Part I: The Traitor’s Echo
The beeping was like a steel wire piercing my soul. Beep… beep… beep… beeeeeeeeeeeee. That sound, sharp and endless, marked the end of Elena de la Vega. Or at least, that’s what they wanted to believe. As I felt my body sink into an induced darkness, icy and profound, my senses, heightened by maternal instinct, registered every movement in that Madrid hospital room.
I didn’t hear any crying. I didn’t hear the heart-wrenching scream of a man who had just lost his wife after twelve agonizing hours of childbirth. What I heard was a sigh. A sigh of relief that escaped the lungs of Rodrigo, the man I once called “my life.”
“Finally,” he whispered. His voice held no trace of pain, only a disgusting impatience.
Riding Motorbike Alone Across Laos – Beautiful Memories from LAOS – Nếm TV
“It’s over now, my son. God knows what He’s doing,” said Doña Bernarda, my mother-in-law. I could imagine her crossing herself with that hypocrisy that only she possessed, clutching her silver rosary while in her mind she was already counting the zeros in my bank account.
And then there was Sofia, his assistant… his lover. I felt the brush of her cheap perfume as she approached Rodrigo. “We did it, love. Everything is yours now. Everything is ours.”
At that moment, Dr. Salazar, my only ally in that viper’s nest, lowered his mask. His face was a mask of professional seriousness, but I knew that beneath his latex gloves, the plan was underway. “Time of death: 10:14 p.m.,” he declared firmly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vargas.”
Rodrigo didn’t even come near to kiss my cold forehead. He was too busy looking at his watch, anxious to call the notary. But Salazar didn’t leave. He turned around, looked at me for a second, and then addressed them with a chilling coldness. “There’s something else. The birth had unforeseen complications… but was successful in its origin. They’re twins.”
The silence that followed was so thick you could almost touch it. “Twins?” Rodrigo’s voice trembled, but not with joy. “The ultrasounds… only showed one.” “Nature sometimes hides from science, Mr. Vargas,” Salazar replied. “They have a boy and a girl. They’re in the NICU, fighting for their lives.”
From my sedative limbo, I watched as greed rearranged its pieces. Bernarda, ever quick, hissed: “Two heirs… that doubles our allowance as guardians, Rodrigo. Shut up and smile.”
They had no idea. Those hyenas were celebrating over my “corpse,” unaware that the nightmare was only just beginning for them. Because my story didn’t begin in that hospital bed. It began six months earlier, at our country house outside Madrid, when I discovered that the man sleeping next to me wasn’t a brilliant architect, but a patient killer.
I was the heiress to the De la Vega Hotels. After my father’s death, I was left alone in a world of sharks. Rodrigo appeared like a lifeline; he was charming, he talked about family, about values, about a future together. But the day we said “I do,” the mask fell. His mother moved in with us “to help with the pregnancy,” but soon the house was filled with shadows.
I remember perfectly the afternoon the veil fell from my eyes. I was four months pregnant. I went down to the kitchen, barefoot on the cold marble, and heard whispers in the dining room. “You have to hold on, Rodrigo,” Bernarda was saying. “The lawyer is clear: if you divorce now, the prenuptial agreement will leave you penniless. But if she dies… and there’s a child, you’ll run the empire as the legal guardian.” “She’s unbearable, Mama. So sensitive, so cloying. Sofia doesn’t want to wait in the shadows any longer.” “Tell that girl to be patient. The pregnancy is high-risk. A small slip-up with her vitamins, a little accumulated stress… and nature will do the rest. Just make sure she drinks the tea I make for her every night.”
My heart stopped at that moment. The tea. That brew with the flavor of rustic herbs that Bernarda forced me to drink “for the baby’s sake.” That night, instead of drinking it, I poured it into a pot of azaleas on the balcony. By dawn, the flowers were black, burned from the roots up.
That’s when I realized I couldn’t run away. If I tried to get a divorce, Rodrigo would use his charm and connections to have me declared unstable and take my son away. I had to play his game. I had to outsmart them.
I contacted Dr. Salazar, my father’s best friend. He analyzed the capsules Bernarda was giving me. “It’s poison, Elena,” he told me, horrified. “Powerful anticoagulants mixed with extracts that cause placental abruption. They’re planning for you to bleed to death during childbirth. We have to go to the Civil Guard.”
“No,” I told him with a determination I didn’t know I possessed. “If we go now, they’ll say it was a mistake, that the mother is a confused old woman. They’ll go free, and I’ll be on the run. I want them to believe they’ve won. I want them to be overconfident until the noose is around their necks.”
For months, I pretended. I wore makeup to create dark circles under my eyes, faked fainting spells, let Rodrigo yell at me and humiliate me while I recorded every word with microphones hidden in the mansion’s lamps. I learned to empty the poison capsules and refill them with sugar. I saw them smack their lips at the sight of me “weakened.”
