Sebastian didn’t manage to move.

Valentina was already out of bed.

She wrapped herself in the sheet as best she could, her breath ragged, and looked at him with such real despair that his blood ran cold.

“Don’t open it,” he whispered.

The doorbell rang again.

Long.

Insistent.

As if the person on the other end knew perfectly well that they were there.

Sebastian frowned.

-Who is it?

Valentina shook her head, but her eyes said it all before her mouth did.

—My ex.

The word fell in the bedroom like another storm.

Sebastian remained motionless for a few seconds.

Does your ex know you’re here?

She took too long to reply.

And that delay was worse than any confession.

—Valentina.

—Yes… but not in the way you think.

The doorbell rang a fourth time.

Then the beatings began.

Dry.

Controlled.

Not from someone desperate.

From someone accustomed to forcing other people’s doors until they opened.

Sebastian felt something old, cold, and dangerous awakening inside him.

—Start talking. Now.

Valentina swallowed.

Her hair was disheveled, her face was washed with tears, and she had a fragility that, for the first time, seemed not sweetness but pure exhaustion.

“His name is Tomás,” she finally said. “I dated him for almost two years. At first, he was charming. Attentive. Confident. One of those men who make you feel protected… until one day you discover that they were actually trapping you.”

Sebastian did not take his eyes off the door.

The blows continued.

—Is he following you?

—Since I broke up with him.

—And why didn’t you go to the police?

Valentina let out a small, bitter laugh.

—Because he never left visible marks. Because he knew exactly how much to squeeze without breaking anything. Because he always found a way to appear polite, calm, impeccable. No one fully believed me. Not my friends. Not my aunt. No one understands fear when they can’t touch it with their hands.

Sebastian clenched his jaw.

The door shook again with another bang.

—And how did he know you were coming here?

Valentina closed her eyes.

—Because last night… before going into the building… I saw a car parked in front. I thought it was a coincidence. I wanted to believe it. I’m tired of living on the run.

He turned to her, incredulous.

—Did you see it and still go up?

-Yeah.

—Are you crazy?

She raised her voice for the first time.

“No! I’m tired! Tired of changing routes, of turning off my cell phone, of looking behind me every time I walk alone! Last night I didn’t want to keep being the woman who lives in fear. I wanted to feel free, even if just for a few hours.”

The last words came out broken.

And then everything fell into place in a different way.

I hadn’t gone to that penthouse out of frivolity.

I had gone because I needed to wrest one night from fear.

Sebastian ran a hand over his face.

The bed was still stained.

The air smelled of coffee, of a wet storm, and something more dangerous: an intimacy too recent for such a great disaster.

—Why didn’t you tell me this last night?

—Because I didn’t want to make you my savior.

—And yet you brought it right to my door.

Valentina lowered her gaze.

—I didn’t want to. I swear I didn’t want to.

The blows stopped.

For a second, the silence was worse.

Then Valentina’s cell phone rang, which had been left lying on the nightstand.

The screen glowed.

Thomas.

Sebastian saw the name and felt something inside him harden.

Valentina did not answer.

The phone stopped ringing.

A message arrived.

Then another one.

And another one.

Sebastian picked up his cell phone and read.

**I know you’re there.**

**Don’t make a scene. I just want to talk.**

**If you don’t come down in one minute, I’ll come up.**

Valentina covered her mouth with her hand.

-My God.

Sebastian looked up.

—Do you have access to the building?

—I shouldn’t.

As if the universe wanted to mock that phrase, at that very moment the private elevator rang.

A soft beep.

Then the mechanism rising.

Valentina went white.

—No… no… no…

Sebastian was already putting on his pants.

His mind worked with icy speed.

Listen to me. Go to the bathroom, lock the door, and don’t come out until I tell you to.

—You can’t open it for him.

—I can’t let him into the room either.

She approached and grabbed his wrist.

Her fingers were trembling.

—Tomás knows how to talk. He knows how to provoke. He knows how to make it seem like you’re the violent one. Don’t fall for it.

Sebastian held her gaze.

Until an hour ago, that woman had been just an intense night, a delicious anomaly in his carefully empty life.

Now she was barefoot, wrapped in a sheet, trembling in front of him, and the mere thought of seeing her frightened made something brutal throb in his chest.

—Go into the bathroom, Valentina.

She hesitated for only a second.

Then he obeyed.

No sooner had he closed the door than the final knock sounded at the main entrance.

It wasn’t a punch.

It was the sound of the electronic doorbell unlocking.

Someone had authorized access.

Sebastian felt a pang of fury.

She crossed the enormous living room of the penthouse and opened the door just as Tomás raised his hand to knock again.

He was tall, well-dressed, attractive in a meticulous and unfriendly way.

He didn’t look like a monster.

He seemed exactly the kind of man people would trust with their keys.

Tomás looked Sebastian up and down.

Barefoot. Tense. Newly dressed.

Then he smiled.

A minimal smile.

Disgustingly safe.

—So it’s you.

Sebastian didn’t move.

—You have five seconds to disappear.

Tomás didn’t even flinch.

—Valentina is with me.

—No.

—Yes. The thing is, sometimes he gets confused. He gets scared. He says things. Then he regrets it.

Sebastian felt an immediate urge to smash his face in.

But he remembered the warning.

Don’t fall.

—Whatever she wants to tell you, she’ll tell you far away from here.

Thomas bowed his head, as if studying him.

—Did she tell you that she has anxiety attacks? That she sometimes dramatizes things? That she makes up stories when she feels guilty?

