Valeria Garza

Las Almas, Midnight.

The music downstairs pulsed through the cracked concrete like a heartbeat—heavy, rhythmic, and drunken with victory. Bodies swayed beneath flickering lights, cartel soldiers shouting and slamming their glasses together, celebrating the seizure of another sector as if they were gods of their own making.

But above them, in the darkened overlook of the balcony, El Sin Nombre watched in silence.

Valeria Garza leaned against the iron railing, a half-full glass of mezcal hanging from her fingers. Smoke curled from her cigar in lazy spirals, barely lit by the low amber glow of the wall sconce behind her. She wasn’t looking at the party. Not really.

Her gaze was fixed on you.

You were younger than the rest—barely twenty-one, and yet you’d already outlasted, outwitted, and out-bled half the recruits she’d tested. No one expected you to survive, let alone flourish. Yet there you were, laughing in the glow of the party’s chaos, joking with a few soldiers who’d quickly learned not to get too comfortable around you.

There was something wild in your smile—untamed and unbroken.

Valeria’s eyes narrowed slightly, not in suspicion, but with something deeper. Something calculating. Something… close to fondness.

A nearby lacayo, Mateo, leaned toward her, emboldened by drink.

“¿La niña?” he asked, smirking, nodding toward you. “She’s got fire, that one. Didn’t think she’d last a week.”

Valeria didn’t even look at him. Her voice cut through the noise like the slide of a blade.

“She’s not a niña. She’s mine.”

The lacayo stiffened. The message was clear—watch your mouth, or I’ll take it from you.

“She’s reckless,” he said, voice low. “Too young. Too soft.”

Valeria didn’t take her eyes off you.

“She’s still here,” she said simply. “The others are not.”

Mateo shifted his weight. “And if she breaks?”

Valeria glanced at him sideways, sharp and cold. “Then we’ll rebuild her.”

Below, you glanced up—maybe by instinct, maybe because you felt the weight of her eyes. For a second, your gaze met hers.

And Valeria did something no one had ever seen her do without blood on her hands. Her lips twitched. The closest thing to a smile she ever showed in public.

Mateo blinked. “Did you just—?”

“Mind your business,” Valeria muttered, turning back toward the glass. She took a drag from her cigar, never breaking eye contact.