The downtown market wasn't a place; it was a living organism. It smelled of cilantro, reused frying oil, raw meat, and exhaust fumes. The noise was a solid wall of overlapping cumbias, shouting vendors, and the roar of old buses.
I was at the agreed corner at 3:55 p.m., dressed in my grey t-shirt and old jeans. I blended into the environment. I was invisible.
At 4:00 p.m. sharp, a black car with tinted windows stopped in a double lane, provoking a symphony of honks. The back door opened, and Valeria stepped out.
I sighed.
I had told her to leave the expensive shoes behind. She was wearing designer ankle boots that, although flat, cost more than the merchandise of three stalls combined. She wore tight branded jeans and a cream-colored silk blouse that screamed "rob me." She had put on enormous sunglasses and was clutching her bag as if it were a life preserver on the Titanic.
The car drove off, leaving her stranded on the sidewalk. She looked ridiculously out of place, like a porcelain flamingo in a mechanic's shop.
I walked over to her.
"I told you to come discreetly," I said by way of greeting.
Valeria jumped and turned toward me. For a second, I saw relief on her face at seeing a familiar face, but she quickly masked it with her usual grimace of disgust.
"This is the most 'discreet' thing I have, Lucas. Not all of us have a closet full of clothes for hauling rubble." She looked around, wrinkling her nose. "This is disgusting. It smells like dead animal."
"It smells like food and work," I corrected, starting to walk. "Stay close. Don't take out your phone. And if someone talks to you, don't answer with your 'owner's daughter' tone. It doesn't work here."
We entered the narrow aisles of the market. The roof was a patchwork tarp of colors that trapped the heat and humidity. People pushed past us. I was used to the physical contact of the crowd; Valeria went rigid every time a shoulder grazed hers.
For the first hour, we tried to work. It was a disaster.
Valeria tried to interview a vegetable seller. Her tone was so condescending—as if speaking to an exotic species—that the lady ignored her and kept shelling peas.
"They aren't answering me," Valeria complained, frustrated, brushing away a strand of hair sticking to her forehead with sweat. "They're so rude."
"They aren't rude; they're working. And you talk to them like they owe you something." I rubbed the back of my neck, exasperated. "Watch and learn."
I approached a bootleg electronics stall. I greeted the owner with a nod, talked soccer for two minutes, bought some cheap cables I needed, and, between laughs, got the information about profit margins and the informal supply chain.
Valeria watched from behind, fascinated and annoyed at the same time. It bothered her that I held the key to a world that slammed the door in her face.
We kept moving toward the deeper part of the market, where the aisles narrowed and the crowd became denser. It was rush hour. The friction of bodies was inevitable.
"Lucas, let's go," she said. Her voice sounded different. Less haughty, smaller.
I turned to look at her. She was pale. The heat and chaos were overwhelming her.
"Just a couple more data points and..."
Suddenly, the flow of people separated us by a couple of meters. A group of men carrying boxes passed between us, cutting my line of sight momentarily.
When the boxes passed, I saw her.
A guy was glued to her. He wasn't a thief; he was something worse. He was one of those opportunistic predators who smell fear and inexperience. He was about forty, wearing a dirty soccer jersey and sporting that greasy smile of someone who knows they are immune in the chaos.
He had cornered Valeria against a stack of fruit crates. He had one hand on the wall, blocking her exit, and the other was dangerously close to her waist, grazing the silk of her blouse.
"...so pretty and so all alone out here, doll," I managed to hear. His voice was a thick whisper. "Did you get lost? Looking for someone to show you around?"
Valeria was paralyzed. She was the Ice Queen at the university, capable of destroying someone with a sentence. But here, without her status, without her last name, and without her security, she was just a scared young woman. She opened her mouth to say something, probably an insult, but the guy laughed and closed the distance, invading her personal space, pressing his body against hers.
"Don't be shy, blondie..."
My blood boiled. It wasn't a conscious decision. It was a primal instinct, the same one that made me protect Lili.
I crossed the two meters separating us in three long strides. I didn't yell. I didn't run. I simply materialized behind the guy.
I grabbed his shoulder and the wrist of the hand touching Valeria. I didn't use brute force; I used technique. I pressed a pressure point on his wrist and yanked back with a sharp, violent movement, off-balancing him and forcing him to turn.