On the day of the delivery, Rodrigo started a monumental fight. He yelled horrible things at me, smashed a vase near my feet, trying to make my blood pressure skyrocket. When my water broke, he didn’t call an ambulance. He sat finishing his glass of red wine while calling Sofía to tell her that “the big day had arrived.”
We arrived at the hospital at the last minute. But Salazar was ready. Together, we planned my “death.” An experimental drug that would slow my vital signs to the point of fooling any ordinary monitor, under the strict supervision of his trusted team.
And now, here we are. In room 402. The family’s lawyer, Attorney Valeriano, entered the room just as Rodrigo was trying to feign grief in front of the police who had just arrived following “death protocol”.
“Mr. Vargas,” Valeriano said in a voice like thunder, “before proceeding with any formalities, I must read the living clause your wife established three months ago.” “What clause? She’s dead!” Rodrigo shouted, losing his temper. “I’m the heir!”
—The clause is activated upon my clinical death —the lawyer continued, ignoring him—. It reads: “In the event of my death during childbirth, if twins are born, an immediate forensic audit is activated on every substance in my body and the digital files in the ‘Justice’ folder are released to the Attorney General’s Office.”
Rodrigo turned pale. Bernarda tried to back away toward the exit, but two officers blocked her path. “Mr. Vargas,” said the district attorney, appearing behind the lawyer, “we have recordings of you and your mother discussing the dosage of anticoagulants. We have the video of your lover celebrating Mrs. De la Vega’s death in this very hallway ten minutes ago.”
“It’s a lie!” Bernarda shrieked. “That bitch wanted to ruin us! We did everything for the family!” “It’s over, Mom,” Rodrigo stammered, collapsing into a chair.
It was at that moment that I decided the show was over. My fingers moved. My chest rose with a gasp of air that filled my lungs with real life. The monitor, adjusted by Salazar, once again displayed the rhythmic and powerful beat of a heart that refuses to give up.
I opened my eyes. The hospital light blinded me for a second, but when my vision cleared, I saw Rodrigo’s face, a picture of pure terror. He had literally peed himself. The puddle spread across the hospital floor as he crawled backward, as if he had seen the devil himself.
“Hello, Rodrigo,” I said in a voice that came from the depths of my strength. “How was the champagne?”
He couldn’t speak. He only babbled incoherently. “Ghost! It’s a ghost!” Sofia shouted, hiding behind the curtain.
“I’m not a ghost, darling,” I replied, slowly sitting up in bed with Salazar’s help. “I’m the woman who’s going to take the air you breathe.”
I looked at Bernarda, who was trembling like a leaf. “Your teas were rubbish, Mother-in-law. But thanks to them, my children will grow up knowing exactly what kind of monsters exist in the world. Officers, take them away. Attempted murder, conspiracy to commit fraud, and abandonment of a person.”
As they were being handcuffed, Rodrigo began to plead. “Elena, forgive me… it was her, it was my mother… she forced me. We have children, think of the children!”
“You have no children, Rodrigo,” I declared. “You have a sentence. Get out of my sight.”
When the room was empty, the silence was filled with the cries of two babies brought in from the incubator. Salazar placed them in my arms. They were perfect. They were my victory.
Part II: The Awakening of Justice
The weight of my children on my chest was the only medicine I needed. The boy, whom I would name Mateo after my father, had a small tuft of dark hair; the girl, Lucía, squeezed my finger with a force that reminded me that life always finds a way, even from the ashes of betrayal. While the nurses helped me settle in, Licenciado Valeriano stayed by my side, guarding the door like a watchdog.
“You’ve been very brave, Elena,” Dr. Salazar whispered, checking my vital signs. “Your heart rate is stable, but the physical effort of faking your own death while giving birth to two babies has been monumental. You need to rest.”
“I won’t be able to rest until I know they’re behind bars, Doctor,” I replied, without taking my eyes off my little ones. “What will happen now?”
“The prosecutor has everything he needs,” Valeriano interjected. “The recordings you made at the mansion are pure gold. You can hear Rodrigo planning the ‘accident’ and his mother boasting about how the anticoagulants were destroying you. Furthermore, the spontaneous confession they made a few minutes ago in this room, believing you were dead, was recorded by the security cameras we installed by court order. They have no way out.”
That night, the hospital was under heavy security. I knew Rodrigo had friends in influential places, but the magnitude of his crime was such that no one would dare vouch for him. While the city of Madrid slept under a blanket of stars, I lay awake, stroking my children’s cheeks and feeling, for the first time in months, that the air wasn’t poisoned.
