When you arrive, the hacienda spreads out like a painted promise: coffee plants in disciplined rows, green hills rolling like waves, the main house whitewashed and proud. Yet beneath the beauty, you feel the strain, like a beam that looks fine until you stand under it and hear it creak. Baltasar Múgica, your capataz, waits with his arms crossed and a face made for disapproval. He has always been loyal to the men who owned the land, and his loyalty feels like a chain of its own. “One won’t be enough,” he says before you even dismount, as if your widow’s decisions must be corrected. “One is what I can afford,” you answer, keeping your voice calm because calm is power in a place that tests it. Baltasar circles Nahuel like he’s evaluating a bull, eyes narrowing at the man’s posture. “He has the face of trouble,” Baltasar mutters, and you hear something too eager in his dislike. You turn your gaze to Nahuel, giving him a space no one expects. “And you?” you ask him, as if his opinion matters, as if he’s part of the conversation.
“DON’T TOUCH HIM,” THEY WARNED YOU. YOU BOUGHT HIM ANYWAY… AND THAT NIGHT YOU LEARNED WHY MEN WOULD RATHER BURN THEIR SILVER THAN KEEP HIM CLOSE.