The guy let out a yelp of surprise and pain, stumbling backward.
I stepped between him and Valeria. I planted myself firmly, occupying all the space, using my height and the width of my shoulders—hardened by loading washing machines—to create a wall.
"Is there a problem?" I asked. My voice came out low, guttural. It wasn't the voice of Lucas the student. It was the voice of Lucas the night-shift stevedore, the one who had seen knife fights on the dock.
The guy looked at me. He evaluated my cheap clothes, my work boots, the cold, empty look I was giving him. He looked for fear in my eyes and found nothing. Only a clear warning: take one more step, and you won't get back up.
"Easy, pal," the guy said, raising his hands and forcing a nervous smile. "I was just chatting with the lady. She's not from around here, is she?"
"She comes with me," I said, cutting him off. "And we were just leaving."
I took a step toward him. Just one. It was enough.
The guy broke eye contact, mumbled something unintelligible, and turned around, quickly disappearing into the crowd. He knew how to recognize a bigger predator when he saw one.
I turned to Valeria.
She was trembling. Her eyes were wide, fixed on me as if it were the first time she was truly seeing me. Her mask of arrogance had shattered, revealing naked terror underneath. She hugged herself, trying to stop shaking.
"Did he touch you?" I asked. My voice was still hard, adrenaline still pumping.
She shook her head, unable to speak.
"Good. Let's go. Now."
I grabbed her arm. Not gently, but firmly, like grabbing someone to pull them out of a fire. She didn't protest. She didn't complain that I was wrinkling her silk blouse. She let herself be led, sticking to my back while I broke a path through the people like an icebreaker.
We walked fast, not stopping until we left the market and reached a nearby plaza, where the air flowed a little freer.
I let go of her.
Valeria leaned against a tree, breathing heavily. She took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were wet, but she fought ferociously not to cry. Her pride was wounded, but her survival instinct remained intact.
I stayed a few steps away, giving her space, but watching the perimeter.
"I didn't need your help," she said finally. Her voice trembled, betraying her words. "I could have screamed. I could have called the police."
I laughed. It was a dry laugh, without joy.
"The police take twenty minutes to get in there, Valeria. And screaming would have only attracted more onlookers. That guy smelled you. He smelled your money and your fear."
She straightened up, trying to recover her empress posture, although she was still pale.
"I wasn't scared," she lied.
"Yes, you were," I said, staring at her. "And it's okay to be scared. That place isn't a game. It's not a sightseeing tour for your sociology class. It's real life. And in real life, people don't care about your last name."
She held my gaze. For a moment, I thought she was going to insult me, that she was going to revert to her role as the rich bully.
But she didn't.
She looked down at her designer boots, which were now stained with mud and something that looked like grease.
"Thank you," she murmured. It was so quiet the wind almost carried it away.
I was surprised. I didn't expect gratitude. I expected complaints.
"I just did my part of the job," I said, downplaying it. "I need you in one piece to write the report."
She looked up again. There was something new in her expression. She no longer looked at me like an insect. She looked at me with a mixture of confusion and... curiosity. As if she had just discovered that the tool she despised was actually a loaded gun.
"You're a brute, Lucas," she said, but the venom had disappeared from her voice. Now she sounded almost... tired. "An arrogant brute."
"And you're a little girl playing adult," I replied, turning around. "Call your chauffeur. The field trip is over for today."
While I waited for her luxury car to arrive, neither of us said anything else. But the silence had changed. It was no longer a hostile silence. It was a heavy silence, charged with something I couldn't identify in that moment.
When the black car finally appeared and she got in, she rolled down the window before driving off.
"Tomorrow," she said. "In the library. Same time."
"Don't be late," I replied.
The car drove away.
I stood there, in the dirty plaza, watching the red taillights disappear into traffic. I looked at my hand, the same one that had grabbed the guy, the same one that had pulled her out of there.
Valeria Castillo was unbearable, classist, and cruel. But for a second, when fear had stripped away her mask, I had seen someone real.
And what bothered me most wasn't the incident itself.
What bothered me was that, seeing her vulnerable, my first impulse hadn't been indifference.
It had been fury.