Chapter 3 - Shadows of the Past
The mansion was placed under absolute lockdown as night surrendered to the grey dawn of Mexico City. Regina was escorted to the study, where Alejandro sat behind his heavy desk, the amber bottle placed directly between them like a judge’s gavel.
"Who gave this to you?" Alejandro asked, his voice deathly calm.
Regina sat with her arms crossed, her eyes cold and defiant. The soft, caring woman Alejandro thought he had married seven months ago was completely gone, replaced by a ruthless socialite whose ambition knew no bounds.
"I have nothing to say without my lawyer present," she said coldly. "You have no real proof that I put that in his drink. Lucía could have planted it. She’s poor, Alejandro. A few thousand pesos from someone who hates you, and she’d plant whatever you asked her to."
"Lucía saved my son’s life," Alejandro replied sharply. "You tried to lock him away in an asylum in Toluca. Why? So he would be declared mentally incompetent? So he couldn't inherit his mother's estate?"
A faint, bitter smile touched Regina’s lips. "His mother's estate? That fortune belonged to the Arriaga family empire! Your late wife left fifty percent of her holdings in a trust exclusively for Emiliano, executable on his eleventh birthday—which is next month! If he was committed to a psychiatric facility for chronic, untreatable psychosis, control of that trust defaulted to you—and as your legal wife, to me if anything happened to you."
The truth landed in the room like a bomb. Alejandro felt a cold shiver run down his spine. It was never about a stepmother struggling to bond with a troubled boy. It was a calculated, cold-blooded financial execution.
Outside the study, Lucía sat by Emiliano’s bedside, gently placing cold compresses on the boy’s forehead. The sedative had calmed his body, but his sleep was still tormented by nightmares.
"Lucía..." Emiliano murmured, opening his eyes slowly. "Is... is the monster still inside me?"
Lucía smiled gently, wiping a tear from her cheek. "No, my brave boy. The monster was never inside your stomach. It was in the house, but your papa and I have chased it away. You are safe now. I promise you."
Emiliano reached out his small hand and gripped Lucía’s sleeve. "Don't leave me, Lucía. Please. Nobody believed me except you."
"I’m not going anywhere, Emiliano. I’ll stay right here."
Meanwhile, down in the security room, Ramiro was reviewing weeks of CCTV footage that Regina thought she had erased. But Ramiro was an ex-military intelligence officer; he restored the deleted files from the main server. The video clearly showed Regina meeting a shadowy figure in a black sedan outside the estate grounds every Tuesday night at midnight—exchanging envelopes of cash for small, dark packages.
Alejandro walked into the security room, his face dark. "Did you find out who she was meeting?"
Ramiro nodded grimly. "Yes, sir. The vehicle is registered to a former lab technician who was fired from a pharmaceutical corporation three years ago for illegal biochemical synthesis. His name is Mateo Estrada. And sir... there’s more."
Ramiro pressed play on an audio transcript retrieved from Regina’s encrypted messaging app, which their cybersecurity team had just breached.
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“Once the kid is in Toluca,” Regina’s recorded voice echoed through the speakers, “we increase the dosage in his hospital meals until his heart gives out. The doctors will attribute it to severe stress and psychiatric complications. Then Alejandro will be broken... and ripe for the final phase.”
Alejandro’s breath hitched in his throat. Regina wasn't just planning to destroy his son. She was planning to destroy them both.
