Chapter 2 - The Locked Bedroom
I carried Isabella through the glass doors of the villa even though she insisted she could walk.
Her body felt too light in my arms.
That frightened me almost as much as the blisters on her hands.
Three months earlier, when I had left for Dubai, Isabella had been healthy, energetic, and constantly hungry. She used to steal strawberries from the refrigerator and hide the green stems beneath the cushions in the library. Now her cheekbones looked sharper, her wrists seemed thinner, and when I held her against my chest, I could feel every small breath.
Beatriz followed us into the house.
“Alejandro, you are overreacting,” she said. “She dropped one bag of garbage. Children get dirty.”
I did not turn around.
“Call Dr. Navarro.”
There was a pause.
“Our family doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Isabella doesn’t need a doctor.”
I stopped at the bottom of the staircase.
Beatriz nearly walked into me.
I looked back at her.
“I wasn’t asking for your opinion.”
Her face tightened, but she recovered quickly.
“You’ve just arrived. You’re tired. You don’t understand what has been happening here.”
“That is the first truthful thing you’ve said.”
I carried Isabella upstairs.
She kept her face buried against my shoulder until we reached the hallway outside her bedroom. Then her body suddenly stiffened.
“No,” she whispered.
I looked down.
“What is it?”
“I can’t go in there.”
“It’s your room.”
Her eyes moved toward Beatriz, who stood several steps behind us.
Beatriz folded her arms.
“Isabella has been sleeping in another room because she kept making a mess.”
I felt Isabella’s fingers tighten around the lapel of my jacket.
“Which room?”
Beatriz gestured toward the opposite end of the corridor.
“The small guest room.”
There were six guest bedrooms in the villa. None of them was small.
I carried Isabella toward the room Beatriz had indicated. She began shaking before I reached the door.
The handle would not turn.
It was locked from the outside.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then I looked at Beatriz.
“Why is there a lock on the outside of my daughter’s bedroom?”
She gave a small, impatient sigh.
“It isn’t what you think.”
“Open it.”
“I don’t have the key with me.”
“Open it.”
My voice had changed.
Beatriz recognized the tone. I had used it during negotiations when someone had one final opportunity to tell the truth before I destroyed the deal in front of them.
She reached into the pocket of her silk robe.
The key was already there.
She unlocked the door.
The room beyond it was not a bedroom.
It had once been used for storing extra linens. The windows were narrow, the curtains were closed, and the air smelled of damp fabric. A thin mattress lay directly on the floor. Beside it was a plastic cup, an empty plate, and a folded blanket.
There were no toys.
No books.
No family photographs.
Isabella’s school backpack sat in the corner beneath a pile of cleaning cloths.
I lowered her carefully onto the mattress.
She immediately pulled the blanket over the torn front of her dress, as if she were trying to make the room look presentable for me.
I could not breathe properly.
“This is where she sleeps?”
Beatriz remained in the doorway.
“Only when she misbehaves.”
“How many nights?”
“I don’t keep a record.”
Isabella looked down.
“Forty-three.”
Beatriz’s face lost color.
I sat beside my daughter.
“You counted?”
She nodded.
“I scratched them under the bed.”
I lifted the mattress.
Forty-three short lines had been carved into the wooden floor.
Some were deep.
Others were barely visible, as though Isabella’s hand had been too weak to finish them.
I stood slowly.
Beatriz stepped backward.
“Alejandro, she is manipulating you.”
I stared at her.
“My eight-year-old daughter locked herself inside a storage room for forty-three nights to manipulate me?”
“She was difficult. She refused to listen. She lied constantly.”
“What did she lie about?”
Beatriz hesitated.
“That you would come home and stop me.”
The answer did not come from Beatriz.
It came from Isabella.
Her voice was small, but it cut through the room.
Beatriz turned sharply.
“Be quiet.”
Isabella flinched.
I stepped between them.
“Do not speak to her again.”
Beatriz laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“You cannot come home after three months and decide I’m some kind of monster. You left me here to handle everything.”
“I left you with a housekeeper, a cook, two gardeners, a driver, and private security.”
At the mention of the household staff, something shifted in her expression.
It lasted less than a second.
But I saw it.
“Where is Marta?” I asked.
Marta had been our housekeeper for seven years. She had helped raise Isabella after her biological mother, my first wife Elena, died from complications following surgery when Isabella was four.
Beatriz looked toward the hallway.
“Marta quit.”
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“Why?”
“She stole jewelry.”
