Chapter 2 - THE MONSTER IN THE MANSION
The suitcase lay on the wet concrete, its hard plastic shell cracked from the sudden drop. I didn’t care. The sound of my heavy luggage hitting the ground was nothing compared to the deafening roar of blood rushing in my ears.
Valeria froze, the stained plastic plate slipping from her fingertips and clattering against the garbage bins. Scraps of rice and gristle scattered across the cold cement like shrapnel. For a second, she looked like a ghost that had been caught lingering too long in the land of the living. Her eyes, sunken and ringed with purple bruises of utter exhaustion, stared at me as if I were a mirage born of her feverish desperation.
"Gabriel?" she whispered, her voice cracking like dry wood. It wasn't a question of joy; it was a sound of absolute terror.
She didn't run into my arms. Instead, she instinctively pulled little Mateo closer to her chest, trying desperately to shield his frail body with the ragged folds of her torn robe, as if she were afraid I was going to strike them or that my presence would bring down some new, unimaginable wrath upon their heads.
My heart wrenched in my chest, a physical pain so acute it felt like a knife twisting between my ribs. I scrambled forward across the damp concrete, dropping to my knees right beside them, ignoring the mud soaking through the knees of my traveling pants. I reached out with trembling hands, my fingers brushing her cold, dirt-smudged cheek.
"Valeria... my God, what is this? What is happening to you?" I choked out, tears finally breaking free, burning hot trails down my face. "I sent money. Every single month, I sent one hundred thousand pesos to Roberto. For three years! I told him to take care of you!"
At the mention of my brother’s name, Valeria flinched so violently that Mateo began to wail anew, a weak, pathetic cry that tore at my soul.
"Roberto..." Valeria choked out, the name tasting like poison on her lips. She looked toward the glowing windows of the massive three-story house behind us, where bass-heavy music thudded against the walls and guests laughed with careless, drunken abandon. "He... he didn't give us a single peso, Gabriel. After the first two months, the money stopped. When I asked him, he told me your ship had sunk, that you were missing at sea, and that the money I received was just a final severance from the company."
The world tilted on its axis.
"What?" I breathed, the word a hollow echo. "Missing at sea? I called him every week! We spoke on video!"
"He made me record videos in advance," Valeria sobbed, her whole body shaking violently now. "He said if I didn't smile and pretend everything was fine, if I didn't read the scripts he gave me, he would make sure we were thrown out onto the street with nothing. He brought his new girlfriend, Vanessa, into this house. They told me that if I wanted to stay, if I wanted to keep Mateo fed, I had to live in the servant's quarters behind the laundry room. But they stopped giving us food a month ago. They said we were parasites. Tonight... tonight they had a party for their friends. They threw out the leftovers, and I... I was just so hungry, Gabriel. My son was crying. I had no choice."
Every drop of blood in my body turned to ice. Then, the ice caught fire.
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The man who had promised to protect my wife and son like a brother—the man I had trusted with every drop of sweat I poured out on the violent, lonely ocean—was living like a king inside a mansion built with my blood, while my family starved in the dirt behind his garbage cans.
I stood up slowly. The grief inside me evaporated, replaced by a cold, calculating, terrifying fury. I wasn't a chief engineer anymore. I was a man whose life had been stolen, and I was about to collect the debt.
