CHAPTER 3 BENEATH ELENA’S BED
No one moved.
The alarm continued to howl through the mansion, but inside Elena’s bedroom, the world seemed to have stopped around one impossible word.
Bodies.
Alejandro stared at his son as if he had forgotten how to breathe.
Mateo stood beside the bed, one small hand pointing toward the floor. His lips remained slightly parted, trembling from the effort of speaking.
For two years, Alejandro had imagined the first word his son might say.
Papá.
Mamá.
Help.
He had dreamed of hearing laughter return to the boy’s voice.
Instead, Mateo had broken his silence with a warning from beneath a dead woman’s bed.
Alejandro slowly lowered himself in front of him.
“What did you say?”
Mateo’s eyes shifted toward Esteban.
The boy immediately stepped backward.
Valeria noticed.
She moved beside him and placed herself between Mateo and the head of security.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “You don’t have to repeat it.”
Alejandro’s face tightened.
“I need to know what he saw.”
“You need to make him feel safe first.”
“He just said there are bodies beneath this room.”
“And shouting questions will not make him say more.”
“I am not shouting.”
The fury in Alejandro’s voice made every guard in the room look away.
Valeria did not.
“No,” she said quietly. “But he can hear the anger.”
For a moment, Alejandro looked ready to order her out of the room.
Then Mateo reached for her hand.
That stopped him.
The boy pulled Valeria toward Elena’s bed.
It was enormous, framed in carved dark wood and covered by a cream-colored canopy. Dust lay across the untouched silk blankets.
Mateo dropped to his knees.
Valeria followed despite the pain stabbing through her ribs.
Alejandro joined them on the other side.
Esteban approached.
Mateo immediately began to shake.
“Stay back,” Valeria said.
Esteban’s expression hardened.
“This may be a threat to the entire estate.”
“It may be a threat from someone inside the estate.”
Alejandro turned toward him.
“Wait near the door.”
Esteban stared at his employer.
For the first time since Valeria had entered the mansion, she saw the head of security hesitate before obeying.
Then he stepped away.
Mateo reached beneath the wooden bed frame and pressed his fingers against one of the carved roses.
Nothing happened.
He pressed again.
Still nothing.
His breathing quickened.
Valeria studied the rose.
Its center was darker than the rest of the wood, worn smooth by repeated touch.
“Maybe it needs the key,” she said.
Alejandro looked toward her pocket.
The small golden key that had opened Elena’s bedroom was still in her hand.
Valeria inserted it into a narrow opening hidden between two petals.
A click came from beneath the floor.
The mattress shifted.
Alejandro grabbed the bed frame and pulled.
The entire bed slid sideways on hidden metal tracks.
A rectangular section of the wooden floor was revealed beneath it.
At its center was an iron ring.
Fresh scratches surrounded the edges of the trapdoor.
Someone had opened it recently.
Alejandro stood and drew his pistol.
“Turn off the alarm.”
Esteban spoke into his radio.
Seconds later, the howling stopped.
The sudden silence was worse.
Alejandro motioned to two guards.
“Open it.”
They gripped the iron ring and pulled.
The trapdoor rose with a low metallic groan.
Cold air rushed into the bedroom.
It carried the smell of damp concrete.
Old dust.
And something faintly sweet.
Valeria recognized the odor immediately.
Bleach.
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
Electrical lights glowed along the walls below.
The passage was not abandoned.
It was being maintained.
Alejandro looked at Esteban.
“You told me there was no underground passage.”
“I did not know about this.”
“You control every blueprint, renovation record, and security plan in this estate.”
“The original house is nearly seventy years old. There are sealed structures beneath several sections.”
“Then why are the lights on?”
Esteban had no answer.
Mateo tugged at Valeria’s sleeve.
He shook his head.
“No?” she asked.
He pointed toward the staircase and then covered his eyes.
“You don’t want us to go down?”
Mateo shook his head harder.
