Chapter 3 - THE WOLF IN THE FAMILY
Victoria Villaseñor did not run. Women of her stature—descended from old-money mining magnates who had built half of Pachuca before losing their fortunes to bad investments and corporate restructuring—did not run, even when the world was ending.
Her silver hair was pulled back into a severe French twist. Her eyes, the color of cold river slate, scanned the sterile hospital hallway with an expression of profound, aristocratic disgust.
“Rodrigo,” she said, her voice dropping like a lead weight into the quiet corridor. “Get up off that filthy floor. You are a Villaseñor. You do not grovel in public hospitals like a peasant.”
Rodrigo slowly pushed himself up from the linoleum, leaning against the wall. He didn't look at his mother. His eyes were fixed entirely on the man standing behind her.
Damián swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing violently. He tried to force a weak, sympathetic smile. “Rodrigo, man... I’m so glad you’re here. When I heard the baby might make it... I mean, it’s a miracle, right? After everything we went through today...”
“Shut up, Damián,” Rodrigo whispered.
The words were so quiet, so devoid of inflection, that Damián actually stepped back, colliding gently with one of Victoria’s security guards.
“Watch your tone, Rodrigo,” Victoria snapped, stepping between them. She reached out and adjusted the lapel of her son’s ruined shirt with a disdainful flick of her manicured fingers. “Damián has been an absolute rock through this entire tragedy. He called me the moment the accident happened. He helped manage the municipal permits for the funeral. If it weren't for him, your wife’s remains would have been tied up in bureaucratic red tape for a week.”
“He was in a mighty big hurry to burn her, Mother,” Rodrigo said, his voice rising, the thin veneer of his control cracking down the middle. He pointed a shaking finger at Damián. “In a hurry to put her in an oven before anyone could look too closely at why a woman who never drove at night ended up smashed against a concrete barrier on the Cuernavaca highway!”
Damián’s face flushed dark red. “That’s outrageous! Are you accusing me of—of killing my own sister? Are you insane? The state police investigated the scene! There were skid marks! There was a blown tire!”
“The police report hasn't even been finalized!” Rodrigo roared, lunging forward before Victoria’s guards could cross their arms to block him. He grabbed Damián by the collar of his damp shirt, lifting the older man half an inch off the floor. “The medical examiner at Santa Fe General just pulled a synthetic paralytic agent out of Elena’s bloodstream! She didn't crash because of a blown tire, Damián! She was paralyzed before she even turned the ignition key!”
Damián’s hands flew to Rodrigo’s wrists, clawing at them with desperate, frantic strength, but he couldn't break the grip.
“Let him go, Rodrigo!” Victoria commanded, her voice sharp as a whip. “This is hysterical nonsense! You’re grasping at straws because you can't accept that accidents happen! People die every day on those highways! It’s a tragedy, yes, but inventing a murder conspiracy involving your own brother-in-law is beneath dignity!”
“Dignity?” Rodrigo laughed—a harsh, barking sound that held zero humor. He shoved Damián backward, sending him crashing into the plastic waiting room chairs with a clatter of metal. “You talk to me about dignity when you spent the last five years treating Elena like an unwanted stray because she didn't come from money? You hated her, Mother! You told me she was a gold-digger trapping me with a baby!”
“And I was right!” Victoria shot back, her slate-gray eyes flashing with genuine malice. She didn't deny the hatred; she weaponized it. “A schoolteacher from a modest family in Coyoacán marrying the sole heir to the Villaseñor estate? She was a parasite looking for a payday! And now look at what she’s left behind—a bastard child born from a corpse, wrapped in scandal that will cost our family corporation millions in municipal contracts if the press gets ahold of this!”
Damián scrambled to his feet, adjusting his jacket, his eyes darting frantically between Victoria and Rodrigo. He looked less like a grieving brother now and more like an accomplice whose partner was threatening to turn state's evidence.
“Look, Rodrigo... let’s be reasonable,” Damián panted, his voice oilier than before. “Your mother is right. The press... the investors... if word gets out that Elena had toxins in her system, or that there’s an investigation... the stock for Villaseñor Development will tank. The new commercial plaza project in Santa Fe will be frozen by the city council. We need to handle this quietly. Sign the custody release for the baby, let your mother’s legal team place him in a private nursery in Cuernavaca, and let Elena rest in peace. No autopsy. No scandal.”
Rodrigo froze.
The pieces clicked together in his mind with the terrifying precision of a vault locking into place.
The haste. The crematorium. The nervous phone calls. The alliance between his mother—who despised Elena with every breath in her body—and Damián—who had always lived beyond his means, constantly asking Rodrigo for business loans that never seemed to get repaid.
“You knew,” Rodrigo whispered, staring at Damián. “You and my mother... you knew about the pregnancy complications, didn't you? Or no... you knew about something else.”
Damián’s jaw twitched. “I don't know what you’re talking about—”
“Don't lie to me!” Rodrigo roared, taking a step toward him. “What did Elena find out? Was it about the Santa Fe land acquisition? Was it about the municipal zoning payoffs? Did she find something in my office, or did she catch you two meeting behind my back?”
Before Damián could answer, the double doors of Operating Suite Three swung open down the hall.
May you like
Dr. Morales stepped out, wearing blue surgical scrubs spattered with crimson. She looked exhausted, her mask pulled down around her neck, but in her arms, wrapped tightly in a sterile, heated thermal blanket, was a tiny, wriggling bundle.
The screaming of a newborn baby echoed down the sterile hallway—shrill, furious, and wonderfully, beautifully alive.
