Chapter 2 - The Sound of the Law
The phone speaker trembled on the hardwood floor, echoing Dana Price's voice into a room that had suddenly grown smaller. Rodrigo lunged forward, his shoe slipping on a wooden train, but Teresa was faster. With a sharp gasp, she thrust Bruno into Paulina's arms and rose from her chair, her silk skirt swishing with calculated panic.
"Cut that call off, Mariana!" Teresa hissed, her fingers curling into claws. "You are bringing shame to this family over a hysterical hallucination. The boy is fine. He is just... sensitive."
"Sensitive?" I repeated, my voice steady in a way that terrified me more than it did them. "He has a bruise shaped like an old peach on his shin, Teresa. He is four years old, and he crawls away from his mother because he doesn't know what a voice sounds like when it isn't screaming or ignoring him."
Paulina clutched Bruno tightly, her face flushing a mottled red. "You have no right to come in here and play the martyr! Rodrigo told me you abandoned us, that you chose your boardrooms in Singapore over your own home. You forfeited your right to care about what happens in this house."
Rodrigo finally found his tongue, though it shook. "Paulina, shut up," he muttered, before turning his desperate eyes back to me. "Mariana, please. Let's not involve Dana. You know how these custody battles get—it will drag through the courts for months, destroy our reputations, affect the company stocks... We can talk about this like civilized adults. I'll let you see Emiliano more often."
"More often?" I stepped closer, looking past him to where my son was still whimpering beneath the table. "Rodrigo, look at him. He hasn't seen me in two years because you blocked my flights, because you told me every video call was glitching, because you redirected my letters to a PO box in the city. You didn't just lock me out; you buried him alive."
From the phone, Dana's voice cut through the rising panic like a surgical blade. "Mariana, I have notified the local family court duty judge. Child Protective Services and a court-mandated constable are currently five minutes away from your address. Do not let Rodrigo or Teresa move the child."
May you like
Rodrigo's face drained of the last trace of color. "You called CPS?" he choked out. "You absolute lunatic—do you know who my father's associates are? Do you know what this will do to us?"
"It will do what justice always does," I said, finally letting my gaze lock onto his. "It will strip away everything you built on top of my son's silence."
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