Alejandro looked into the darkness.
“If someone has been using this passage, we cannot ignore it.”
Valeria crouched beside Mateo.
“Did someone take you down there?”
The boy’s face changed.
His eyes emptied.
His body became rigid.
Valeria immediately regretted the question.
Mateo began rubbing his wrists.
Back and forth.
As if remembering something tied around them.
Alejandro saw the movement.
His face became murderous.
“Who took you?”
Mateo recoiled from the force in his voice.
Valeria caught his shoulders.
“Look at me.”
The boy could not.
She placed her hand over her own heart again.
“Feel this?”
Mateo stared at her hand.
“You’re here. In your mother’s room. No one is taking you anywhere.”
His breathing slowly eased.
Then he reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a small red toy car.
One wheel was missing.
He placed it on the floor beside the open trapdoor.
Alejandro picked it up.
“I bought this for him before Elena died.”
Mateo pointed downstairs.
Alejandro looked at the missing wheel.
“Was it lost down there?”
Mateo nodded.
That meant the child had been inside the passage before.
Perhaps on the day his mother died.
Perhaps afterward.
Alejandro rose.
“Esteban, send four men ahead.”
“No,” Valeria said.
Every face turned toward her.
She pointed toward the narrow staircase.
“If the person who opened the passage is still below, they already know we found it.”
“All the more reason to send armed men.”
“And if the tunnels connect to another exit, your men will chase shadows while whoever is inside escapes.”
Esteban folded his arms.
“What do you suggest, maid?”
“Lock every exterior gate. Search the grounds from the outside inward. Keep the passage quiet.”
“We already sealed the estate.”
“Your radios failed. Your cameras went dark. Someone climbed out of this room and opened a tunnel nobody supposedly knew existed. Are you sure the estate is sealed?”
A dangerous silence followed.
One of the guards lowered his eyes.
Alejandro looked at Esteban.
“Verify every exit personally.”
Esteban did not move.
“You want me to leave while you enter an unknown tunnel?”
“I want you to do what I ordered.”
Something flickered across Esteban’s face.
Resentment.
Then it was gone.
“Yes, señor.”
He turned and walked from the bedroom.
Mateo watched him until he disappeared.
Only then did the boy’s shoulders relax.
Alejandro noticed.
Valeria saw the pain in his face.
Trust was beginning to crack.
And in a world like Alejandro’s, broken trust usually ended in blood.
Doña Socorro was carried toward the door on the stretcher.
Before the doctor took her away, she grabbed Alejandro’s sleeve.
“Do not go down there alone.”
“You knew about the passage.”
The housekeeper’s eyes filled with guilt.
“Elena made me swear.”
“Swear what?”
“To protect Mateo.”
“From whom?”
Socorro glanced toward the hallway where Esteban had disappeared.
Then she looked at the guards surrounding them.
“I don’t know who is still loyal.”
Alejandro leaned closer.
“You will tell me everything.”
“If I survive the night.”
The doctor pushed the stretcher forward.
As she passed Valeria, Socorro reached beneath the blanket and pressed something into her palm.
A folded piece of paper.
Valeria closed her fingers around it before anyone noticed.
Then Socorro was gone.
Alejandro ordered two guards to remain with Mateo upstairs.
The boy immediately clung to Valeria.
“No,” Alejandro said. “You are injured.”
Valeria looked toward the open staircase.
“He spoke because he trusts me.”
“He is my son.”
“And he is terrified of nearly everyone in your house.”
The words wounded him.
She saw it.
But she did not take them back.
Alejandro looked down at Mateo.
The boy refused to release Valeria’s uniform.
Finally, Alejandro nodded.
“You stay between us.”
He gave one of the guards a flashlight and ordered the other to watch the bedroom entrance.
Then Alejandro entered the passage first.
Valeria followed with Mateo.
The remaining guard came behind them.
The staircase descended farther than she expected.
