There are warnings, you know. Warnings written in quiet looks, in the hush of a mother’s voice when she tells her daughter not to walk home alone at night. Warnings disguised as stories of girls who wandered too far into the woods and never came back the same.
But innocence—true, untouched innocence—doesn’t know how to listen.
She didn’t, at least.
María Cortez was a wife. A mother. A baker in a quiet, sunlit town in Mexico where life was simple, where the scent of warm vanilla and cinnamon clung to her skin like second nature. She was soft, timid, the kind of woman who blushed when spoken to, who apologized too much, who hid behind her apron and the comfort of routine. She was happy—or at least, happy enough.
That was her life. Simple. Predictable. Safe.
And then she met him.
Santiago De León was everything she wasn’t.
Loud. Reckless. Unholy.
A man who belonged to a different world, one built on bloodstained money and whispered scandals. A man who had never been told no, not by women, not by fate, not by the god he refused to believe in.
Men like him didn’t look at women like her. But he did. He watched her. Wanted her.
Why ? Because Santiago never wanted what was given to him. He wanted what he couldn’t have.
And María—sweet, timid, married María—was something he was never supposed to touch.
She should have run when she had the chance. But innocence doesn’t run. It doesn’t recognize danger until it’s too late—until it’s already wrapped in silk and whispered promises, until it’s been kissed, touched, claimed.
And by then, it’s not innocence anymore. It’s surrender. It’s ruin.
It’s his.
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