Chapter 3 - THE AMBULANCE THEY TRIED TO STOP
Alejandro called emergency services.
Esther stepped between him and the bedroom door.
“There is no need to bring strangers into this house.”
“My wife is bleeding.”
“She is creating a spectacle.”
Alejandro looked at the woman who had raised him.
For thirty-four years, he had admired her control. He had believed her coldness was strength and her cruelty was sophistication.
Now he saw something else.
Fear.
Not fear for Valeria.
Fear of being discovered.
“A spectacle?” Alejandro repeated. “She is six months pregnant.”
Esther lowered her voice.
“You have no idea what that woman has been doing behind your back.”
“I know what you have been doing.”
Marcela quickly reached for the medical case.
Alejandro pulled it away.
“Don’t touch it.”
“You’re choosing her over your own family?”
“She is my family.”
The sentence silenced the hallway.
Valeria cried out from the bed.
Alejandro hurried back to her as footsteps thundered up the main staircase. Two paramedics entered the room with a stretcher.
Esther immediately blocked their path.
“My daughter-in-law suffers from severe emotional instability. My son is overreacting.”
One paramedic, a middle-aged woman named Lucía, looked past her and saw the bruises on Valeria’s legs.
Her expression changed.
“Ma’am, step aside.”
“You are in my home.”
“And that woman needs medical attention.”
As they lifted Valeria onto the stretcher, she grabbed Alejandro’s wrist.
“The silver box,” she whispered.
“What?”
“In the closet. Behind your winter coats.”
Marcela heard her.
Her face drained of color.
Before Alejandro could move, Marcela ran into the dressing room.
He caught her near the closet and pulled her back.
“What is in there?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you trying to get it?”
Marcela began shouting.
“She’s destroying us! Can’t you see that?”
Alejandro pushed past her and searched behind a row of dark wool coats.
His fingers touched metal.
He pulled out a small silver document box.
Inside were photographs, several audio recorders and a notebook filled with dates.
Every date corresponded to one of Alejandro’s business trips.
Beside each entry, Valeria had written what happened.
May 4: Esther brought a doctor. Injection caused dizziness.
May 11: Marcela searched my drawers and took my passport.
May 19: They said the baby was a threat to the family.
May 26: I heard Esther say the trust must never be activated.
Alejandro read the final sentence twice.
“What trust?”
Valeria had already been taken downstairs.
Marcela lunged for the notebook.
Alejandro held it above her reach.
“What trust, Marcela?”
Her eyes filled with hatred.
“You don’t even know what your own father did.”
Their father, Don Ricardo Aranda, had died four years earlier after a sudden heart attack.
Alejandro had inherited the business operations.
Esther had retained control of several family properties.
Marcela had received a generous personal fund.
At least, that was what Alejandro had been told.
Marcela laughed bitterly.
“Father left a second will.”
Alejandro’s stomach tightened.
“What was in it?”
Esther slapped Marcela across the face.
The sharp sound echoed through the hallway.
“Be quiet.”
Marcela pressed one hand to her cheek.
For the first time in her life, she looked at her mother with open hatred.
Then she turned back to Alejandro.
“Forty percent of the Aranda empire belongs to your first child.”
Alejandro froze.
Marcela’s smile was broken and furious.
“The second Valeria gives birth, Mother loses control of everything.”
Outside, the ambulance siren began to wail.
Alejandro hurried toward the stairs.
Behind him, Esther spoke with chilling calm.
“If you leave this house with that box, you will destroy the Aranda name.”
He stopped but did not turn around.
“No, Mother.”
May you like
He tightened his grip around the evidence.
“You already did that.”
