He didn’t scream.
He didn’t run.
He just started moving pieces with the precision with which others manage a war.
He called the state security secretary, a longtime ally of an investment group.
He asked for priority.
Subject description.
Vehicles.
Possible exits.
Cameras.
Meanwhile, his lawyers located the address of the woman Ramiro frequented when he disappeared for days on end.
A colony on the other side of the city.
The police were deployed.
But Alejandro didn’t just wait for reports.
It was him.
Not on impulse.
For something worse.
Out of necessity.
For years I had delegated almost everything to others.
This time I couldn’t.
He arrived with two units patrolling the area.
The house was a makeshift structure with curtains instead of doors.
There they found the second twin, lying in a bed, dehydrated and with a fever.
The woman said that Ramiro had offered her money to “look after the child for a few hours.”
Alejandro left there with the baby wrapped in his sack, feeling an unbearable weight in his arms.
It wasn’t just the child.
It was the certainty of how many times a misfortune can grow while everyone looks the other way.
The other one was missing.
And Ramiro was missing.
They located him an hour later at an old terminal, trying to board a bus.
The twin was crying.
Ramiro shouted that he was his son.
That no one could take it away from him.
That it was all a conspiracy.
Lucía saw the video on an officer’s phone and covered her mouth.
“He always does that,” she said. “He shouts loudly to make it seem like he’s right.”
The phrase left the adults around him speechless.
When they finally got the baby back, Mariana collapsed in relief on the hospital bed.
That night, with both twins safe and Lucía asleep for the first time in hours on a sofa, the prosecutor returned with news.
Ramiro would be charged.
But not only because of domestic violence and child abduction.
Also for fraud, forgery and possible collusion with third parties in the misappropriation of compensation.
Ricardo Morales had already disappeared from the supermarket before the end of the shift.
Alejandro smiled humorlessly.
—Let him run.
Teresa looked at him.
—He doesn’t seem surprised.
—I’m not. People like that always feel untouchable until someone turns off their music.
Three days later, Mariana was out of danger.
Still weak.
Still scared.
But alive.
When she was able to speak more calmly, she asked to see Alejandro.
He entered the room thinking she would thank him.
He was wrong.
Mariana looked at him for a long time before speaking.
—You look a lot like someone.
Alejandro felt a small internal jolt.
-Whom?
—To a woman I met years ago. I worked in a house in Tepatitlán. The lady was a cook. Very good. Her name was Elena Castillo.
Alexander didn’t blink.
Elena.
His mother.
Mariana barely smiled, her lips still pale.
—She helped me when I was fifteen. She gave me food, clothes… she told me that if I could someday, I should do the same for someone else. I never forgot her name.
Time seemed to shrink.
Alejandro took a while to breathe.
—She was my mother.
Mariana closed her eyes.
