Chapter 3 - WHAT THE CAMERAS SAW
There were fourteen security cameras around the villa.
I had installed them after an attempted burglary two years earlier.
Beatriz hated them.
She called them ugly.
Too intrusive.
Eventually, I allowed her to deactivate the indoor cameras.
Or so I thought.
When Adrian arrived that evening with a digital security specialist named Jonas, we discovered something strange.
The indoor cameras had never been fully disabled.
Their feeds had simply been removed from my phone.
“Someone changed the administrator permissions,” Jonas said.
“When?”
He checked.
“Eleven weeks ago.”
Two weeks after I left for Dubai.
I stared at the screen.
“Can you recover the footage?”
“Some of it.”
Beatriz appeared in the doorway.
She was dressed now.
Cream trousers.
Silk blouse.
Perfect makeup.
No fear visible.
“What exactly are these people doing in our home?”
Adrian answered.
“Protecting Mateo’s interests.”
Beatriz gave him a cold smile.
“This is a marriage, Adrian.”
“Then I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”
Her eyes shifted toward me.
“I want them out.”
“No.”
“Mateo.”
“No.”
Jonas looked uncomfortable.
Adrian didn’t.
Beatriz stepped closer.
“You are allowing strangers to invade our privacy because a child didn’t want to take out the trash.”
That sentence finished something inside me.
Not my marriage.
That was already dying.
Something deeper.
My willingness to doubt myself.
I turned back to Jonas.
“Keep going.”
It took thirty-two minutes.
Then the first recovered file opened.
Kitchen.
Eleven days earlier.
Isabella stood beside the breakfast table in her school uniform.
Beatriz sat drinking coffee.
There was no sound.
But we didn’t need it.
Isabella reached for a piece of toast.
Beatriz slapped her hand away.
My daughter pulled back.
Beatriz pointed toward the floor.
Isabella knelt.
The footage jumped.
Twenty minutes later, she was still kneeling.
Adrian swore under his breath.
Beatriz laughed.
“You don’t even know what happened before that.”
Jonas opened another file.
Laundry room.
Eight days earlier.
Isabella struggled to carry a basket.
She dropped it.
Beatriz appeared.
She grabbed Isabella by the arm.
Not hard enough to leave an obvious mark.
Hard enough to make my daughter stumble.
My vision blurred.
“Stop.”
Adrian looked at me.
“You want us to turn it off?”
“No.”
I forced myself to breathe.
“Keep going.”
The next clip was worse.
Isabella stood in front of the pantry at night.
The timestamp read 10:43 p.m.
She opened the door.
She took a package of crackers.
Then she froze.
Beatriz entered behind her.
Isabella immediately put the food back.
Beatriz pointed upstairs.
My daughter obeyed.
Beatriz locked the pantry.
I turned slowly.
“Why was she hungry at ten forty-three?”
Beatriz’s confidence finally faltered.
“She had already eaten.”
“What?”
“A proper meal.”
“What did she eat?”
“I don’t remember.”
“It was eight days ago.”
“You expect me to remember every meal?”
“No.”
I looked back at the screen.
“I expect a mother to remember starving a child.”
“I did not starve her.”
“Then let’s ask Isabella.”
“No.”
Beatriz answered too quickly.
The room went silent.
Adrian looked at her.
“Why not?”
Beatriz’s eyes moved between us.
Then Jonas made a sound.
“Mr. Alvarez.”
He opened another file.
Not video.
Audio.
Recorded by the patio camera that afternoon.
Beatriz’s voice filled the room.
“I’ve basically got her working like a maid, and her idiot father has absolutely no idea.”
No one spoke.
Then another voice came through the speaker.
A man.
Low.
Familiar.
“You’re sure he won’t come back early?”
Beatriz laughed.
“Mateo never comes back early.”
My entire body went cold.
I knew that voice.
Adrian knew it too.
He stared at me.
“Mateo.”
I didn’t answer.
May you like
Because the man on the phone was my younger brother.
Alejandro.
