Chapter 2 - THE FORBIDDEN HALLWAYAlejandro ordered every camera in the mansion reviewed before sunset.
By six o’clock, three security men were sweating in the control room, rewinding hallway footage from the last two years.
By seven, Alejandro had learned something that made his blood run cold.
There was no footage of the north wing.
None.
Not a broken camera.
Not a missing file.
Not a corrupted archive.
Nothing.
The entire wing had been removed from the mansion’s security system as if it did not exist.
Alejandro stood behind the technicians, one hand resting on the back of a chair so tightly his knuckles whitened.
“Who authorized this?”
No one answered.
His head of security, Ramiro Castillo, swallowed. “After Señora Lucía died, Doña Socorro said you wanted privacy. The rooms were sealed. We stopped monitoring them.”
Alejandro slowly turned. “I never gave that order.”
Ramiro’s face lost color.
Behind Alejandro, Valeria stood with Mateo asleep in her arms.
The boy had refused to let go of her all afternoon. Every time a servant approached, he flinched. Every time Doña Socorro’s footsteps sounded in the hall, his little body stiffened like a hunted animal.
Alejandro had noticed.
Valeria had noticed first.
Now the entire house seemed to hold its breath.
“Where is Socorro?” Alejandro asked.
“In the kitchen,” Ramiro said quickly.
“No,” Valeria said.
Both men looked at her.
“She left twenty minutes ago.”
Ramiro frowned. “That’s impossible. The gates—”
“She didn’t use the gates,” Valeria said. “She took the service corridor behind the laundry room.”
Alejandro’s eyes sharpened.
“How do you know?”
“Because she told me this morning not to ask questions.” Valeria shifted Mateo gently against her shoulder. “People who say that usually know which questions matter.”
Ramiro moved toward the door. “I’ll find her.”
Alejandro stopped him. “No. Lock the exits. Quietly.”
Then he looked at Valeria. “Take Mateo to his room.”
Mateo woke at once.
His eyes flew open. He grabbed Valeria’s sleeve with both hands and shook his head violently.
“No?” Valeria asked softly.
Mateo’s breathing turned fast.
Alejandro stepped closer. “Son, you need to rest.”
Mateo made a strangled sound and pointed again toward the north wing.
This time, he did not cry.
This time, his small face hardened.
Valeria recognized that look.
It was not fear anymore.
It was determination.
“He wants to show us,” she said.
Alejandro’s face became stone. “Absolutely not.”
Mateo began shaking.
Valeria looked at Alejandro. “He has been trapped with whatever happened there for two years. You can keep protecting him from the hallway, or you can help him stop being afraid of it.”
“Don’t lecture me about my son.”
“Then listen to him.”
The room went silent.
Ramiro looked at the floor.
No one had ever spoken to Alejandro that way and remained standing.
But Alejandro only stared at Mateo.
The boy’s eyes were locked on his father. Pleading. Begging without words.
After a long moment, Alejandro removed a key ring from his pocket.
“Fine,” he said. “But he stays with me.”
Mateo immediately turned into Valeria’s chest.
Alejandro’s jaw flexed.
Valeria spoke gently. “He’ll walk if I walk with him.”
That hurt Alejandro more than she meant it to.
Still, he nodded.
They moved through the mansion like a funeral procession.
Alejandro first.
Ramiro behind him with two guards.
Valeria in the middle, holding Mateo’s hand.
The north wing doors stood at the end of a long corridor where the lights seemed dimmer, older, untouched by life. A heavy chain crossed the carved wooden handles.
Alejandro stopped in front of it.
For two years, he had not opened those doors.
Behind them were the rooms Lucía loved.
Her music room.
Her reading room.
The nursery she had painted herself before Mateo was born.
After her death, Alejandro had ordered everything closed because the pain of seeing her world without her in it felt like a bullet that never stopped moving.
Or so he had believed.
Now he was no longer sure whose order had sealed the wing.
His hand trembled slightly as he unlocked the chain.
The doors opened with a groan.
Cold air moved out.
Mateo whimpered and pressed against Valeria’s leg.
The hallway beyond was dark.
Dust floated in the weak light from the open doors.
Alejandro stepped inside and found the switches.
Nothing happened.
“Power is cut,” Ramiro said.
“Why?” Alejandro asked.
Ramiro had no answer.
Valeria looked down.
Mateo was pointing.
Not toward the music room.
Not toward the nursery.
Toward the farthest door at the end of the hall.
A door painted white.
A door with a small gold plaque that read:
LUCÍA’S ROOM.
Alejandro stopped dead.
“That was my wife’s private sitting room,” he said. “Mateo never went in there.”
Mateo shook his head.
Then he tugged Valeria forward.
Alejandro’s voice was rough. “Mateo…”
But the boy did not stop.
At the door, Valeria knelt beside him.
“You want me to open it?”
Mateo nodded.
Alejandro inserted the key.
It did not turn.
He frowned and tried another.
Then another.
None worked.
Ramiro stepped forward. “Maybe the lock was changed.”
Alejandro turned slowly. “By whom?”
Before anyone could answer, a soft sound came from inside the room.
A thump.
Valeria’s blood chilled.
Mateo screamed and hid behind her.
Alejandro reached beneath his jacket.
Ramiro raised his gun.
The room was supposed to be empty.
Sealed.
Untouched for two years.
May you like
But from behind Lucía Ríos’s locked door, someone whispered one word.
“Mateo.”