Twenty steps.
Thirty.
Forty.
The walls changed from stone to reinforced concrete.
Electrical cables ran along the ceiling.
Small security cameras had been installed at each turn.
Their red lights were off.
Someone had disabled them.
At the bottom, the passage opened into a long corridor.
Water dripped somewhere in the darkness.
The air smelled colder here.
Cleaner.
Too clean.
Alejandro shone his flashlight across the walls.
“This is not part of the original mansion.”
“No,” Valeria said. “Someone built this recently.”
The concrete was smooth.
Modern ventilation grates lined the ceiling.
A thin trail of wet footprints crossed the floor.
Bare feet.
Small.
Valeria’s stomach tightened.
They looked like the footprints of a child.
Mateo saw them too.
He stopped walking.
The red toy car fell from his hand.
“Were those yours?” Valeria asked.
Mateo shook his head.
Alejandro turned toward the guard.
“Someone else has been keeping a child beneath my house.”
The guard raised his weapon.
They followed the footprints.
The corridor divided into three branches.
One led toward the northern gardens.
Another continued beneath the mansion.
The third ended at a steel door.
A keypad beside it glowed green.
The small footprints disappeared beneath that door.
Alejandro approached.
“Do you know the code?” Valeria asked.
“No.”
Mateo stepped forward.
He stared at the keypad.
Then he pressed four numbers.
Seven.
Three.
Zero.
Six.
The lock opened.
Alejandro looked at him.
“What does that number mean?”
Mateo did not answer.
Valeria understood before Alejandro did.
Seven hundred and thirty-six.
The number of days since Elena’s death.
Someone had changed the code every day.
Someone had been counting.
Alejandro pushed the door open.
A bright white room waited beyond it.
There were no bodies.
Not at first glance.
There was a child’s bed.
A wooden table.
A sink.
Medical equipment.
Restraints hung from the sides of a padded chair.
A camera had been mounted in the upper corner.
The bed was unmade.
A bowl of soup remained warm on the table.
Someone had been there minutes earlier.
Valeria felt Mateo’s fingers tighten around hers.
Drawings covered one wall.
Hundreds of them.
Most had been made in black crayon.
A woman with a white flower.
A car filled with red.
A man wearing a snake ring.
A little boy trapped beneath the ground.
And beside him, in nearly every drawing, was a second child.
A girl.
She had long dark hair and a scar across one side of her face.
Alejandro slowly approached the wall.
“Who drew these?”
Mateo pointed toward the small bed.
A strand of long black hair lay across the pillow.
Valeria touched it.
Still warm.
The child had escaped only moments before they arrived.
A noise came from behind the wall.
A soft scrape.
Then breathing.
Alejandro raised his pistol.
“Come out.”
No response.
He approached a metal cabinet in the corner.
The sound came again.
The guard aimed his rifle.
Alejandro pulled the cabinet door open.
A man’s body fell out.
Valeria covered Mateo’s eyes.
The corpse struck the floor heavily.
He wore the uniform of Alejandro’s security team.
His throat had been cut.
His hands were tied behind his back.
Blood had soaked the front of his shirt.
Alejandro crouched beside him.
“Ramírez.”
The guard behind them crossed himself.
Ramírez had been one of the men assigned to the western gate.
According to Esteban, he had reported for duty that morning.
But judging by the stiffness in his limbs, he had been dead for at least a day.
Someone else had been wearing his uniform.
Mateo pushed Valeria’s hand away from his eyes.
He looked at the body.
Then he pointed at the dead man’s boots.
Alejandro removed one.
Inside was a folded sheet of paper sealed in plastic.
He opened it.
A list of names had been printed across the page.
Police commanders.
Judges.
Businessmen.
Politicians.
Several members of Alejandro’s own organization.
Each name had a date beside it.
Some were marked with a black cross.
Others with a red circle.
At the bottom was Alejandro Ríos.
Beside his name was tomorrow’s date.
