Sixteen-year-old Valentina sat on the floor, hugging her knees, crying silently. Around him were two open suitcases, hastily folded clothes, his schoolbag, his passport, and an envelope with money.
On the bed was a letter with Alexander’s name written on the front.
Valentina was wearing a long-sleeved sweater even though it was hot. Her face was puffy from crying. She clutched an old photo of Alejandro carrying her as a child.
The roses slipped from his fingers.
“My daughter… why are you packing?”
Maricela swallowed.
“Because they were about to take her away tonight, sir.”
“Who?”
From below, Renata’s laughter could be heard, brilliant, perfect, cruel.
Maricela replied almost in a voice:
“Your wife.”
Alejandro looked at Valentina again. She picked up the letter from the bed and hugged it to her chest, as if it were the only thing she had left.
And then Alejandro realized he hadn’t come back to surprise his family.
He had returned just before losing her forever.
What I was about to discover in that letter was something no parent could imagine without feeling ashamed of having arrived so late…
Alejandro opened the door.
—Valentina.
His daughter looked up and froze, as if seeing a ghost. Then she recoiled in fear, kicking a suitcase.
“Dad?”
“It’s me.”
Then she ran to him and clung to his neck with such desperation that Alexander nearly fell to his knees. It wasn’t the happy embrace of a daughter seeing her father return. It was the embrace of someone who had held on for too long.
“I thought you were in Spain,” she sobbed.
“I came back early.”
“You shouldn’t have gone back.”
That sentence hurt him more than any blow.
Alejandro took it off just to look at it. Then he saw the red marks on his wrist. They weren’t scratches. They were fingers.
“Who did this to you?”
️ Continue to the next page ️