I did not believe her.
Marta had once found an envelope containing twenty thousand euros in cash beneath the seat of my car and handed it to me without opening it. She would not steal a necklace.
“What about Tomás?”
“The driver was dismissed.”
“And Rosa, the cook?”
“She went back to Seville.”
Every member of staff who knew Isabella well had disappeared while I was away.
That was not discipline.
It was preparation.
I took out my phone and called my head of security, Gabriel Cruz.
He answered on the second ring.
“Señor Valdés. We weren’t expecting you until—”
“I am at the villa.”
Silence.
Then his voice became careful.
“Is everything all right?”
“No. Lock every gate. No one leaves the property without my permission.”
Beatriz stepped forward.
“You cannot imprison me in my own home.”
“The villa is owned by a holding company in my name.”
“Alejandro—”
I raised one finger.
She stopped.
“Gabriel, bring me the security footage from the last three months.”
Another silence.
Longer this time.
“That may be difficult.”
“Why?”
“The interior cameras were disabled.”
“By whom?”
“I was told it was your order.”
“I gave no such order.”
Isabella looked up at me.
Her eyes widened.
Beatriz moved toward the door.
I caught her wrist before she reached it.
Not hard.
Just firmly enough to stop her.
“Where are you going?”
“To call my attorney.”
“You may call him from the library after Dr. Navarro examines Isabella.”
She pulled away.
“This is insane.”
“No,” I said. “This is the first moment in three months when this house has become sane again.”
A vehicle entered the driveway twenty minutes later.
Dr. Javier Navarro examined Isabella privately while I waited outside the bathroom door. Beatriz had been taken to the library, where Gabriel stood guard.
When the doctor emerged, his face was grave.
“She is dehydrated and undernourished,” he said. “She has infected blisters, bruising on both upper arms, and healing marks across her back.”
My vision narrowed.
“Marks from what?”
“I cannot be certain without further examination.”
Isabella’s voice came from inside the room.
“It was the belt.”
I closed my eyes.
Dr. Navarro placed a hand on my shoulder.
“She needs to go to the hospital. Today.”
I entered the room.
Isabella sat wrapped in a white bathrobe. Her wet hair had been brushed away from her face. Without the mud, the changes were even more obvious.
I knelt in front of her.
“Why didn’t you tell me during our video calls?”
She stared at the floor.
“Beatriz stood behind the computer.”
Every evening from Dubai, I had called my daughter.
Every evening, Isabella had smiled and said she was fine.
I had believed her because I had wanted to believe her.
“What did she tell you would happen if you spoke?”
Isabella’s lips trembled.
“She said she would send me away.”
“She couldn’t do that.”
“She said she had papers.”
“What papers?”
Isabella looked toward the bedroom door.
“The papers that said you didn’t want me anymore.”
I stood.
Beatriz had not merely frightened my daughter.
She had created evidence.
I returned to the library and found her speaking angrily into her phone. Gabriel stood near the window.
She ended the call when I entered.
“My attorney is coming.”
“Good. He can watch while the police search the house.”
Her face changed.
“You called the police?”
“Not yet.”
Relief flashed across her features.
Another mistake.
I walked to my desk and pressed the hidden release beneath the lowest drawer. A narrow compartment opened.
Inside, I kept copies of passports, property documents, and emergency cash.
The compartment was empty.
Everything was gone.
Then Gabriel approached me.
“There is something else,” he said.
“What?”
“One of the exterior cameras remained active. The system automatically backed up footage to a separate server.”
Beatriz stared at him.
Gabriel continued.
“It captured a vehicle entering the service gate several times while you were away.”
“Whose vehicle?”
He placed a tablet on the desk.
The image showed a black Mercedes parked behind the villa late at night.
A man stepped out.
Even from the grainy image, I recognized him.
My younger brother, Rafael.
The same brother I had trusted with access to my company, my accounts, and my daughter’s inheritance.
Gabriel swiped to the next image.
Rafael was not alone.
Beatriz came through the service entrance wearing a red dress.
She kissed him before they entered the house.
But the final image was worse.
Rafael was carrying a folder stamped with the seal of the Valdés Family Trust.
The trust that controlled everything Isabella would inherit if I died.
Beatriz looked from the screen to me.
Her fear disappeared.
In its place came something almost like satisfaction.
“You should have stayed in Dubai,” she whispered.
May you like
And for the first time, I understood that what had happened to Isabella was not the entire crime.
It was only the beginning.
