Chapter 2: Gathering the Scraps
Alejandro stood up slowly, his tall frame suddenly looking rigid and unmoored as he stared between me and his mother. Doña Esther didn't raise her voice; she didn't need to. Her authority in this house was gravitational.
"Alejandro," Esther said, her tone smooth and steady as polished stone, "your wife is unwell. The pregnancy has made her prone to vivid delusions. Dr. Vance has been exceptionally patient with her episodes."
Alejandro looked down at me, searching my face for the lie he desperately wanted to believe. He loved his mother's approval more than he loved his own peace of mind; it was the foundation upon which he had built his entire adult life. When he saw the genuine terror in my eyes, hesitation flickered across his dark beard, but Esther stepped forward, placing a heavy hand on his arm. She guided him gently toward the heavy mahogany double doors, murmuring something about letting me rest.
The moment the heavy oak clicked shut, leaving only the muffled sound of their retreating footsteps in the corridor, I scrambled forward on the edge of the bed. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Ignoring the sharp, stinging pain in my legs, I dropped to my knees among the torn photographs scattered across the carpet.
I began gathering the pieces with frantic, trembling fingers. One fragment showed the license plate of the gray sedan driven by Thomas, our former chauffeur who had tried to help me slip away to the county line. Another showed my hand holding a crumpled diner napkin where I had written down the address of a women’s shelter four towns over. These weren't proof of an affair—they were the physical evidence of my imprisonment, every single one of them captured by the estate's ubiquitous security cameras and printed out for Esther's private review.
If Alejandro had found them in the study's false-bottom drawer, it meant Esther was beginning to slip in her organization, or worse, she wanted the confrontation to happen tonight. She wanted Alejandro to suspect infidelity so he would never look closer at the medical records.
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I pressed the jagged pieces of paper against my chest, closing my eyes as a fresh wave of nausea rolled over me. The room smelled faintly of lavender and the clinical antiseptic Dr. Vance used whenever he administered my bi-weekly "vitamin injections." I knew what those injections were now; I had seen the empty vial in the medical waste bin when the nurse left her tray unattended. It wasn't medicine. It was a sedative designed to keep my muscles weak, my mind foggy, and my compliance absolute.
Hearing the faint click of the door handle turning back around, I scrambled back onto the mattress, sliding the handful of photographs underneath the heavy down pillow just as the lock turned.
