“We’ll go to the priest of San Miguel tomorrow, and then to the judge,” said Mateo.

But Isabela immediately turned pale.

-No.

-No?

“They’re not going to believe me,” she said. “He has friends. He has money. He knows how to talk. And I’m just a woman who arrived in a hurry from another city, already married. They’ll say I made it all up because I changed my mind.”

Mateo thought about that.

And she knew she wasn’t wrong.

In those times, the word of a wounded woman was worth less than that of a respectable man.

Even if that man was a monster.

“Then we’ll need something else,” he said.

Isabela looked at him.

-That?

Mateo took a deep breath.

—Let him condemn himself.

The next morning, before sunrise, they unearthed the notebook.

He was wrapped in an old shawl, under damp earth.

Mateo opened it in the kitchen while Isabela watched from the doorway.

His hands grew cold as he looked at the pages.

Girls’ names.

Ages.

Payments.

Blows.

Threats.

There was even a list of men who had paid to take some of them “for a few days”.

Mateo slammed the notebook shut.

He had to restrain himself from punching the table to pieces.

“That’s enough to hang him,” he murmured.

—If we can get someone to read it before he steals it—Isabela replied.

Mateo spent the whole day preparing something he didn’t explain.

He sent a message with a farmhand to two neighboring ranchers.

Then to an old acquaintance of his who worked near the San Miguel courthouse.

And as evening fell, he left the cabin door ajar.

The lamp is on.

The notebook is visible on the table.

Isabela then understood what he was planning to do.

“He’s coming,” she whispered.

-Yeah.

—And he can kill us.

Mateo looked at her straight on.

—Not while I’m breathing.

She hid her in the barn’s attic, from where she could see through a crack without being seen.

Then he sat down in the darkness behind the door, with his shotgun loaded and his heart steady.

The wait was long.

Heavy.

All that could be heard were insects and the distant creaking of wood.

Until, as night fell, the sound arrived.

A horse.

Then another one.

And then steps.

The door opened slowly.

Rogelio entered like a dirty shadow.

He had a pistol on his belt and a knife in his boot.

His eyes went straight to the notebook.

She smiled.

—I knew the brat couldn’t hide it forever.

He approached the table.

He took it.

And at that very moment, Mateo emerged from the darkness, pointing a gun at his chest.

—Not one more step.

Rogelio turned around with a wild start.

Then he smiled.

—So it was true. You slept with the whore.

Mateo didn’t blink.

—Say one more word and I’ll knock your teeth out before the trial.

Rogelio burst out laughing.

—A trial? With what witnesses? With the little vixen nobody wanted and the lonely widower who let himself be deceived?

“You’re not talking to yourself,” said a voice from outside.

Rogelio blinked.

Then another voice.

And another one.

When he turned towards the door, he saw the priest enter, along with two neighboring ranchers, the court clerk, and the local police commissioner.

Everyone had heard.

Everyone was looking at him.

Everyone had seen the notebook in his hand.

Rogelio’s smile disappeared for the first time.

“This is a trap,” he spat.

The commissioner extended his hand.

—Give me the notebook.

Rogelio stepped back.

And then he made the mistake that finished him off.

He turned towards the barn and shouted in blind rage:

“Get out of here, Isabela! All this is happening to you because you disobeyed me that first night!”

The silence fell heavily.

Nobody spoke.

Nobody had to do it.

Because that sentence had just confessed what he had denied his entire life.

Rogelio understood what he had said too late.

The commissioner pounced on him.

The ranchers restrained him.

The notebook fell to the floor.

And while she struggled, Isabela climbed down from the loft with trembling legs.

He saw him trapped between four men.

He saw fear in their eyes for the first time.

Not hers.

His.

Rogelio wanted to speak.

He tried to deny it.

He wanted to curse her.

But the commissioner put his hands behind his back and handcuffed him right there.

—Rogelio Vargas —he said in a harsh voice—, is under arrest for abuse, rape, trafficking and threats.

Isabela did not cry immediately.

She just stood still.

As if her body still didn’t understand that this was real.

Until Rogelio passed in front of her, defeated, with a distraught face.

Then Matthew stood beside him.

Without touching it.

Without pushing her.

Just being.

And it was then, seeing the monster leave through the door and that this time it would not come back in, that Isabela broke down.

She cried with her whole body.

Whole years coming out of his throat.

Mateo supported her when she decided to lean on him on her own.

Not as the owner.

Not as a savior.

As a man.

As a refuge.

Weeks later, other women began to speak out.

A.

Then two.

Then six.

The names in the notebook became faces.

And the faces, denunciations.

Rogelio was convicted.

Not only because of what he did to Isabela.

But for everything he believed the earth would hide forever.

And one night, months later, in the same cabin where it had all begun, Isabela took Mateo’s hand of her own free will.

Without trembling.

Fearless.

She looked at him with clear, serene eyes.

And she said, barely in a whisper:

—This time… it doesn’t hurt anymore.

Mateo closed his eyes.

Because she understood that sometimes love doesn’t begin with desire.

It begins when someone finally stops being afraid.