Page 38 of South of Justice

He had undone his belt, the gold buckle clinking as his erection strained against the expensive fabric of his trousers. His hand moved to the zipper—and stopped. His eyes snapped back up to her face, noticing that she wasn’t moving.

“I…” she began, voice thin and frayed. “I can’t.” Her fingers started retracing their steps, fumbling over each of the buttons. “This isn’t what I want.”

The heat in his eyes flickered, then vanished. In its place: rage. Cold, sharp, and immediate. It was like a switch had been flipped.

She took one step back—then another—her movement clumsy and hurried. But he didn’t go after her, and he didn’t speak. He just stood there, belt hanging open, watching her with that same blank fury, like he was already recalculating her value.

Lucía reached the door and opened it with trembling fingers.

Then, with as much control as she could summon, she closed it behind her. Firmly. Deliberately. And with a calmness that seemed to come from somewhere outside her body, she kept walking.

Her heels echoed down the empty hallway. She reached the elevator, hand trembling slightly as she hit the call button.

It was then she saw him.

Mateo. Leaning against the wall near the elevators, a folder under one arm, his eyes dark and unreadable.

Lucía stopped. “Mateo.”

He nodded once. “Hey.” His voice was soft. But something inside it was wrong.

She stepped forward. “What are you?—”

“Working late,” he said. His eyes went to her blouse, buttoned wrong. “Like you.”

There was a pause. The elevator arrived. She hesitated, then stepped inside.

He didn’t follow. As the doors slid shut, their eyes held for just one moment too long. And Lucía knew: Something had changed.

And it would never change back.

In the days that followed, Lucía had expected something to happen. A message. A signal. A shift in behavior. But Javier remained precisely as he had always been: cool, sharp, unreadable. He didn’t treat her differently. He didn’t treat her at all.

In the morning meetings, he addressed her like everyone else. In emails, he cc’d her as needed. If anything, he seemed totake greater pains to remain impersonal. And that—somehow—was worse.

It made her feel like a secret even to herself.

Mateo had noticed. Of that, she was sure.

His jokes at her desk had stopped. No more long walks to the break room. No more shared coffees or quiet sarcasm in the elevator. He answered her questions with nods and clipped phrases. Smiled, but without his eyes.

Lucía could feel the change like humidity in the air, dense and invisible.

Late on a Tuesday, she found him alone in the print room. He was feeding documents into the heavy black-and-white copier, the green light dragging slowly across each page.

Lucía stepped in and shut the door behind her. “Hey.”

Mateo didn’t look up. “Hey.”

She stood awkwardly beside the paper bin. “You’ve been scarce.”

“Busy.” The machine whirred. “I’m on the Roji-Fuentes account now. They’ve got a three-day audit window.”

“You didn’t say anything.”

He glanced over. “You didn’t ask.”

The copier beeped.