Chapter 5 - RED NAILS IN THE DARKDarkness swallowed the hidden nursery.
Valentina began to cry.
Mateo screamed.
Alejandro shouted Ramiro’s name, but the sound of rushing footsteps drowned everything else.
Someone hit Valeria from behind.
She stumbled into the crib, shielding Valentina with her body. Pain exploded through her shoulder, but she stayed standing.
A gunshot cracked in the passage.
Then another.
“Don’t shoot!” Alejandro roared. “The children!”
Valeria dropped to the floor, pulling Mateo down with her. She reached blindly into the crib, found Valentina, and lifted the little girl into her arms.
“Hold my belt,” she whispered to Mateo.
He obeyed.
Tiny fingers gripped the back of her uniform.
A shadow moved near the door.
Catalina’s perfume cut through the darkness.
White jasmine.
Cold and expensive.
“You should have stayed poor and quiet,” Catalina hissed.
Valeria kicked toward the voice. Her foot connected with someone’s shin. Catalina cursed.
Alejandro lunged.
A body slammed into the wall.
Ramiro shouted from the passage, “Backup power is cut! Someone killed the panels!”
Valeria crawled behind the rocking chair with both children pressed against her.
Mateo was shaking, but he did not let go.
“Listen to me,” Valeria whispered. “No screaming. Breathe like this.”
She placed his hand against her chest and inhaled slowly.
Mateo tried.
In the dark, with chaos around them, he tried.
Alejandro’s voice came from somewhere near the door. “Catalina, if you touch them—”
“You still don’t understand,” Catalina snapped. “They were never the target. You were.”
The emergency lights flickered.
Red light washed the room.
Catalina stood with a pistol in her hand.
Doña Socorro was behind her, crying.
Ramiro was bleeding from his forehead but still upright, weapon trained on Catalina.
Alejandro stood between Catalina and the children, unarmed now, his gun kicked across the floor.
Catalina’s red nails gripped the pistol.
The same nails Mateo had drawn again and again.
Valeria looked at Mateo.
His eyes were fixed on Catalina, full of old terror.
Catalina noticed.
Her smile returned.
“Poor little Mateo,” she said. “Still afraid of the dark room?”
Alejandro turned his head slightly. “What dark room?”
Catalina laughed. “Ask your son. Oh, that’s right. He doesn’t speak.”
Something changed in Mateo’s face.
Valeria felt it before anyone else saw it.
The child’s fingers stopped shaking.
He stood.
“Mateo, no,” Valeria whispered.
But he stepped out from behind the rocking chair.
Alejandro went still. “Son…”
Catalina pointed the gun lower, toward the floor near Mateo’s feet. “Back away, little prince.”
Mateo’s mouth opened.
For two years, fear had held his words hostage.
But sometimes one voice returns not because the fear disappears.
It returns because love becomes louder.
“She hurt Mamá,” Mateo said.
The room froze.
His voice was small, rough, broken by disuse.
But it was real.
Alejandro staggered as if struck.
Mateo pointed at Catalina.
“She put Mamá in the car. Mamá was crying. She said, ‘Tell Alejandro the truth.’ Then red nails closed the door.”
Catalina’s face drained.
Doña Socorro covered her mouth.
Mateo’s voice cracked. “Then loud sounds. Then Mamá didn’t wake up.”
Alejandro turned toward Catalina.
There was no rage in his face now.
Only devastation.
“Why?” he whispered.
Catalina’s eyes hardened. “Because Lucía was going to destroy everything.”
“What truth?”
Catalina’s smile trembled. “The truth that your legitimate businesses were finally clean. The truth that you were leaving the old alliances. The truth that your sainted wife convinced you to make this family weak.”
Alejandro took one step forward.
Catalina raised the gun.
Valeria moved at the same time.
She threw the heavy music box.
It struck Catalina’s wrist.
The pistol fired into the ceiling.
Ramiro tackled Catalina to the floor.
Alejandro caught Mateo and pulled him into his arms.
This time, Mateo did not fight.
He collapsed against his father.
For the first time in two years, father and son held each other.
But Valeria’s eyes were on Doña Socorro.
The old housekeeper was backing toward the passage.
In her hand was a phone.
Valeria shouted, “She’s calling someone!”
May you like
Doña Socorro ran.
And from somewhere deep beneath the mansion, an alarm began to wail.
