Chapter 1 - The Woman Sebastián Never Expected to See
The door opened slowly.
Valeria stopped breathing.
Sebastián’s face turned pale.
Because the woman standing outside the hospital room was not a psychiatrist.
She was not a social worker.
She was not another doctor hired by Rebeca Alcázar.
She was Camila Torres.
Valeria’s childhood best friend.
The woman who had disappeared from her life nine months earlier after a violent argument no one in the Alcázar family would explain.
Camila stood in the doorway wearing a dark coat soaked from the Monterrey rain. Her eyes were red, her hands were shaking, and she clutched a small brown envelope against her chest.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Rebeca’s composed smile returned.
“Camila,” she said softly. “How good of you to come.”
Valeria stared at her friend.
“Why are you here?”
Camila’s eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Sebastián took a step toward her.
“What did you do?”
Camila flinched.
That reaction told him everything.
Rebeca folded her hands in front of her ivory suit.
“Camila is here to provide context,” she said. “Valeria’s behavior has been concerning for some time.”
Valeria’s heart began racing.
“No,” she said. “Camila, don’t listen to her.”
Octavio placed the black folder on the table again.
“Ms. Torres has agreed to give a statement,” he said. “She has personal knowledge of Valeria’s emotional instability.”
Camila stared at the floor.
Sebastián looked between them.
“What statement?”
Rebeca’s tone remained calm.
“Camila was present the night Valeria became violent.”
Valeria went still.
The night of the bruises.
Three months earlier.
The night Sebastián came home from a business dinner and found Valeria crying in the bathroom with a swollen lip, shaking hands, and dark marks already forming along her legs.
He had asked what happened.
Valeria told him she fell down the stairs.
He did not believe her.
Not completely.
But his mother had stepped in before Valeria could explain.
“She has been overwhelmed lately,” Rebeca said that night. “You know how emotional pregnancy makes some women.”
And Sebastián had accepted it.
Because accepting it was easier than asking why his wife looked terrified whenever Rebeca entered a room.
Now Camila stood before him with an envelope in her hands.
“Tell him,” Rebeca said.
Camila’s lips trembled.
“Valeria didn’t fall,” she whispered.
Valeria closed her eyes.
Sebastián’s voice dropped.
“What happened?”
Camila looked directly at him.
“Your mother pushed her.”
The room went silent.
Rebeca’s expression did not change.
May you like
Octavio’s hand tightened around the folder.
And Sebastián felt the floor disappear beneath him.
