Chapter 3 - The Evidence Rebeca Could Not Destroy
Camila opened the envelope with trembling hands.
Inside was a small memory card.
A printed photograph.
And a second phone.
Rebeca’s face finally changed.
Not much.
But Sebastián saw it.
Fear.
“What is that?” he asked.
Camila looked at Valeria.
“I recorded part of what happened that night.”
Rebeca stepped forward.
“That recording was obtained illegally.”
Octavio moved toward Camila.
But Sebastián stepped between them.
“No one touches her.”
His voice was not loud.
It did not need to be.
For the first time in three years, he was not defending his family.
He was protecting his wife.
Camila handed him the phone.
“I sent a copy to someone else in case they took this one,” she said. “I was too afraid to use it until I heard what they were planning tonight.”
Sebastián pressed play.
At first, there was only muffled sound.
Footsteps.
Valeria crying.
Camila telling Rebeca to stop.
Then Rebeca’s voice filled the hospital room.
“You will sign the documents after the baby is born. Sebastián will believe whatever I tell him. He always has.”
Sebastián stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
Octavio’s voice followed.
“The psychiatric report is ready. We only need one incident after delivery. Something that makes her look frightened, unstable, emotional.”
Then Rebeca said the words that shattered whatever remained of Sebastián’s loyalty.
“If she refuses, we will transfer her. The baby stays with us.”
The room was silent after the recording ended.
Valeria looked at Sebastián.
He could not meet her eyes.
Not at first.
Because every word was true.
He had believed his mother.
He had allowed Octavio access to their accounts.
He had signed documents without reading them because he trusted his family more than his wife.
And worst of all, he had called Valeria dramatic every time she tried to warn him.
Rebeca lifted her chin.
“This proves nothing. A manipulated audio recording—”
“No,” Camila said.
She handed Sebastián the printed photograph.
It showed Rebeca standing beside a private-clinic administrator.
The date was from two weeks before Valeria went into labor.
Behind them, on a desk, were the transfer documents with Valeria’s name printed across the top.
Temporary psychiatric confinement.
Emergency maternal incapacity.
Temporary infant custody authorization.
Everything had been planned before Valeria ever asked for help.
Sebastián’s hands shook.
He looked at the signature at the bottom.
His signature.
But he had never signed those papers.
He knew that now.
Octavio had forged it.
“You forged my name,” Sebastián said.
Octavio adjusted his tie.
“You do not understand the legal situation.”
“No,” Sebastián replied. “I understand it perfectly.”
Then he turned to the doctor standing quietly near the wall.
“Who hired you?”
The doctor looked at Rebeca.
Rebeca’s face became cold.
“Be careful.”
The doctor swallowed.
“Mrs. Alcázar’s office contacted me.”
“And the nurses?”
“They were hired privately.”
Valeria closed her eyes.
May you like
Even the people in her hospital room had not come to protect her.
They had come to take her child.
