Chapter 9 - THE NIGHT THE HOSPITAL WENT DARK
Valeria reached for the emergency button.
Nothing happened.
Marcela stepped into the room holding a small flashlight.
Her clothes were wet from the rain, and her carefully styled hair clung to her face.
She no longer looked elegant.
She looked desperate.
“You ruined my life,” Marcela said.
Valeria moved one hand protectively over her belly.
“You did that yourself.”
“My father adored Alejandro. Everything was always for Alejandro. The company. The houses. The respect.”
“And now you want to punish a child who hasn’t been born?”
“That child takes everything.”
Marcela pulled the stolen will from beneath her coat.
“I am leaving tonight. You are going to record a statement admitting the affair, the lies and the false accusations.”
Valeria stared at her.
“And then?”
“You disappear.”
The flashlight beam trembled slightly.
Marcela was frightened.
That made her even more dangerous.
Unknown to her, Valeria had activated the voice recorder on her phone beneath the blanket.
“Did your mother tell you to hurt me?”
Marcela laughed.
“My mother told me to solve the problem.”
“With the injections?”
“Montalvo was supposed to make it look natural. But you kept fighting.”
Valeria continued asking questions, keeping her voice calm.
“And Ricardo?”
Marcela’s expression darkened.
“He should have left the past alone.”
“So you helped kill your father?”
“My father had already chosen Alejandro’s imaginary child over his living daughter.”
The door behind Marcela opened.
Alejandro stood there.
Diego and two police officers were beside him.
Marcela spun around.
The flashlight dropped from her hand.
Emergency power returned, flooding the room with light.
Alejandro’s face was pale with controlled rage.
“You helped kill Father?”
Marcela pointed at Valeria.
“She trapped me!”
“No,” Valeria said. “You confessed.”
She lifted her phone.
The entire conversation had been recorded.
Marcela suddenly grabbed a metal instrument from a nearby tray and moved toward Valeria.
Alejandro stepped between them.
Marcela stopped inches away.
For one suspended moment, brother and sister stared at each other.
Alejandro remembered teaching her to ride a bicycle.
Carrying her home when she scraped her knees.
Promising their father he would always protect her.
But the sister he remembered had vanished long ago.
“Put it down,” he said.
“You’re choosing her again.”
“I’m choosing what is right.”
Marcela’s eyes filled with tears.
“Mother said you would come back to us.”
“Mother taught us that control was love.”
His voice softened.
“She was wrong.”
Marcela’s grip weakened.
The instrument fell to the floor.
The officers moved forward and handcuffed her.
As they led her away, she began screaming at Valeria.
“That child will destroy this family!”
Valeria looked at Alejandro.
“No.”
Her hand rested over the life moving inside her.
“This child will end what your family became.”
The crisis should have been over.
But seconds after Marcela disappeared down the corridor, Valeria doubled over in pain.
A warm sensation spread beneath her.
She looked down.
Her water had broken.
The obstetrician rushed into the room.
“She’s going into premature labor.”
Alejandro took Valeria’s hand.
“It’s too early.”
Doctors began moving the bed toward surgery.
Valeria gripped him tightly.
“Don’t leave me.”
He ran beside her through the corridor.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
At the operating room doors, a nurse stopped him.
Alejandro refused to release Valeria’s hand until the last possible second.
Then the doors closed between them.
May you like
For the next two hours, he stood outside listening for the sound that would decide the rest of his life.
Finally, from somewhere beyond the doors, a tiny cry broke through the silence.
