Go to your room, gather your things, and wait until I decide what I’m going to do with you. And take off those ridiculous gloves. We’re serious people in this house, not clowns. Elena stood up slowly, calmly removing her yellow gloves, revealing her calloused, red hands. She looked at the children one last time. Nico was staring at her from the sofa with huge, wet eyes. Santi was still crying in his father’s arms. She just wanted them to lose their fear of falling.
“Sir,” she whispered so softly that Roberto barely heard her. “The only thing you’ve lost today is respect,” he replied, turning his back on her. “Get out.” Elena walked toward the service door, each step feeling like a defeat. Behind her, the twins’ crying grew louder, filling the house with a noise that was no longer joy, but a heart-wrenching plea. Roberto was left alone in the middle of his perfect living room with two children who didn’t love him and a victory that tasted like ashes.
At the end of the hallway, Doña Gertrudis’s shadow watched the scene, a twisted, cruel smile spreading across her aged face. The plan had worked perfectly, or so it seemed. The silence that Don Roberto so revered had been shattered, replaced by a cacophony of high-pitched, uncoordinated cries that reigned in the mansion. Nico and Santi weren’t crying like spoiled children wanting a treat. They were crying with the profound anguish of abandonment. Roberto sat on the edge of the beige leather sofa, his body rigid and his arms clumsy, trying to hold
Santi, who was arching his back with surprising strength for his size, was screaming toward the hallway where Elena had disappeared. At the other end of the sofa, Nico was pounding the cushions with his fists, his face red and streaked with tears and snot, rejecting any attempt at paternal comfort. “That’s enough!” Roberto shouted, but his voice, accustomed to giving orders in soundproofed boardrooms, broke down before the hysteria of his own children. Nico, Santi, silence.
Dad was here. But Dad was a stranger in a dark suit, smelling of expensive cologne, an intruder in his world of games and warmth. Roberto felt a pang of helplessness in his chest. He had millions in the bank. He controlled international companies, but he couldn’t stop two one-year-old babies from crying. He felt small, he felt like a failure, and that feeling of failure quickly transformed into resentment toward the one responsible for it all, Elena. It was in that moment of extreme vulnerability that the shadow appeared.
Doña Gertrudis didn’t walk, she glided. She entered the room with the precision of a predator that smells blood, carrying a glass of ice water on a perfectly polished silver tray. Her dark gray uniform was immaculate, without a single wrinkle, the stark contrast to the chaotic state of Elena’s life. Her face, etched with lines of bitterness concealed beneath a mask of efficient servitude, displayed a perverse satisfaction that Roberto, in his despair, failed to decipher. “Señor Roberto,” she said in a soft, smooth voice, placing the tray on the coffee table with a delicate clinking sound.
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