Chapter 363
“Linda Joana... why aren't you eating?” asked the group leader, a heavyset woman with a black rose tattoo on her neck, using a tone of fake maternal concern.
“I'm still not hungry, sister,” Joana replied weakly. She sat down and began to nibble at the thin corn soup and dry bread, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.
“Oh, dear, but you're so thin... You need strength.”
The woman smiled, picking up her own ladle and pouring an extra portion of greasy soup into Joana's bowl, throwing another slice of bread on top. “Come on. Eat everything. Every last drop.”
Joana stopped, the spoon trembling in her hand. She looked at the woman beside her.
The urge to scream, to throw the tray away and demand respect, was overwhelming. But when she met the leader's gaze, she saw the implicit threat in her cold eyes and smug smile: “Refuse my ‘kindness’ and you'll be licking the bathroom floor with your tongue tonight.”
Joana swallowed her pride along with the soup.
She said nothing. She forced a grateful smile, lowered her head, and continued to eat, tasting the bitter taste of humiliation.
Dinner ended and curfew was announced.
Everyone returned to their cell, a stuffy, dimly lit concrete cubicle. The space contained six metal bunk beds, with no air conditioning to alleviate the suffocating summer heat. The only ventilation came from a noisy, dusty fan hanging from the high ceiling, which only circulated the hot air.
Joana occupied the lower bunk in the corner opposite the small bathroom, the worst place in the cell.
Night fell, and with it, a tense silence. While her cellmates snored, Joana tossed and turned on the thin mattress. The darkness of the room prevented her from relaxing; every shadow looked like a monster.
Before long, a strange sensation took over her body.
Her heart began to beat erratically, a frantic arrhythmia that echoed in her ears. Her mind, previously agitated, began to grow cloudy.
“Why... why do I feel this way?” Joana murmured, cold sweat beading on her forehead.
She tried to take a deep breath, to draw air into her lungs, but her chest felt as if it were being crushed by a hydraulic press. Panic set in. She didn't dare move too much, afraid of waking the others and being punished, but the physical discomfort was becoming unbearable.
She lay still, trying to close her eyes and wait for it to pass.
But it didn't pass. It got worse.
Her breathing became shallow and wheezy. Her hands clutched the fabric of her uniform, her fingers contorting in an involuntary spasm, desperately trying to find oxygen in a room that suddenly seemed airless.
“Help...” Joana tried to scream.
To her utter horror, no sound came out. The words were stuck in her throat, blocked by a paralysis that was spreading rapidly. Her tongue felt swollen and heavy.
“Please... help me...” she tried again, in a mental whisper, as her lips no longer obeyed her.
She tried to raise her arm to bang on the bed rail, to make noise, to wake someone up. But her arm wouldn't move. It was leaden. Dead.
“What's happening? Is it a stroke? A heart attack?”
The terror was absolute.
“No... this is just a dream. A nightmare. I'm going to wake up. WAKE UP!”
Joana fought against her own body, trying to force herself awake, but the darkness advanced around the edges of her vision like a black tide.
It all happened too fast. The hum of the ceiling fan, which had been annoying before, began to fade, distorted, until it turned into absolute silence.
The last thing Joana saw before the darkness swallowed her was the gray cement ceiling, spinning, spinning, until it disappeared.
Here is the adjusted version of the chapter.
I focused on creating a “dark romance” and suspenseful atmosphere for Adam's scene, highlighting his dangerous and calculating obsession. For Benjamin's scene, I emphasized the shock and instinct to investigate.
A few hours later.
In an isolated mansion on the outskirts of Limeira, surrounded by a dense pine forest that muffled any sound, Adam Holmes reigned in the shadows.
He sat on a velvet sofa in a dimly lit office, his silhouette outlined only by the pale moonlight coming through the panoramic window. As he listened to his men's report, a cold, calculating smile of satisfaction curved his lips.
His fingers tapped rhythmically on the iPad screen, the only sound breaking the tense silence in the room.
“That woman must already be burning in hell,” Adam thought, feeling the pleasure of absolute control.
He didn't respond immediately. He looked away from his henchmen and stared at the lonely moon in the black sky. Now that Joana—the loose and dangerous piece—had been removed from the board, the path was clear for his next move.
After minutes of unnerving silence, Adam turned his attention back to the two men sweating coldly in front of him. The expression on his handsome face was one of terrifying calm.
“Did you clean up the traces properly?” he asked, his voice as smooth as silk. “I don't want any loose ends.”
Adam couldn't allow the police, or any amateur detective, to follow the crumbs to his door.
“Don't worry, sir. No one will be able to connect anything to us.” The person we hired for the job... well, let's just say he's already ‘sleeping with the fishes’.
“Good,” Adam murmured.
He looked down at the iPad screen again. The sadistic smile disappeared, replaced by an expression of intense, almost devout curiosity.
The screen displayed a photograph of a woman.
Lilian Arbex.
Her long black hair cascaded down like a waterfall, and the cold smile on her lips seemed to challenge him through the pixels. Those clear gray eyes stared at him with an intelligence that made Adam's dead heart flutter.
“You seem... fascinating, Lilian Arbex,” he whispered.
With a slow, possessive gesture, he slid his index finger across the screen, tracing the profile of her delicate nose and down to her cherry-colored lips. The image of that seductive mouth awakened something dark and hungry inside him.
After contemplating the photograph as if it were a work of art he intended to steal, Adam raised his head. His eyes narrowed, focused.
“I want everything about her. Start uncovering the true life and identity of Lilian Arbex. Now.”
“Sir... we've already scoured the internet,” replied the assistant, hesitantly. “We found nothing but her name and position at the company. She's a digital ghost. She has no social media, no public trace.”
“I know. That's exactly why you're going to stop playing Google detectives.” Adam gave them a piercing look.
“I believe the little information you found is false, a smokescreen. We need heavy artillery. Use our high-level intelligence resources.”
The henchman's eyes widened in shock.
“What? Sir... do you really want to activate that contact? It's an extreme measure, sir! It involves enormous risks.”