The man Mateo hated more than anyone in the world.
The man he had once called a brother, until Alejandro became richer, more respected, more disciplined, and impossible to control.
The man Mateo had forbidden Camila from speaking to ever again, because Mateo could never stand being around someone who saw through him.
Her thumb hovered for half a second.
Then she pressed call.
It rang once.
“Camila?” a deep voice answered, instantly alert. “What happened? It’s the middle of the night.”
“Alejandro…” she sobbed, the word breaking inside her throat. “I fell… the stairs… there’s blood… please help me… Mateo won’t answer… the baby…”
The silence on the line lasted less than a second.
Then his voice changed.
Not confused.
Not sleepy.
Terrified.
“CAMILA, listen to me. Stay with me. I’m coming right now.” She could hear movement, doors opening, men shouting in the background. “I’m bringing my medical team. I need you to keep talking. Do you hear me? Don’t close your eyes. Tell me where you are in the house.”
“In the foyer…” she whispered. “I can’t… I can’t feel…”
“You can. Stay with me. Put your hand on the baby if you can. Keep breathing. I’m six minutes away.”
Six minutes.
It sounded impossible.
But Alejandro was the kind of man who made impossible things happen when everyone else was still deciding whether it was worth trying.
Camila tried to answer him, but the phone slipped from her hand and clattered against the marble.
She placed one shaking palm over her stomach.
“I’m sorry, my love,” she whispered to her unborn child.
The chandelier above her blurred into white light. The cold floor seemed to disappear beneath her. Somewhere far away, Alejandro was still shouting her name through the phone.
Then everything went dark.
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And while Mateo was laughing in a private club with his mistress, thinking he still owned the night, the woman, the child, the mansion, and the future…
The man he hated most was already racing toward his gates with doctors, security, and enough power to rip open every lie Mateo had spent years building.
By sunrise, Mateo would discover that rejecting those 17 calls had not only cost him his wife’s last trust—it had handed his worst enemy the one thing Mateo had always believed could never be taken from him, and when he finally saw who was standing beside Camila’s hospital bed…
His worst enemy was standing beside Camila’s hospital bed… holding her hand like he had already decided he would burn the entire city down before he let her die again.
Mateo did not understand what he was seeing at first.
The hospital corridor smelled like antiseptic, rainwater, and coffee gone bitter from sitting too long on a burner. Nurses moved quickly past him. Security guards stood near the ICU doors with stiff postures and earpieces visible beneath their collars.
Not hospital security.
Alejandro’s security.
Mateo’s stomach tightened.
He had arrived forty-three minutes after finally turning his phone back on in the parking garage behind the club. Seventeen missed calls from Camila. Five from an unknown number. Three from the house security line.
And one message from Alejandro.
Get to Santa Elena Hospital. Now.
Nothing else.