Chapter 18 - THE CHILD THEY TRIED TO ERASE
Their son was born seven weeks before Doña Esther's trial.
Mateo Javier Aranda.
Valeria chose Javier.
Alejandro agreed immediately.
The labor lasted eleven hours.
When Mateo finally cried, Alejandro covered his face with both hands.
Valeria watched him.
"Are you crying?"
"No."
She raised an eyebrow.
He laughed through tears.
"Yes."
The baby was healthy.
Small.
Loud.
Alive.
Alejandro held him carefully.
For months, people had discussed Mateo as an heir.
A shareholding problem.
A threat to control.
A reason to remove Valeria.
Now he was simply a child sleeping against his father's chest.
"He doesn't need any of it."
Alejandro whispered.
Valeria looked at him.
"Any of what?"
"The empire."
"The name."
"The expectations."
"He needs us."
Valeria smiled.
"That took you long enough."
Marcela visited under supervision.
She stood outside the nursery door.
"Can I see him?"
Valeria hesitated.
Then nodded.
Marcela approached the crib.
Her face crumpled.
"I'm sorry."
She whispered.
Not to Valeria.
To Mateo.
"I almost helped them take you away."
Valeria watched quietly.
Marcela had accepted a plea agreement connected to the cover-up and her role in the attack.
Her cooperation would be considered.
But consequences remained.
Valeria did not protect her from them.
Neither did Alejandro.
That was part of breaking the family pattern.
Love no longer meant hiding what someone had done.
Three days after Mateo's birth, Alejandro received a call from the prosecutor.
A search of Serrano's private archive had uncovered another recording.
This one was not Rafael's.
It was Doña Esther's.
Recorded during an argument years earlier.
In it, she mentioned Javier Mendoza by name.
She also mentioned the contractor hired to scare him.
The contractor had since died.
But Esther's own words tied her directly to the plan.
Valeria listened once.
Only once.
Then she turned it off.
"I don't want to spend my son's life listening to the voices that tried to destroy ours."
Alejandro deleted the copy from his phone.
The original remained with prosecutors.
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The past would be evidence.
It would not become their home.
