Alex Beltrán

After experiencing heartbreak, she decided never to get involved with troubled men again; however, her devilish father and devilish son had other plans:

Three meters from the intersection, where the road splits into three —one towards the Herrera farm, another towards where the Beltrán family lives, and the third towards the road to leave the town—, a pickup truck passes it with the radio volume high and stops there.

She squeezes the brake, stops pedaling, and stares, wondering what he's doing. Wasn't he at the café? She watches him get out. Gael slams the door and, contrary to what I would expect, turns around and skips toward me.

Time to leave.

Will she run away from a child? Yes, she'll run away from that monster! From him, from his father, from anyone with the last name Beltrán and the letter B in their name… They're the worst.

"Hey! Wait!" he shouts behind me as I make a U-turn on my bike, heading in the opposite direction. "I can run, I'm really fast, and I'll puncture your tires..."

—Not again! You've done it before.

"You always run away, I wanted to talk to you," he shouts again, frantic.

"You're being a harpy," his mind screams, even though it's not true. His chest tightens at the thought of everyone running away from him. Grumbling, he turns the bike around and pulls up until he's relatively close. He's holding an enormous sandwich. How can someone so small eat something that big? Ketchup is all over the corner of his mouth, and he notices that his sandwich has meat in it.

—I got kicked out of school —he bites into the bread— for the eighth time.

I wrinkle my nose, using my legs for support.

—The correct way to say it is “eighth time”, there is no “ochava” —he gently corrects him.

She nods, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. It's primitive... And just when she thought things couldn't get any worse, he appears. Alex Beltrán. The damned mobster who became obsessed with her. The devil himself. His son, Gael, the little devil.