Chapter 6
Ortega’s brother was named Tomás.
He had worked security at the mansion for three years.
He was also the guard who disappeared when Lucía ran.
The room seemed to shrink around us.
Ortega stared at the screen, his face gray.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
Alejandro did not blink.
“Everyone says that in this house.”
The words hit me too.
Because I had said the same about so many things in my own life.
I did not know how sick Luis had become until he fainted.
I did not know the hospital would demand money before mercy.
I did not know rich houses could feel poorer than the streets.
Not knowing did not undo harm.
Ortega straightened.
“I will find him.”
Alejandro’s voice was ice.
“You will help find him. You will not touch him before my men do.”
“He betrayed your son.”
“Yes,” Alejandro said. “And he is your brother. That makes you dangerous tonight.”
Ortega bowed his head.
He knew it was true.
The videos did not stop with the closet.
There were more.
Lucía entering Mateo’s room at night.
Lucía whispering into his ear while he cried.
Lucía showing him news photos of his mother’s wreck.
Lucía holding Isabela’s necklace in front of him, then snatching it away.
Lucía telling him, over and over, “Your father forgot her. Your father will forget you too.”
Alejandro watched every second.
He did not shout.
He did not break furniture.
He did not order anyone killed.
That frightened the guards more than rage.
His silence was a sealed room.
Mateo fell asleep against me before the third video ended.
I wanted to cover his ears even in sleep.
I wanted to erase every image.
But truth had entered the mansion now, and truth was merciless.
At dawn, Alejandro took me to the chapel on the property.
Small.
White.
Hidden behind orange trees.
Isabela was buried there.
Her grave was covered in fresh flowers.
Alejandro stood before it with his hands at his sides.
“I built this chapel for her,” he said.
I stayed a few steps behind him.
“She hated marble,” he said suddenly. “She wanted color everywhere. Yellow curtains. Red plates. Blue tiles. She said my house looked like a museum for dead men.”
A sad smile touched his mouth.
“After she died, Lucía told me bright things upset Mateo. So I removed them.”
I thought of Mateo’s empty white room.
“She took his mother from the room twice,” I said. “Once by death. Once by memory.”
Alejandro closed his eyes.
“I let her.”
“You trusted family.”
“I trusted guilt. Lucía said Isabela’s death was my fault. I believed her.”
“Was it?”
His eyes opened.
Men like him were not used to being asked direct questions.
“No,” he said. “But I gave Isabela a life where enemies came with the name.”
That was not a denial.
It was a wound.
“Why would Lucía hurt Mateo?” I asked.
His jaw tightened.
“Money. Control. Revenge. I do not know yet.”
But I knew there was more.
Women like Lucía did not lock children in walls only for money.
They did it because the child knew something.
Because the child had seen something.
Because silence had to be trained into him.
When we returned to the mansion, Daniel was waiting.
Not my Daniel.
A doctor named Dr. Daniel Cárdenas, the psychiatrist who had prescribed Mateo’s sedatives.
He looked nervous.
Alejandro received him in the study.
I stood near the door because Mateo held my hand.
Dr. Cárdenas avoided looking at me.
“I followed the reports provided by Miss Lucía,” he said. “She said the child was violent, uncontrollable, dangerous to himself.”
“Did you examine him alone?” Alejandro asked.
The doctor swallowed.
“Lucía said he would not tolerate separation.”
“Did you try?”
“No.”
Alejandro leaned forward.
“You medicated my son based on the word of the woman abusing him.”
Dr. Cárdenas went pale.
“I did not know.”
There it was again.
The anthem of cowards and fools.
I did not know.
Alejandro placed a folder on the desk.
“Your license will answer for what you did not know.”
The doctor left shaking.
That afternoon, Mateo asked for color without speaking.
He brought me the crayon box and pointed to the walls.
I looked at Alejandro.
He nodded.
By evening, the perfect white bedroom was covered with taped drawings.
A yellow sun.
A red car.
A blue house.
A woman with long hair.
A boy holding her hand.
Mateo stared at that drawing the longest.
Then he took a black crayon and drew a bird above the woman.
He pressed so hard the crayon snapped.
I sat beside him.
“Was the bird there when your mother died?”
His body stiffened.
I waited.
He nodded.
“Was Lucía there?”
He began to shake.
Then he took the broken black crayon and drew something beside the bird.
A ring.
A ring on a man’s hand.
A ring with a square stone.
Alejandro saw it and went still.
“What is it?” I asked.
He turned toward Ortega.
“Tomás wore a ring like that?”
Ortega shook his head.
“No, señor.”
Alejandro’s face changed.
He whispered a name.
“Ramiro.”
The room chilled.
I had heard that name in the servants’ kitchen.
Ramiro Salcedo.
Alejandro’s former business partner.
Isabela’s cousin.
A man everyone said had died in a warehouse fire one month after Isabela’s murder.
Alejandro looked at the drawing.
Then at Mateo.
“My God,” he said.
May you like
“Ramiro was there.”
Mateo covered his ears and screamed.
