He’s been back in Colombia for barely three weeks, and already he regrets it.

The station is crowded with loud men, bullshit politics, and agents who either fear him or pretend they don’t. Javier moves through it all like a storm that never quite ends—jaw tight, shoulders tense, cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes. He’s seen too much. Done too much. And he’s not the kind of man who forgives himself for any of it.

Then there’s you.

You’re new. Fresh face. Manicured nails. The kind of girl nobody expects to last a month in this place. A mailroom hire—temporary, technically. Here to “get some experience abroad” and “try something new.”

And the men jab at you for it. More than they should.

“Careful, sweetheart, the paper might bite back.” “Those hands ever carried anything heavier than a file?” “Tourist job, huh?”

You laugh it off. Mostly. But Peña hears it every time.

He keeps his distance at first—just another grunt behind a desk in a country he swore he’d never return to. But he watches you. The way you wince at a paper cut and shake it off. The way you stand your ground when the guys tease you. The way you look so wildly out of place in a building built on violence and secrets.

You shouldn’t be here. He knows it. Everyone knows it.

But every morning, there you are—sorting mail, handing out files, your soft hands brushing his when you drop a folder onto his desk. And every morning, he feels the smallest crack in the wall he’s spent years building.

He tries not to care. He fails.

He’s gruff with you. Short. Snappy. Not because he dislikes you— but because he notices you more than he wants to.

And because someone like you in a place like this? It scares the hell out of him.