Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN IN WHITE
For one terrible second, nobody moved.
Mateo’s passport was missing.
That small blue booklet changed the meaning of everything. This was no longer only about secrets buried in rooms or recordings hidden inside walls. Someone had planned to remove Mateo from the country. Someone had planned it carefully enough to wait for the right moment, create the right crisis, and make Alejandro believe his son had become impossible to keep.
Valeria’s stomach turned cold.
“Where would she take him?” she asked.
Alejandro’s eyes stayed fixed on Esteban.
“My sister has a house near the private airfield.”
Esteban lifted both hands slightly. “Alejandro, listen to yourself. Isabel loves that boy.”
Mateo made a small sound.
Not fear this time.
Disgust.
Valeria looked down. “Mateo?”
The boy whispered, “She said Mamá went away because I was bad.”
Alejandro’s face changed in a way that made every guard take one step back.
Valeria quickly touched his arm.
Not to comfort him.
To stop him.
“Your son is still watching.”
Alejandro looked at Mateo.
The rage in his face cracked into grief.
He knelt.
Slowly.
Awkwardly.
Like kneeling was harder for him than commanding armed men.
“Mateo,” he said, “that was a lie.”
Mateo stared at him.
Alejandro’s voice shook. “Your mother did not leave because of you. She did not die because of you. Nothing that happened was your fault.”
Mateo’s eyes filled with tears.
But he did not run to his father.
Not yet.
Alejandro accepted that pain without looking away.
“Valeria,” he said quietly, “take him to the safe room.”
Mateo grabbed her skirt.
“No,” he cried. “No locked room.”
Valeria shook her head. “Not if he thinks it is punishment.”
Alejandro closed his eyes for one second.
Then he stood. “Fine. My office. Doors open. You stay with him. Socorro stays too.”
Doña Socorro sobbed, “Señor, please—”
“You will stay where I can see you,” Alejandro said. “After tonight, we discuss your fear. And your silence.”
She nodded, broken.
Esteban watched them with calculating eyes.
Alejandro turned to his guards. “No one hurts him. No one speaks to him. Keep him here.”
Esteban smiled faintly. “Still pretending you are civilized?”
Alejandro leaned close to him.
“No,” he said. “Learning.”
Valeria took Mateo toward Alejandro’s office. The room was large, lined with books and dark wood. A photo of Inés sat on the desk, half-hidden behind stacks of papers. Valeria wondered how many times Alejandro had looked at it without seeing what his wife had tried to tell him.
Mateo climbed into the leather chair and curled up.
Valeria sat on the floor beside him.
Doña Socorro stood near the wall, crying quietly.
For a few minutes, the only sounds were distant footsteps and muffled voices from the hall.
Then Mateo whispered, “White lady sings.”
Valeria turned. “What song?”
Mateo hummed softly.
Doña Socorro covered her mouth.
“What is it?” Valeria asked.
The housekeeper’s voice cracked. “It was Señora Inés’s lullaby.”
Mateo nodded. “White lady sings it wrong.”
Valeria understood. Isabel had not only used fear. She had used imitation. She had worn white, entered the room at night, played the recordings, sang the mother’s lullaby wrong, and told a grieving child he was bad.
It was cruelty dressed as care.
The office phone rang.
Valeria jumped.
Mateo hid under the desk.
The phone rang again.
Doña Socorro whispered, “Do not answer.”
Valeria looked through the open door. No guard stood close enough.
The phone rang a third time.
She picked it up.
A woman’s voice floated through the line, soft and elegant.
“Hello, Valeria.”
Valeria’s blood ran cold.
“How do you know my name?”
The woman laughed gently.
“In this house, dear, everyone important learns the names of people who might become useful.”
Isabel.
Valeria gripped the phone.
“Where are you?”
“With my grief,” Isabel said. “With my memories. With everything my brother tried to replace.”
“Mateo is not yours.”
A pause.
Then Isabel’s voice sharpened.
“Neither was he hers.”
Valeria looked at the photo of Inés.
There it was.
Not only betrayal.
Jealousy.
“You hated her,” Valeria said.
“I loved my brother before she came. I protected him. I understood him. Then Inés arrived with her soft voice and her saintly eyes, and suddenly she was the only person who could tell him no.”
Valeria saw Mateo watching from beneath the desk.
“So you helped Esteban?”
“I helped this family survive.”
“You tortured a child.”
“I disciplined a child who carried his mother’s weakness.”
Valeria’s hand shook with anger.
Before she could answer, Alejandro appeared in the doorway.
He held out his hand for the phone.
Valeria gave it to him.
“Isabel,” he said.
The line went silent.
Then Isabel whispered, “Alejandro.”
“Where are you?”
“You sound angry.”
“I am past anger.”
“You never saw what she was doing to you,” Isabel said. “She wanted to take Mateo away. She wanted to make you small.”
“She wanted him safe.”
“She wanted you alone.”
Alejandro looked at Mateo hiding under the desk.
“I am alone because I trusted you.”
That wounded Isabel. Valeria heard it through the receiver.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
Isabel’s breathing changed.
Then she said, “If you choose that maid over your own blood, you deserve what happens next.”
The line went dead.
Alejandro lowered the phone.
A guard entered, breathless.
“Señor, we found her car abandoned by the east road.”
Alejandro looked at him. “And Isabel?”
“Gone.”
The guard hesitated.
“What else?” Alejandro demanded.
The man swallowed.
“There was a child’s jacket in the back seat.”
Mateo looked down at himself.
He was wearing no jacket.
Valeria’s eyes widened.
“It’s not his,” she whispered.
Alejandro turned sharply.
“What?”
Valeria remembered the debt collectors. Her neighborhood. Her brother. Her family.
Her hands went cold.
“My little brother,” she said.
The room spun.
“Isabel doesn’t have Mateo.”
May you like
Her voice broke.
“She has my brother.”
