No More Love in Vain novel · Chapter 1 of 12
Chapter 1: Twenty Again
Alvar Montenegro died in my arms on a Tuesday in November, and he never looked at me again.
The bullet had gone in through his side, when he threw himself in front of me at the restaurant door.
It was a poisoned bullet.
I only found that out later, from the color of his skin and the metallic taste that rose to his mouth.
I sat him against the wall on the street, his head resting on my knees.
We'd been married eight years and despising each other for eight years.
He slept in the study.
I got up before him so we wouldn't cross paths at breakfast.
Every time his name showed up in the paper, I turned the page.
"Antonia," he said, his voice very low.
"Don't talk. The ambulance is coming."
"I saved your life."
"I know."
"My debt to your mother is settled."
He smiled at me, a thin red line at the corner of his mouth.
"In the next life, let's not find each other again."
"Alvar..."
"I don't want to hate you anymore."
His eyes closed for a moment, and opened again.
"I just hope you're always the girl next door. That you're never my wife again."
"Don't say that."
"Now it's my turn to be with Veronica."
And he died.
Just like that.
Like someone turning off a lamp.
I screamed his name until my throat bled.
I cried with everything I had, clutching that body as it grew cold.
But Alvar never opened his eyes again.
Only then did I understand how foolish, how childish our hatred had been all those years.
Two months later, I finished off the Cardozas from Concepcion, the ones who'd sent the killer.
I cornered them alone, with my husband's accounts and my father's money.
I watched them fall one by one, in a port that was no longer ours.
And when there was no one left to punish, I didn't know what to do with the days.
The stupidest thing I ever did, I did one winter dawn, in the empty apartment.
I told myself I would follow him.
I'm not going to say how.
The only thing that matters is that it was a mistake, and I knew it the moment I closed my eyes.
Then I opened my eyes.
I was sitting in a green leather armchair, with the afternoon sun coming through a tall window.
It smelled of pipe tobacco and polished wood.
My father, Remigio Prieto, was in front of me, behind his desk, a paper in his hand.
He was younger.
Fewer gray hairs, straighter back.
"Antonia, are you listening to me?"
I looked at my hands.
They were the hands of a twenty-year-old girl, without the scars from the glass that night, without the wedding ring.
"What year is it?" I asked.
My father frowned.
"What?"
"Tell me what year it is."
He told me.
It was eight years ago.
I was twenty.
And on my father's desk there was a folder stamped with the Montenegro family seal.
I recognized that folder.
I had opened it, long ago, with trembling hands, on the day of the engagement.
"I was telling you that the Montenegros and us made a deal years ago," my father continued, impatient. "Your mother saved Alvar from a fire when he was a boy. She died of her burns a year later. He has a debt to this family."
"And he wants to pay it by marrying me."
"His father does. Alvar just inherited the port. He's a serious young man, twenty-three years old. He's a good match for you."
"Dad."
"The engagement dinner is tonight."
"No."
My father set the paper down on the desk.
"What do you mean, no?"
"I'm not marrying Alvar Montenegro."
"Antonia, the debt..."
"It's not my debt. It's theirs. Mom didn't pull anyone out of a fire so I could be sold."
My father's jaw dropped.
I had never spoken to him like that.
Never, in the first life, until that day.
I stood up.
My legs were steady.
My whole body felt light, and I had one thought clear as water.
Not this time.
This time I'd let him go.
This time I'd give Alvar what he asked for with his last breath.
That she never be his wife again.
And I, who never dared, would give him and Veronica my blessing.
"I'm going to Puerto Montt," I said.
"Puerto Montt?"
"The family seafood warehouse needs someone to run it. I studied business administration. I'm leaving tomorrow."
"Antonia..."
"Tonight I'll have dinner with them. And in front of everyone, I'll tell them no."
My father ran a hand over his face.
"You have your mother's temper," he muttered.
"Thank you."
"That wasn't a compliment."
I smiled.
My father sighed, defeated.
He pressed his lips together, picked up his pipe, and lit it with a hand that trembled a little.
"The Montenegros arrive at eight," he said. "And they're bringing guests."
My smile froze.
"What guests?"
"A friend of Alvar's. A Veronica."
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