Chapter 2: The Man Who Should Have Stayed Dead
Esteban burst through the hospital doors, rain tearing at his clothes like the storm itself was trying to stop him.
Black wedding suit. White shirt soaked through. No tie. No past. No future.
Only one thing in his mind.
Yohandra.
Room 214.
The number echoed like a warning in his skull as he ran through the sterile hallway. Nurses turned, startled, but no one stopped him. Something in his face told them not to.
Blue door.
He slammed it open.
And froze.
Yohandra lay in the bed like the world had already given up on her.
Bruises marked her arms. Machines beeped weakly beside her. An oxygen tube rested under her nose, pushing air into lungs that struggled to accept it.
But when her eyes opened—
they found him.
For a moment, time stopped.
“Esteban…” she whispered.
His knees nearly gave out.
He grabbed the bed rail, voice shaking.
“What happened to you?”
Tears slid down her cheeks immediately.
“He found us.”
A cold silence dropped into the room.
Esteban swallowed hard.
“Who?”
Yohandra’s gaze shifted toward the door.
As if she expected death to walk in at any second.
Then she said it.
Quietly.
Destroyingly.
“Your father.”
Esteban laughed once—sharp, broken.
“My father is dead.”
Yohandra shook her head weakly.
“No. That’s what he made everyone believe.”
The monitor beside her sped up.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Esteban felt the world tilt.
Because there was only one man powerful enough to erase a woman from existence and still be called respectable afterward.
His father.
And the past he tried to bury… was standing right in front of him again.
Yohandra reached for his wrist, trembling.
“Don’t let him take our daughter.”
The words hit harder than any blow.
“Our… daughter?”
Footsteps suddenly echoed outside.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Coming closer.
Esteban turned toward the door.
The handle began to move.
Yohandra’s voice dropped to a whisper so soft it almost broke:
May you like
“He knows she’s your daughter.”
The door opened.
