Chapter 2 - The Statue's SecretRosa's words hit me like a cement block.
"I have no family, Doña Rosa. I'm a widower," I lied, feeling battery acid in my throat.
"Better that way, my son. Better that way. In this house... young girls don't last long. The things one has to see and keep quiet about just to keep a job."
"What do you mean?" I asked, playing innocent, forcing a tone of casual curiosity.
Rosa looked toward the door, terrified that someone might be listening.
"A few years ago... there was a very sweet young girl. Hardworking. Her name was Elena."
Hearing her name in that house almost made me lose control. I had to clench my fists under the table to keep from breaking down in tears or screaming.
"What happened to her?" I managed to articulate, my voice a little hoarse.
"They fired her," Rosa said, and I saw her eyes fill with repressed tears. "But I know the señora did something bad to her. That night there was screaming on the back stairs. Then they sneaked her out. They said she had stolen some jewelry. Pure lies, Mateo. Pure lies. The señora is the devil himself when she thinks someone is staining her family name."
The confirmation burned my soul.
It wasn't just my imagination or Elena's delirium in the hospital. Everyone in that house knew, but money and power had gagged them.
That afternoon, when my shift ended, I took off my uniform in the staff locker rooms. The fabric felt like a second, poisonous skin. I left the exclusive area of San Pedro and took two buses to return to reality.
My house, on the outskirts of Monterrey, was in a dusty neighborhood where the running water was shut off every other day. The facade was half-painted, and the tin roof creaked in the wind.
I pushed the metal door open, and the silence of the house welcomed me like a cold embrace.
"Daddy?"
Sofia's little voice came from the back room. I left my keys on the table and ran toward her.
My little Sofia. She was barely three years old, but her tiny body was so fragile she seemed made of glass. She was lying in her small bed, surrounded by worn-out stuffed animals. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and she breathed with a constant wheeze—a perpetual reminder of the damage her lungs had suffered before she even took her first breath of air in this world.
The chemicals. The damn industrial acids they forced Elena to use in closed spaces to remove stains from the De la Vegas' marble floors. All of that had passed into my daughter's bloodstream, combining with the brutal trauma of her premature birth.
"I'm here, my princess," I said, kneeling next to the bed and kissing her feverish forehead.
"Did you bring the animal crackers?" she asked, with a weak smile that was identical to her mother's.
"Of course I did, my love."
I gave her the cookies and prepared her medicine. Each bottle cost almost a thousand pesos, and she needed three different ones every month. My chauffeur's salary barely covered that and food, but I didn't care. I wasn't there for the money.
While Sofia slept, I sat at the plastic dining table under the flickering light of a lone bulb. I pulled out my notebook. A worn, black notebook that I kept hidden beneath a loose floorboard.
It was my map to hell.
In those pages, I had drawn the floor plans of the De la Vega mansion. I had memorized every hallway, every security camera, every guard shift. I had discovered that the house's surveillance system had a blind spot on the back stairs—exactly where everything happened. Doña Victoria was cunning; she made sure there were no recordings of the hallway connecting the kitchen to the laundry room and the service entrance.
But everyone makes mistakes. And I was there to find hers.
The next day, I took advantage of the fact that Doña Victoria had a charity event that would last for hours. I dropped her off at a downtown hotel and returned to the house, using the excuse that I needed to check a strange noise in the SUV's engine.
The mansion was quiet. Mauricio wasn't there, and the maids were busy in the front garden.
I slipped through the service door, moving silently through the marble hallways that Elena had polished on her knees. My heart was pounding against my ribs, echoing in my ears. I knew that if they caught me prowling in the main area of the house, I'd be fired instantly, and my plan would crumble.
I reached Doña Victoria's private study. It was an imposing room, filled with mahogany bookshelves, Persian rugs, and antique furniture. The smell of beeswax and power hung in the air.
I knew what I was looking for. Elena had described it to me in the hospital, with her dying breath.
I walked slowly toward the main mantlepiece, next to the enormous stone fireplace.
And there it was.
The statue.
It was a solid marble figure, a replica of some Roman or Greek goddess, at least half a meter tall. Heavy. Lethal.
I approached it. My hands were shaking. I reached out and touched the cold, smooth surface of the marble. I closed my eyes, and for a second, I could hear Elena's screams. I could see the exact moment that despicable woman lifted this very stone and hurled it mercilessly against my wife's womb.
I grabbed the statue by the base. It weighed at least fifteen kilos. A blunt weapon disguised as art.
I turned it slowly. My eyes scanned the rough bottom. Doña Victoria had been meticulous about cleaning the blood, wiping away the evidence. But the help can't clean what the owners refuse to look at closely.
On the underside of the base, embedded in one of the marble's crevices, there was a minuscule stain. A dark, almost black spot. Rusted.
I didn't need a lab to know what it was.
It was my family's blood. It was the physical evidence of a murder disguised as a "workplace accident."
I placed the statue back in its spot, feeling my chest split in two. A solitary tear, hot and loaded with rage, slid down my cheek.
"Don't worry, my Elena," I whispered in the solitude of that cursed room. "I'm not taking this stone to the police. I'm going to use it to tear down their empire."
I slipped out of the study before anyone could see me.
That afternoon, when I picked up Doña Victoria from the event, she got into the SUV looking tired but triumphant.
"It was a very successful fundraiser, Mateo," she said, looking out the window. "Sometimes it's exhausting having to carry the moral responsibility of helping the less fortunate. Poor people just don't understand how difficult it is to organize these things."
I gripped the steering wheel. I locked eyes with her through the rearview mirror.
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"It must be a very heavy burden, Señora Victoria. Very heavy."
She nodded, missing the double meaning. Without realizing that the poison was already served, and I was going to make sure she swallowed it to the last drop.
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