Had any of that been real?
In that house, I had always believed my greatest enemy was my mother-in-law. Her taunts, her comments, the way she stared at my stomach. I had secretly thought, “If I ever leave this house, it will be because of her.”
But the person truly planning to erase me was the man lying beside me every night.
I don’t know how long I sat on that floor. Eventually the office light went out. I heard the scrape of a chair, then footsteps. Instinct took over. I rushed back to the bedroom, slipped under the covers, and pretended to be asleep.
A moment later Javier came in. The mattress dipped as he sat down. His familiar cologne, mixed with tobacco, drifted over me. His arm reached toward me, and every muscle in my body stiffened.
“Elena, are you still awake?”
His voice was soft. I swallowed hard and forced my tone to sound sleepy.
“I got thirsty and went to the bathroom. I’m going back to sleep.”
He paused, then withdrew his arm.
“Sleep. We’re leaving early tomorrow.”
Soon his breathing deepened, but I lay awake all night staring into the dark, my mind burning.
The mountain road. The pills. The ravine. The mansion. The money.
And one thought rose above all of it:
I will go on that trip tomorrow. But I will not go to die.
By dawn, I had made up my mind. I would survive. I would protect myself. And I would make them pay.
The next morning I barely recognized myself in the bathroom mirror. My face looked hollow, my eyes swollen. My hands trembled as I opened my phone. Somehow, in the panic of the night before, I had managed to start a recording and capture Javier’s conversation. I listened to it. Every word was there.
It was proof.
