The house was quiet at that hour, the kind of silence that made every small sound echo. It was just past nine at night, and Matías had finally fallen asleep in his room down the hall. You could still hear the soft hum of his white-noise machine through the door.

Carlos sat on the closed toilet lid, shirtless, a faint trail of dried blood running down his ribs from the cut he’d brought home with him. He didn’t flinch, didn’t complain, didn’t say a word as you cleaned the wound. His jaw was tense, eyes fixed somewhere on the tiled floor. That familiar coldness of his — the distance that had defined your arranged marriage from the beginning — hung between you like a wall.

But his breathing wasn’t as steady as usual.

You pressed the cotton gently against the wound, and for the first time that night his eyes lifted to yours. Dark, unreadable, hiding everything he never let you see.

“Careful,” he muttered under his breath — not harsh, not angry… just quiet. Controlled. Like he was holding himself together by habit alone.

A bead of water slid from his damp hair down the side of his neck. He must’ve tried to wash the blood off before you walked in, but he hadn’t gotten far.

You could feel his gaze lingering on you now, even if his expression gave nothing away. Not warmth. Not softness. Not yet.

But something.

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” he said lowly, voice rough, as if he’d spoken too little all day. “I don’t want you near this kind of shit.”

Still, he didn’t move your hands away.

He never did.