Part 2
Two days earlier, I pretended to be asleep while Patricia talked to Iván in the hallway.
“The sedative makes her useless,” he said. “We just need it to look like an accident.”
“And the baby?”
“If it survives, all the better. Álvaro will sign out of guilt. If not… we still win.”
I felt a chill run down my spine, but I didn’t cry. My father taught me something before he died: “Cruel people always talk too much when they think they’ve won.”
And Patricia talked a lot.
For years she called me a kept woman, weak, useless. She never knew I had studied forensic auditing. She never knew that, before marrying Álvaro, I worked investigating corporate fraud for commercial judges in Barcelona. She never knew that the patriarch Salvatierra’s will didn’t favor Álvaro… but rather the first legitimate grandson, under my guardianship until he came of age.
That’s why they wanted to break me.
Leaving the hospital after the emergency surgery, I put my plan into action. I sent copies of the messages to Inspector Vega, an old friend from my time in the judiciary. I installed discreet cameras. I recorded calls. And I switched a key piece of evidence: Iván’s suitcase.
I didn’t put anything illegal in it.
I put something worse for him: the original vial of hospital-grade fentanyl he had stolen, with his fingerprints, its batch number, and the receipt from the nurse he bribed. The police were already on his trail. I just let him walk into his own cage.
Patricia didn’t know that.
That afternoon, she pushed me into the living room in front of the maids.
“Poor Clara,” she said, stroking my shoulder with venom. “Always so fragile.”
I smiled.
“Yes. Fragile.”
She leaned close to my ear.
“Tomorrow you’ll fall down those stairs. And everyone will say it was your fault.”
I looked her in the eyes.
“Then make sure you smile properly.”
“Why?” “Because cameras hate nervous liars.”
For the first time, Patricia paled.
