Valeria was still there, sitting very upright, as if she were still hoping someone would remember her last name, her dress, her role in the magazines.
They read her her rights in front of the same window where, minutes before, she had been drinking wine.
She didn’t scream.
She didn’t break down.
She just looked for Alejandro, hoping he would save her one last time.
He didn’t.
When they took her away, she walked past me and murmured:
“This isn’t over.”
He might have been right.
But for her, one thing was ending.
Impunity.
That night, Alejandro sat in the kitchen, not the office. Without his jacket. Without his phone. Without that invisible armor powerful men use to avoid confronting the disaster.
Mateo was upstairs, finally asleep, after the doctor cleaned his wounds and gave him something for the pain. Claudia didn’t want to leave his side.
