I came home from a late-night business trip and found my daughter washing clothes by hand in complete darkness. “They went on vacation,” she whispered. I asked her to roll up his sleeve. When I saw the bruises, I didn’t scream. / Chapter 6 / 20

Chapter 6 - The Retaliation

The shuttle van sped away from the curb in a spray of loose gravel, leaving the quiet street echoing with the screech of its tires.

Inside the house, the silence felt clean for the first time in eighteen months.

"They won't just go away, Gabriel," Roberto warned as we walked back inside. He placed his briefcase on the dining table and unclasped it. "Patricia has been cultivating ties with Licenciado Treviño and a few questionable private collectors in town. When a woman like that realizes her financial trap has sprung shut, she doesn't surrender—she tries to burn the house down from the outside."

"Let her try," I said. "What's our next move?"

"Tomorrow morning at eight-thirty, we file the formal criminal complaint for child abuse, forgery, and grand larceny with the State Attorney General's office," Roberto replied, pulling out three blue-bound legal folders. "I’ve already secured emergency subpoenas for Patricia’s bank records. Once the prosecutor sees the paper trail linking her to Treviño’s illegal notary seals, they’ll issue an arrest warrant."

"And until then?" Sofia asked quietly from the doorway.

Roberto looked at my daughter with a reassuring expression. "Until then, mija, you stay behind locked doors, surrounded by cameras and police escorts. Your father and I are going to tear down her network piece by piece."

That night, I stayed up in the living room, monitoring the four security camera feeds on my phone. At two in the morning, a dark sedan with its headlights turned off rolled slowly down our street. It paused for ten long seconds outside our front gate before speeding off into the darkness.