Valeria read over his shoulder.
“What does the red circle mean?”
Alejandro folded the list.
“It means I am next.”
A small click sounded from the ceiling.
Valeria looked up.
The camera’s red light had turned on.
Someone was watching them.
Then a speaker crackled above the door.
A woman began humming.
Mateo’s face collapsed.
It was a lullaby.
Soft.
Beautiful.
Terrifying.
Alejandro stared at the speaker.
“Elena used to sing that to him.”
The humming stopped.
A woman’s voice filled the room.
“You should have listened to your wife.”
Alejandro raised his pistol toward the camera.
“Show yourself.”
“Your men searched for an enemy outside the gates while the enemy raised your son inside your own house.”
“Who are you?”
“You already know.”
“Luciana?”
The woman laughed.
“You keep asking the wrong question.”
The steel door slammed shut behind them.
The keypad turned red.
Gas began pouring through the ventilation grates.
The guard rushed toward the door and struck it with his shoulder.
It did not move.
Valeria covered Mateo’s mouth with the edge of her uniform.
Alejandro fired at the camera.
The lens shattered.
The woman’s voice continued through the speaker.
“Tomorrow, the Ríos empire dies.”
The lights went out.
In the darkness, Mateo pulled Valeria toward the wall of drawings.
He pressed his palm against the picture of the scarred girl.
A hidden panel opened.
Cold air rushed through the gap.
An escape passage.
Alejandro pushed Mateo and Valeria through first.
The guard followed.
Alejandro entered last as the gas thickened behind them.
The panel closed.
They crawled through a tunnel barely wide enough for an adult.
Valeria’s ribs screamed with every movement.
Behind them, something exploded inside the white room.
The tunnel shook.
Dust rained down.
Mateo crawled faster.
He knew the way.
After several minutes, they reached a ladder.
Alejandro climbed first and pushed open a rusted hatch.
They emerged inside an abandoned chapel at the edge of the estate.
The air outside was dark and cold.
Rain had begun falling.
Alejandro lifted Mateo from the hatch.
Valeria climbed after him.
As soon as her feet touched the chapel floor, she remembered the paper Socorro had given her.
She unfolded it beneath the weak light of a candle.
Only one sentence was written inside.
The girl below is Elena’s daughter. Do not let Alejandro find out who her father is.
Valeria read it twice.
Her hands began to shake.
Elena had another child.
A hidden daughter.
A girl imprisoned beneath the mansion.
She quickly folded the note before Alejandro could see it.
Then Mateo walked toward the chapel altar.
A white flower had been placed on the stone.
It was fresh.
Beneath it lay a photograph.
Alejandro picked it up.
The image showed Elena inside the underground room.
She was holding a newborn baby girl.
Standing beside her was Esteban.
His arm was wrapped around Elena’s waist.
On the back, someone had written a date.
Five years earlier.
Alejandro’s expression became unreadable.
Valeria could almost see the pieces connecting inside his mind.
The hidden daughter.
Esteban.
Elena’s secret.
The photograph trembled in his hand.
A gun clicked behind them.
They turned.
Esteban stood in the chapel doorway.
Rain ran down his face.
His pistol was aimed directly at Alejandro’s chest.
“I told Elena that room would be discovered eventually,” he said.
Alejandro slowly raised his own weapon.
“Is the girl your daughter?”
Esteban smiled sadly.
“No.”
Lightning flashed beyond the chapel windows.
For one bright second, the silver serpent ring gleamed on his finger again.
Then his eyes moved toward Mateo.
“But she is the reason your wife was murdered.”
A second figure stepped from the shadows behind Esteban.
A young girl.
Barefoot.
Thin.
Wearing a white hospital gown.
A scar crossed the left side of her face.
She looked almost exactly like the child in Mateo’s drawings.
Mateo stared at her.
The girl stared back.
May you like
Then she spoke one word.
“Brother.”
