Chapter 1 - The Blood Beside the Crib
“Please… call an ambulance.”
I was on my knees beside my newborn son’s crib, one hand pressed against my lower abdomen and the other reaching toward my husband.
Sergio stared at the blood spreading across the cream carpet.
Then he looked at his suitcase.
He picked it up.
“You always do this when I have somewhere important to be.”
I grabbed the edge of the crib to keep myself from falling.
“Nicolás is crying.”
“He’ll be fine.”
“My doctor said I shouldn’t be alone.”
Sergio sighed as if I had asked him to cancel his entire life.
He had been standing in the nursery wearing the white shirt he had ironed that morning, dark trousers, expensive brown shoes, and the expression of a man already thinking about a party somewhere far away.
Valle de Bravo.
His thirty-fifth birthday.
Three days with his friends.
A private villa.
Champagne.
Paola.
I had known about the trip for weeks.
What I hadn't known was that I would be fighting to stay conscious while he walked away from me.
I looked down again.
The blood was no longer something I could pretend was normal.
Ten days earlier, I had given birth to Nicolás by cesarean section.
The recovery had been difficult.
My body still felt foreign to me.
Every movement hurt.
But I had been happy.
Terrified, exhausted, overwhelmed—but happy.
Nicolás was tiny.
His hands were always curled into little fists.
When he cried, I could forget everything else.
Even Sergio.
Especially Sergio.
Because something had changed in my husband during the pregnancy.
At first, it had been small things.
He complained about my appointments.
Then he complained about how much I rested.
Then he began asking about my mother's money.
My mother had died the year before Nicolás was born.
Before she died, she had placed 7.8 million pesos into a trust.
The money was mine.
More importantly, the trust protected the money from marital debts.
Sergio's company was drowning.
He never said that directly.
But I knew.
There were calls he took outside.
Letters he hid.
Bank statements that disappeared.
And then there were the papers.
Always papers.
“Just sign them,” he would say.
I stopped signing.
Two nights before his birthday, he had finally lost his patience.
“Are you seriously going to protect every peso from me?”
“It isn't yours.”
“We're married.”
“The trust is separate.”
His jaw tightened.
“And what about our family?”
I had looked at him across the dining table.
“Nicolás is my family.”
He hadn't answered.
That silence stayed with me.
Now, standing beside my baby's crib, I understood that silence differently.
“Sergio,” I whispered.
He was already walking away.
“Please.”
He stopped.
For one second, I thought he might turn around.
Instead, he reached toward the small table beside the door.
He picked up my phone.
I watched him place it on the high shelf near the dresser.
“Why did you put it there?”
“You've been obsessed with that thing.”
“I need it.”
“You need rest.”
“Sergio, please bring it back.”
He ignored me.
Nicolás began crying harder.
I tried to crawl toward the crib.
My vision blurred.
The room tilted.
I heard Sergio open the front door.
“Wait.”
Nothing.
The door closed.
I pressed my forehead against the carpet.
For several seconds, I couldn't move.
Then I remembered the tablet.
It was on the rocking chair.
I dragged myself toward it.
My fingers trembled so badly that I dropped it once before turning it on.
A notification appeared.
Instagram.
Sergio.
I opened it.
He was already in Valle de Bravo.
He was smiling.
Paola stood beside him.
A glass of champagne was in his hand.
“To thirty-five,” he said to the camera.
People laughed.
Then Paola lifted her glass.
“To finally learning not to let a woman ruin your life.”
I stared at the screen.
My baby cried behind me.
I tried to type a message to my brother Andrés.
Nico. Blood. Sergio left.
My fingers stopped working.
The screen blurred.
Then the tablet slipped from my hand.
I turned toward the crib.
Nicolás was still crying.
But his cries were becoming weaker.
I tried to crawl to him.
And then I heard something.
A sound from outside the nursery.
Three sharp knocks.
I froze.
Nobody should have been there.
May you like
Then the front door opened.
And a man's voice called my name—
