Chapter 3: While She Was Fighting to Live
The private hospital Alejandro used was forty minutes from the city center.
His convoy made it in twenty-two.
Camila was rushed through the doors before the vehicle fully stopped.
Alejandro walked behind the stretcher, his jaw set, his eyes never leaving her face.
Dr.
Reyes, his head of medical staff, fell into step beside him.
"We have an OR ready.
She's stable but barely.
The baby's heartbeat is irregular.
We need to operate now."
"Do whatever it takes," Alejandro said.
"Both of them.
You understand me?
Both."
"Yes, sir."
The doors swung shut between them.
Alejandro stood in the corridor alone.
He looked down at his hands.
There was bl00d on his left sleeve from where he had held her head off the cold floor.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then he took out his phone and called his assistant, Rodrigo.
"Tell me you have something."
"I have everything," Rodrigo said.
"Club Élite in San Pedro.
VIP section.
Mateo Salazar checked in at ten forty-seven.
He's been there all night.
He's with Valeria Montoya.
I have photos, timestamps, and a witness statement from the door staff.
His phone went to airplane mode at eleven-twelve."
Alejandro closed his eyes.
"Eleven-twelve."
"Yes, sir."
"Camila's call log shows she started calling at eleven-oh-nine."
Rodrigo said nothing.
"He put his phone on airplane mode three minutes after she started calling." Alejandro's voice was very quiet.
"While she was lying at the bottom of those stairs."
"Yes, sir.
That's what the timestamps show."
"Get me a full record.
Every call she made tonight.
Every rejection.
I want it printed, signed, and witnessed before morning."
"Already in progress."
Alejandro ended the call and sat down in the corridor chair.
The fluorescent light above him hummed.
A nurse walked past without looking at him.
He thought about the last time he had seen Camila.
Five years ago, at a dinner Mateo had hosted to celebrate a business deal.
She had been quiet that night.
Careful.
She kept her eyes on her plate whenever Mateo spoke.
Alejandro had noticed.
He hadn't said anything because it wasn't his place.
He should have said something.
His phone buzzed.
Rodrigo again.
"Sir.
One more thing."
"What?"
"The mansion's security system.
The gate log shows it was locked from ten-fifteen onward.
Standard evening lockdown.
The override code was only in Mateo's phone."
Alejandro stood up slowly.
"She couldn't have opened the gate herself."
"No ambulance could have gotten in without the code.
The only person who could have unlocked it remotely was Mateo."
The corridor felt very still.
"He was the only one who could have let help in," Alejandro said.
"And he turned his phone off."
"Yes, sir."
Alejandro set the phone down on the chair beside him.
He pressed both hands flat against his knees and looked at the OR doors at the end of the hall.
Somewhere behind those doors, Camila was fighting for her life.
And her baby's.
Because the man who held the gate code had been raising a glass to his last night of freedom.
Dr.
Reyes appeared at the OR doors forty minutes later.
He walked toward Alejandro without hurrying, which told Alejandro nothing.
"She's out of surgery," Dr.
Reyes said.
Alejandro stood.
"And the baby?"
Dr.
Reyes allowed himself a small exhale.
"A girl.
Early, but strong.
She's in the NICU.
Her lungs need support, but she's breathing."
Alejandro sat back down.
He pressed one hand over his mouth for a moment.
"Camila?" he asked.
"Recovering.
She'll need rest.
She lost significant bl00d and the fall caused a fracture in her left wrist.
But she will recover fully."
Alejandro nodded slowly.
He didn't speak for several seconds.
"Thank you," he finally said.
Dr.
Reyes turned to leave.
"Doctor." Alejandro's voice stopped him.
"No one contacts Mateo Salazar.
No one calls him, no one notifies him, no one tells him anything about tonight.
Not from this hospital.
Not from my staff.
Is that understood?"
Dr.
Reyes looked at him carefully.
"Understood."
The OR doors closed again.
Alejandro picked up his phone.
He opened a new message to his lawyer, a man named Gerardo Vidal, who had worked for him for eleven years and who had never once asked an unnecessary question.
The message was four words.
*I need you.
Tonight.*
Three seconds later, Gerardo replied.
*On my way.*
Alejandro leaned back in the chair.
The hospital was quiet around him.
Somewhere down the hall, a newborn girl was breathing her first hours of life in a room her father didn't know existed yet.
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By the time Mateo Salazar turned his phone back on, the world he thought he controlled would already be changing shape.
He just didn't know it yet.
