You’re not going to decide anything tonight.
—And who’s going to stop me?
-I.
There was a second of brutal tension.
Then the paramedic said, dryly:
—If you interfere, I’ll call the police and report negligence and obstetric violence. The choice is yours.
That time he did back down.
Out of cowardice.
Not out of conscience.
They carried the stretcher out in the rain.
Lucía followed behind, crying, with empty arms and a distraught look.
Then Alexander saw the following problem.
The twins.
The girl looked at the cardboard box and then at the ambulance.
Her face said the impossible: she wanted to run with her mother, but she couldn’t abandon the babies.
Alejandro made a decision without thinking twice.
—I’ll take the children. You get in with her.
Lucia looked at him suspiciously, terrified, as if even the help had a hidden price.
It was logical.
By that age he had already learned that he had almost everything in the world.
“I give you my word,” he said. “I’m not going to separate you from them.”
The girl swallowed.
He nodded.
The paramedics received Lucia in the ambulance.
Alejandro wrapped the babies in the least damp blankets he could find, picked up the box, and went out into the storm.
As he passed by the man, the man murmured:
—He doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.
Alejandro barely stopped.
—I know it better than you can imagine.
He left it behind.
In the private hospital, the speed of money did what misery never allows: open doors, doctors running, operating room ready, incubators, tests, antibiotics, blood.
The woman was admitted as an emergency patient.
Lucia stayed in a white room, sitting in a chair that was too big for her body, her hands reddened by the cold and her clothes still wet.
The twins, finally fed, slept nearby.
Alejandro watched the girl for several minutes without speaking.
She didn’t speak either.
He just stared at the door through which his mother had been taken away.
Finally, he sat down opposite her.
—What’s your mom’s name?
—Mariana.
—And that man?
Lucia took a while to respond.
As if saying his name could summon him.
—Ramiro.
—Is he your dad?
The girl denied it.
-No.
—The one for babies?
He nodded.
She remained silent again.
Alejandro waited.
I had learned years ago that sometimes silence asks more questions than words.
“My mom worked cleaning houses,” she finally said. “When she got sick, he said he was going to take care of her. Then he said he couldn’t work anymore because he had to be with the babies. After that, he started selling things. The stove. The fan. The working phone.”
-And you?
—I used to take care of my little brothers.
She said it with a nonchalance that broke your heart.
Did Ramiro hit you?
Lucia lowered her gaze.
He didn’t answer.
It wasn’t necessary.
Alejandro felt an old pressure in his chest.
A memory.
He didn’t invite her. She arrived alone.
She was eleven when she saw her own mother hiding a bruise with cheap makeup. She was twelve when she learned to recognize the sound of a slap on the other side of a wall. She was thirteen when the man who shared her last name left her at the hospital and said it was “just a slip.”
Her mother’s name was also Mariana.
It wasn’t the same face.
It wasn’t the same life.
But that absurd coincidence hit him where it hurt the most.
Perhaps that’s why she never married.
Perhaps that’s why he had built companies, hotels, towers, foundations and a reputation as an impeccable man, while inside he was still the child who one night understood that money doesn’t always arrive on time.
A doctor approached.
—Mr. Castillo.
Alejandro stood up.
Lucia too.
—The patient arrived with a severe infection after a complicated delivery. There was also a poorly managed hemorrhage. Frankly, a few more hours and we wouldn’t have made it.
Lucia started crying again.
“But is he alive?” asked Alejandro.
—For now, yes. She’s in surgery. There’s something else…
The doctor hesitated.
—She has injuries that are not explained by childbirth. Old and recent bruises. We suspect sustained physical violence.
Alejandro nodded only once.
He didn’t seem surprised.
Just colder.
—Activate protocol. Social work. Public Prosecutor’s Office. Child protection.
—It’s already underway.
Lucía heard that last sentence and was startled.
—No… don’t call the police… if Ramiro gets angry…
Alejandro crouched down to be at her level.
Listen to me carefully. This time he’s not going to be in charge again.
The girl watched him with a strange mixture of terror and need.
“Everyone says that,” he murmured. “Then they leave.”
That phrase did more damage than any reproach.
Alejandro opened his mouth.
She closed it.
Because he understood that promising was easy.
The hard part was staying.
And he didn’t know, until that moment, if he really intended to do it.
It dawned gray.
The hours dragged on amid signatures, calls, reports, and silence.
Around six in the morning, a woman in a sober suit arrived accompanied by a younger woman with a folder in hand.
The first woman introduced herself as Teresa Ibarra, a prosecutor specializing in domestic violence. The second woman identified herself as a social worker.
They weren’t improvising.
They came with data.
“Mr. Castillo, we appreciate you activating the protocol,” Teresa said. “We’ve already checked his background. The suspect, Ramiro Acosta, has two prior assault complaints, both of which were withdrawn. A neighbor reported hearing screams three months ago. And the most concerning detail…”
He opened the folder.
He took out a sheet of paper.
—The patient, Mariana Torres, left the hospital five days ago against medical advice. But she didn’t sign. The signature doesn’t match.
Alejandro stared at her.
—Did anyone take her out?
—It seems so.
