CHAPTER 12 The Missing Minutes
Back at the hospital, Valeria watched the full video.
She did not blink.
She barely breathed.
The footage showed her at seventeen, running through a stairwell with newborn Emilia against her chest.
Hospital staff followed at a distance.
Elena cried and begged her to stop.
Valeria reached the roof.
She stood near the ledge.
The infant screamed in her arms.
Young Valeria looked terrified and disoriented.
“You said she was dead!” she shouted.
Elena took a step forward.
“Give her to me.”
“No!”
“You’re hurting her.”
“I’m protecting her.”
Then Valeria moved closer to the edge.
The video shook.
Someone filming had begun to cry.
Valeria pressed the baby against her chest and screamed at everyone to stay back.
Emilia stood across the room watching the recording.
Her face was expressionless.
Sebastián stood behind Valeria.
He did not touch her.
He had learned to wait.
On-screen, a doctor approached from the side.
Young Valeria turned.
Two orderlies grabbed her.
The baby slipped.
Elena caught Emilia before she hit the ground.
The footage ended.
No editing.
No missing final scene.
Valeria closed the laptop.
“I could have killed her.”
Natalia spoke carefully.
“You were seventeen, drugged, and told your baby was dead.”
“I stood on a roof with her.”
“You were trying to escape.”
“I moved toward the edge.”
Emilia finally spoke.
“Do you remember it?”
“No.”
“That’s convenient.”
Valeria looked at her daughter.
“I remember fear. I remember believing everyone wanted to take you. I remember waking up restrained. I don’t remember the roof.”
Emilia crossed her arms.
“Elena said you were diagnosed with postpartum psychosis.”
“I may have been.”
“She said Rebeca wanted to place me with another family, but Elena stopped her.”
“By taking money?”
Emilia’s jaw tightened.
“She used the money to raise me.”
“In secret.”
“To protect me.”
“From a mother who spent fifteen years believing you were dead.”
Emilia looked away.
The argument had no clean answer.
Elena had lied.
She had accepted Rebeca’s money.
She had erased Valeria from Emilia’s life.
But she had also raised the child.
Loved her.
Protected her from the Alcázar system.
At least, that was what Emilia believed.
Sebastián asked the question no one wanted to ask.
“Why did Elena contact Octavio?”
Emilia hesitated.
“She said he wanted to destroy Rebeca.”
“Octavio wants the company.”
“He said taking the company was the only way to destroy her.”
Natalia laughed bitterly.
“Every Alcázar calls greed a rescue mission.”
The federal prosecutor entered with new information.
Octavio had not disappeared alone.
Dr. Ríos was missing.
So were two executives from the fertility foundation.
More than twelve million dollars had been transferred from foundation accounts overnight.
Someone was dismantling the network and taking the money.
Valeria looked at Emilia.
“Did Elena plan this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You spoke to her tonight.”
“She changes locations.”
“Because she is afraid of Rebeca?”
“Because she is afraid of all of you.”
Valeria wanted to pull Emilia into her arms.
Instead, she kept her distance.
The girl did not owe her affection.
Blood did not erase fifteen years.
A nurse entered to check Nicolás.
When she unwrapped him, she paused.
“What is this?”
A small red mark had appeared behind the baby’s left ear.
Natalia moved closer.
It resembled a crescent.
Not identical to Gabriel’s.
But close.
Sebastián looked at the nurse.
“Could it be a birthmark?”
“It may have darkened after birth.”
Natalia stared at Nicolás.
Valeria saw fear in her eyes.
“What?”
Natalia shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
Natalia looked toward Rebeca, who sat behind glass in a secured interview room.
Then she looked back at the baby.
“When Gabriel was born, Rebeca said the mark proved he belonged to our family.”
Sebastián frowned.
“Our family does not have a crescent birthmark.”
Natalia’s voice dropped.
“Not your father’s family.”
She looked toward Octavio’s photograph in the case file.
“His.”
Valeria felt cold.
The independent test said Sebastián was Nicolás’s father.
But both tests had been conducted with samples processed inside systems connected to the Alcázars.
Sebastián understood.
“We test again outside the country.”
The prosecutor agreed.
Samples were sent under armed escort to laboratories in Texas and California.
No Alcázar employee handled them.
No family attorney received advance notice.
While they waited, Emilia stayed under protection at the hospital.
She refused to call Valeria Mom.
She slept in a chair beside Nicolás’s crib anyway.
At dawn, Valeria woke and found Emilia holding the baby.
The girl looked frightened.
“He has your eyes,” Valeria said.
Emilia looked down at Nicolás.
“Elena said Rebeca wanted me because I was compatible.”
“Compatible with what?”
“I don’t know.”
The California laboratory called first.
The doctor spoke directly to the prosecutor.
Nicolás was Valeria’s biological son.
But Sebastián was not the father.
Neither was Octavio.
The paternal match belonged to another man in the family database.
May you like
A man officially dead for nine years.
Sebastián’s father.
