CHAPTER 16 Elena’s Version
Valeria stared at her mother.
The fire scars changed one side of Elena’s face, but her eyes were exactly the same.
For years, Valeria had remembered those eyes as gentle.
Now she saw calculation in them.
Or perhaps she had simply learned what calculation looked like.
Clara stood close to Emilia.
She was small for seven, with dark curls and Sebastián’s gray eyes.
Valeria recognized him in the child immediately.
Sebastián saw it too.
His face broke.
“She is ours.”
Elena tightened her grip on the gun.
“She belongs to herself.”
Valeria looked at Clara.
“Does she know?”
“She knows I am her grandmother.”
“Does she know who we are?”
“No.”
Clara looked up at Elena.
“Grandma?”
Elena softened her voice.
“Everything is fine.”
Valeria stepped forward.
The gun rose.
“Stop.”
“You raised Emilia. You raised Clara. You had fifteen years to tell me the truth.”
“I had fifteen years to keep Rebeca from using them.”
“You worked with her.”
“I worked against her from inside.”
“You took her money.”
“I used her money to hide the children she created.”
“You told me Emilia died.”
“You were psychotic.”
“I was grieving.”
“You were standing on a roof.”
“Because all of you lied to me.”
Elena’s voice cracked.
“I watched you almost drop her.”
“And instead of getting me help, you erased me.”
“I saved both of you.”
“You decided what saving looked like.”
Elena looked at Sebastián.
“Your mother does the same thing.”
Sebastián’s jaw tightened.
“Do not compare yourself to her.”
“Why? Because I had less money?”
The question hung in the church.
Elena explained her version.
After Emilia’s birth, Rebeca offered to place the baby through a private adoption. Elena agreed because Valeria was unstable and the baby required medical treatment Elena could not afford.
Then Elena discovered Unit Seven.
She learned Rebeca planned to use Emilia’s condition as justification for creating genetically compatible siblings.
Elena took Emilia and disappeared.
But she remained connected to the network, pretending to cooperate so she could identify other children.
Years later, when Natalia was implanted with Valeria and Sebastián’s embryo, Elena helped Natalia deliver Clara.
Natalia had been heavily sedated and told the pregnancy ended.
Elena took Clara.
She claimed she saved the child from becoming a permanent medical resource for the family.
Natalia stood near the church entrance listening.
“You let me believe another baby died.”
Elena looked at her.
“I could not trust you.”
“You did not know me.”
“I knew what the clinic had done to your mind.”
“You became exactly like them.”
“No,” Elena said. “I got children out.”
“How many?”
Elena did not answer.
Clara began crying.
Emilia knelt beside her.
Valeria saw how natural they were together.
Sisters who had never been told they were sisters.
Sebastián slowly lowered himself to Clara’s height.
“My name is Sebastián.”
Elena aimed the gun at him.
“Do not.”
Clara looked at him curiously.
“You have my eyes,” he said.
Elena’s hand shook.
Police sirens sounded in the distance.
Emilia looked at her.
“You said we had time.”
“We did until you left the location on your note.”
Emilia turned toward Valeria.
“You called them?”
“Sebastián did.”
“You promised not to follow.”
“I never promised.”
Emilia’s anger returned.
“You always think being honest after the betrayal makes it better.”
Valeria flinched.
The accusation was deserved.
Elena moved toward a side door with Clara.
Natalia blocked it.
“You’re not taking her again.”
“She is safe with me.”
“She is my daughter too.”
Elena’s face hardened.
“You carried her. You did not create her.”
Natalia recoiled as though struck.
Valeria stepped between them.
“Do not reduce motherhood to genetics when your entire defense depends on raising Emilia.”
Elena looked at her.
For the first time, she had no answer.
Police surrounded the church.
The prosecutor called through a loudspeaker.
Elena had one minute to lower the weapon.
Clara covered her ears.
Valeria moved closer despite the gun.
“Give me the weapon.”
“You will let them take the girls.”
“I will not let Rebeca take them.”
“The government is not better.”
“Maybe not. But this cannot continue.”
“You think courts will choose you after the bruise video?”
Valeria stopped.
Elena smiled sadly.
“They will call you unstable. They will call Sofía a kidnapper. They will call Natalia institutionalized. Then they will place the children with the most respectable available guardian.”
Everyone looked toward Rebeca’s empty place.
Even in custody, she remained the most respectable woman in the room on paper.
Elena lowered the gun.
Then she handed Valeria a phone.
“Watch the video before you decide who the real enemy is.”
Police entered and arrested her.
Clara screamed for her grandmother.
Emilia tried to follow.
Officers held her back.
Valeria stood in the center of the church while both daughters cried for the woman who had stolen them.
On Elena’s phone was a recording made three days earlier.
Octavio stood in Rebeca’s study.
He said, “Once the babies are secured, Sebastián must disappear.”
Rebeca answered, “Not yet.”
Octavio smiled.
“You said the same thing about Alejandro.”
Valeria replayed the sentence.
May you like
Sebastián looked at the screen.
“My father did not die from cancer.”