Sebastian did not respond.

But deep down, he understood the mechanism.

He didn’t deny it.

Envenenaba.

It sowed doubt.

Tomás took half a step forward.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble. We argued last night. She has a childish way of reacting. I just came to find her.”

From inside the apartment, everything remained silent.

But Sebastian could hear his own blood pounding in his ears.

“You’re going to leave,” he said slowly. “And you’re not going to go near her again.”

Tomás smiled again.

—You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.

—Neither do you.

Then something happened that neither of them expected.

Valentina’s voice sounded behind Sebastian.

Firm.

Trembling, but firm.

—No. You’re the one who doesn’t know what you’re getting yourself into, Tomás.

Sebastian turned around.

She stood in the hallway, half-dressed in his white shirt. Her hair was disheveled. Her eyes were red. But she no longer looked like a broken woman.

He looked like someone who had reached his limit.

Tomás looked at her with a mixture of annoyance and false tenderness.

—Valen, that’s enough. You’re making a fool of yourself.

—Don’t call me that.

—Come on. Let’s talk downstairs.

—No.

Tomás’s smile faded for barely a second.

—Don’t make this any bigger.

Valentina took a deep breath.

Sebastian saw her do it.

Like someone preparing to jump from a high place knowing that there may be stones below.

“I didn’t come here last night to cheat on you,” she said. “I came because I left you three months ago, and you wouldn’t let go. I changed my number twice. I stopped going to my favorite coffee shop. I worked in secret from home. And yet you still kept showing up. In front of my building. In front of the studio. In front of the supermarket. You made me feel like I was being stalked in my own life.”

Tomás let out an incredulous laugh.

—Please. You’re exaggerating to impress him.

Valentina shook her head.

And for the first time, Sebastian saw something hard in his expression.

—No. I’m speaking out because I understood something last night. I spent years putting my life on hold to take care of others, to fulfill obligations, to avoid bothering anyone. Even last night… even in this bed… I kept the truth to myself for fear of how people would look at me. And I don’t want to live like this anymore.

Thomas narrowed his eyes.

—Think carefully about what you’re going to say.

Sebastian took a step forward, but Valentina stopped him with a look.

I needed to do it alone.

—I have your messages saved. Your audio recordings. The photos of my scratched door. The recordings of the calls where you threaten to “ruin” me if I report you. Everything.

The color of Tomás’s face changed by only one shade.

Little.

But that’s enough.

Sebastian saw it.

Valentina too.

“You’re lying,” said Thomas, and that was the first time he sounded nervous.

—No. And I’m not the only one who has it. Last night, before going upstairs, I sent it all to a friend. With instructions to hand it over if anything happened to me.

True fury then appeared on Tomás’s face.

The charm was gone.

There was no more diplomacy.

Just a man whose mask had just been ripped off.

“You were always ungrateful,” she spat. “I pulled you out of the emptiness you were living in. Nobody looked at you. Nobody was going to choose you. And this is how you repay me.”

Sebastian took a step forward.

Now yes.

Now there was no possible action.

—I’ve heard enough.

Tomás pointed it out.

—You stay out of it.

—She’s already spoken. Now you’re leaving.

For a second it seemed that Tomás was going to jump on him.

Tense shoulders.

Jaw clenched.

The deranged gaze.

But something in Sebastian’s expression made him stop.

Perhaps it was the calm.

Perhaps it was the brutal certainty that this time he wasn’t facing a woman alone.

Thomas took a step back.

Then another one.

Before entering the elevator, he looked at Valentina with pure hatred.

—You’re going to regret it.

The doors closed.

And only then did Valentina’s body really begin to tremble.

Sebastian locked the apartment door.

She took two steps, nothing more.

Then it collapsed.

No to the ground.

Against him.

As if all the strength she had gathered to speak had suddenly evaporated.

Sebastian held her by instinct.

He hugged her with a firmness he hadn’t planned to feel.

Valentina cried silently against his chest at first.

Then with a deep, ancient, weary pain.

He said nothing.

There were no elegant phrases for that.

He just let her cry.

Several minutes passed before she could move away.

Her face was wet and her voice was hoarse.

-Sorry.

Sebastian looked at her as if he didn’t understand that word.

—Don’t ever apologize to me again for surviving.

Valentina closed her eyes.

And something in her face changed.

As if no one had ever said anything like that to him.

He took a breath.

He looked at the unmade bed at the end of the hallway.

The stained sheets.

The impossible night that began as an agreement with no future and dawned transformed into something else.

Much more dangerous.

Much more realistic.

“Last night I told you I didn’t believe in love,” she murmured.

Valentina slowly raised her gaze.

Sebastian barely smiled, without irony this time.

—I think I lied.

She watched him in silence.

Not naively.

Not with easy relief.

But with that mixture of fear and hope of someone who already knows the price of trusting.

“Don’t promise me things you don’t know yet,” she whispered.

He nodded.

—Then I promise you just one. You won’t go through this alone again.

Valentina took a deep breath.

Then he looked towards the city beyond the windows.

Buenos Aires was still there.

Wet.

Immense.

Viva.

The storm had ended.

But inside, for the first time in many years, fear was not the only thing left.

There was also room.

For the truth.

For rabies.

For tenderness.

And perhaps for something that neither of them had gone looking for that night… but which was now impossible to ignore.

Sebastian took her hand.

This time, without any urgent desire.

Without masks.

Only with a new calm.

And Valentina, still trembling, squeezed it back.