424 Every night, my brother’s new wife came to our bedroom with her pillow and blanket and quietly asked to sleep in the center of the bed—right between my husband and me.

"There's nowhere left to run, Elena," Esteban sneered, his heavy boots creaking on the wooden steps as he raised the blood-stained axe. "If you had just swallowed that medicine quietly, you would have passed away peacefully in your sleep. Why did you have to make this so painful?"

"You monster!" I screamed, holding the iron pipe out defensively. "I loved you! I gave you my life!"

"Love?" Esteban laughed bitterly, a sound colder than the rain outside. "I never cared about you! I only cared about the thirty million dollars sitting in your family trust! And now, thanks to your clever little friend, Tomás is dead or dying, which means I don't even have to split the money with him!"

Lucía stepped in front of me, raising her hands to shield me just as she had done in bed for seventeen nights. "You won't touch her."

"Get out of my way, you pathetic bitch!" Esteban roared, swinging the axe wildly.

Lucía ducked, but the heavy wooden handle clipped her shoulder, throwing her violently against the rotting balcony railing. The old wood groaned ominously under the impact.