PART 3: Shattering the Illusion
The Sterling mansion was dead silent.
Julian had left an hour ago for an emergency board meeting. Victoria had kissed him goodbye at the door, draped herself in a cashmere coat, and instructed the chauffeur to take her to her private spa in the city.
"Do not disturb Leo," Victoria had ordered Maria, her voice dropping its sweet, melodic tone, replacing it with a cold, venomous hiss. "If he cries, let him cry. He needs to learn that manipulating his father won't work. Do you understand me, Maria?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Maria had replied, keeping her head bowed submissively.
But the moment the heavy wrought-iron gates closed behind the Bentley, Maria practically sprinted up the stairs to the nursery.
She found Leo right where they left him. He was awake, staring blankly at the ceiling, completely exhausted, his small chest heaving with shallow, rapid breaths.
Maria sat quietly beside him.
"Leo," she whispered in Spanish, the language she used to soothe him when he was a baby. "Show me the cast."
The boy slowly turned his head. His eyes were completely dead, devoid of any light or hope. He weakly nudged his heavy, plaster-encased left arm toward her.
Maria leaned in. The first thing that hit her was the smell.
Medical casts sometimes smelled faintly of sweat or clinical antiseptics. But this cast smelled entirely different. It smelled sour. It smelled like raw, festering copper.
It smelled like blood.
Maria frowned, gently running her fingers over the thick, bumpy white plaster. It was incredibly crude. Uneven. As if it had been mixed and applied in a hurry by someone who had no medical training whatsoever.
"Did Doctor Evans put this on you?" Maria asked softly.
Leo shook his head, a single tear escaping the corner of his eye.
"Who did?"
"Mommy," Leo choked out, his voice barely a whisper. "She said I dropped her crystal vase. She said I had to be punished in the secret room so Daddy wouldn't hear."
Maria’s blood ran ice cold.
"She broke your arm?"
"No," Leo sobbed, squeezing his eyes shut as a fresh wave of agony hit him. "My arm isn't broken, Maria. The bugs are biting me. She put the metal bugs on me and poured the hot white mud over them."
Maria didn't hesitate for another second.
She ran to the bathroom, throwing open the cabinets until her hands closed around a heavy pair of steel trauma shears used for cutting thick bandages.
She rushed back to the bed.
"This is going to be loud, mi amor," Maria whispered, her hands shaking as she wedged the thick bottom blade of the shears under the edge of the plaster near his wrist. "But I am going to get them off."
Maria squeezed the shears with all her strength.
CRACK.
The crude plaster snapped.
She wrenched the shears upward, violently tearing the cast down the middle. Large chunks of white plaster rained down onto the silk bedsheets.
Maria pulled the final piece away. She looked down at Leo’s arm, and a horrified, suffocated gasp violently escaped her throat. She dropped the heavy steel shears, clapping both hands over her mouth to stop herself from screaming.
Leo's arm wasn't broken.
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Instead, his delicate flesh was wrapped tightly in three heavy, industrial-grade steel zip-ties, pulled so agonizingly tight that the sharp plastic edges had sliced deep into his skin. The wounds were red, angry, and infected, completely hidden beneath the suffocating shell of the fake cast.
It was a slow, agonizing torture device designed to inflict maximum pain while leaving absolutely no visible evidence.