Lucía, who was listening from her chair, whispered:
—He said they weren’t going to charge us anymore… that if we stayed, they were going to take our babies away.
Teresa turned towards her immediately.
Her voice softened.
—Lucía, did you hear that from him?
The girl nodded.
—And he said that Mom couldn’t talk to anyone because then they would ask her questions… and if she talked… he would take my little brothers away.
The prosecutor slowly closed the folder.
It no longer seemed like just another case.
Now it smelled of confinement, coercion, and terror.
And one piece was still missing.
By mid-morning, Mariana had come out of surgery.
He was still in serious condition.
But alive.
They left her in intensive care.
He couldn’t talk much.
Barely opening his eyes for short periods.
Lucia went in first.
When the girl took her hand, Mariana cried without tears, too weak to produce them.
Then he looked at Alejandro.
It took him a few seconds to focus on it.
And when she recognized him as the man who had brought her daughter, she tried to sit up, alarmed.
—No… no… he… the children…
“They’re fine,” said Alejandro. “Everyone is fine.”
Mariana closed her eyes, overcome by a relief that almost hurt.
The prosecutor asked for a few minutes alone with her.
Then he came out with a hardened expression.
“He’s going to file a complaint,” he said.
Alejandro didn’t ask anything.
Wait.
—Ramiro didn’t just beat her. He kept her isolated after she gave birth. He sold medicine. He kept money that an organization gave him. And there’s something worse.
Teresa lowered her voice a little.
—Last night he went back to that house because he was looking for some papers. According to Mariana, papers that prove the twins are not Ramiro’s biological children.
Alejandro frowned.
-As?
—She became pregnant by her legal husband, a driver named Julián Torres. He died seven months ago in an accident at a transportation company. Then Ramiro, a supposed friend, appeared, “helping” her. He entered her life, took control of everything, and began pressuring her to file a claim for compensation for her husband’s death.
Alejandro remained still.
Something in that part of the story clashed with a recent memory.
“Which transport company?” he asked.
Teresa checked the sheet.
—North Castle Logistics.
The hallway fell silent.
The social worker looked up.
Lucia didn’t understand.
But Alejandro did.
Too good.
Logística Castillo Norte was one of his subsidiaries.
He did not handle the day-to-day operations of each transaction.
He had hundreds of employees.
Accidents.
Insurance.
Processes.
But that surname in the file was no longer a distant coincidence.
Now he was going right through it.
“I need that file,” he said.
He asked for it in such a controlled voice that the prosecutor knew another dangerous door had just been opened.
In less than an hour, his lawyers sent him the documentation.
Julian Torres.
Thirty-two years old.
Driver.
Accident in loading yard.
Compensation approved, but withheld due to inconsistencies in guardianship and beneficiaries.
Transfer not completed.
File frozen.
And, as the main contact for “family support”, there was a name that made Alejandro clench his jaw.
Ricardo Morales.
The supermarket manager.
The same man who had mocked Lucia while she begged for milk.
He was not just a manager.
He was also listed as an external manager of a “social support” foundation that outsourced procedures for vulnerable families linked to the company.
Alejandro read the document twice.
Then a third one.
Each line made the previous night dirtier.
Ricardo had been close to Mariana’s file.
Ricardo knew who the family was.
Ricardo knew about the husband’s death.
Ricardo knew there were small children.
And yet he humiliated her.
Or worse.
Perhaps he recognized her.
Perhaps he enjoyed recognizing her.
Alejandro called his legal director.
—I want a full audit of the foundation and that file. Today.
—Sir, is there a specific problem?
—Yes. I think I have a network of vultures getting paid to get close to misery using my last name.
The voice on the other end faded away.
-Understood.
At midday, the police located Ramiro trying to leave the neighborhood with a backpack and documents.
But he wasn’t alone.
She was carrying one of the twins in her arms.
And the other one, according to the neighbor, he had left “in charge” of a woman no one knew.
The news hit like a knife.
Lucia became hysterical.
Mariana tried to pull out the train tracks.
The hospital was abuzz with tension.
Alejandro took charge.
He didn’t scream.
He didn’t run.
He just started moving pieces with the precision with which others manage a war.
He called the state security secretary, a longtime ally of an investment group.
He asked for priority.
Subject description.
Vehicles.
Possible exits.
Cameras.
Meanwhile, his lawyers located the address of the woman Ramiro frequented when he disappeared for days on end.
A colony on the other side of the city.
The police were deployed.
But Alejandro didn’t just wait for reports.
It was him.
Not on impulse.
For something worse.
Out of necessity.
For years I had delegated almost everything to others.
This time I couldn’t.
He arrived with two units patrolling the area.
The house was a makeshift structure with curtains instead of doors.
There they found the second twin, lying in a bed, dehydrated and with a fever.
The woman said that Ramiro had offered her money to “look after the child for a few hours.”
Alejandro left there with the baby wrapped in his sack, feeling an unbearable weight in his arms.
It wasn’t just the child.
It was the certainty of how many times a misfortune can grow while everyone looks the other way.
The other one was missing.
And Ramiro was missing.
They located him an hour later at an old terminal, trying to board a bus.
The twin was crying.