Part III: The Trial of the Century
Three months later, the Palace of Justice was surrounded by cameras. The story of “the heiress who returned from the dead” had gone viral. All of Spain was in shock. I arrived on foot, dressed in impeccable white, holding my head high. I was no longer the fragile, haggard woman they had tried to destroy; I was Elena de la Vega, and I carried with me the legacy of my lineage.
Rodrigo entered in handcuffs, escorted by the Civil Guard. He had lost weight, his skin was sallow, and his gaze, once full of seductive arrogance, now reflected only the fear of a cornered rat. Sofía, his lover, wept inconsolably, trying to cover her face with her hair. But the one who struck me most was Doña Bernarda. The “pious” old woman had transformed into a bitter shadow, muttering curses under her breath as she clutched her rosary.
The prosecutor was relentless. He presented the sugar capsules I had substituted, comparing them to the samples of actual poison that Salazar had analyzed. He played the audio recordings. The courtroom fell into a deathly silence when Rodrigo’s laughter was heard in one of the recordings: “When Elena leaves, I’ll burn all her photos and we’ll turn the living room into a ballroom. Sofia, you will be the queen of this empire.”
When they called me to testify, I stood up. I looked directly into Rodrigo’s eyes. He lowered his gaze, unable to meet the eyes of the woman he had tried to bury alive.
“Your Honor,” I said firmly, “I am not seeking revenge. Revenge is a base sentiment that belongs to people like the accused. I seek justice for my children. I want the world to know that loyalty and love are not weaknesses, and that greed has a price they could not pay even with a hundred lifetimes.”
The verdict was unanimous. Rodrigo Vargas was sentenced to 30 years for attempted aggravated homicide, conspiracy, and fraud. Doña Bernarda, due to her role as instigator and her knowledge of herbal chemistry, received 25 years. Sofía, as an accomplice, was sentenced to 15 years.
Part IV: A New Dawn
Returning to the De la Vega mansion wasn’t easy. For weeks, I could still hear their voices echoing in the hallways. But I made radical changes. I sold the antique furniture, pulled up the withered plants in the garden, and filled every corner with white flowers, light, and children’s music.
The family business flourished under my leadership. I learned that being a good leader didn’t mean being harsh, but being fair. But my greatest success wasn’t the increase in the hotel chain’s profits, but seeing Mateo and Lucía take their first steps in the very garden where they once plotted my downfall.
A year later, I received a letter from prison. It was from Rodrigo. He asked for forgiveness, spoke of his remorse, and how he longed to see his children. I didn’t finish reading it. I threw it into the fireplace and watched as the fire consumed the last words of a man who never understood the meaning of family.
My children will never know what fear is. I will tell them the truth when they grow up, not as a tragedy, but as a lesson in survival. I will teach them that their mother died one night so that they could live forever in the light.
Today, as the sun sets over the rooftops of Madrid and I hear my little ones laughing in the next room, I look at myself in the mirror. I no longer seek shadows. I no longer dread evening tea. I pour myself a glass of wine, toast to my father who watches over me from somewhere, and smile.
Life is the most precious gift, and I made sure that no one stole it from me.
Part V: The Long Shadows
The victory in court was sweet, yes, but no one tells you about the emotional hangover that comes with surviving your own murder. The newspapers moved on to another story in a couple of weeks, but for me, the silence of the De la Vega mansion was deafening.
During Mateo and Lucía’s first year, I never slept more than two hours at a time. It wasn’t because of the babies crying—they were angels, calm and smiling—but because of my own nightmares. In my dreams, the heart monitor never beeped again. In my dreams, I saw Rodrigo and Bernarda taking my children away while my body grew cold on that stretcher. I would wake up drenched in sweat, running to the nursery with a kitchen knife in my hand, checking the windows, the locks, the shadows.
Post-traumatic stress disorder doesn’t care about bank accounts or legal victories.
Dr. Salazar, who had become a kind of adoptive grandfather to the twins, warned me about this during dinner on the terrace. It was a hot July night in Madrid. “Elena, you’ve won the war against them, but you’re losing the battle against yourself. Look at your hands.” My hands were trembling as I held the Rioja glass. “I can’t let my guard down, Doctor. Bernarda has tentacles. Rodrigo is a coward, but his mother… that woman knows people in the underworld. I feel like I’m being watched.”
I wasn’t crazy. My instinct, the one that saved my life, was still alert for a reason.
The hotel business was booming, at least on the surface. I’d thrown myself into my work to avoid thinking. I renovated the Gran Hotel De la Vega on the Castellana, turning it into the benchmark of luxury in Europe. I fired the entire board of directors who had been appointed through Rodrigo’s influence and replaced them with loyal people, young people, brilliant women who, like me, had been underestimated.
But then, the “accidents” began.
First, there was an anonymous health inspection at the Seville hotel on the very day of the April Fair. They found nothing, but the rumor damaged bookings. Then, a small fire broke out in the kitchens of the resort in Marbella. And finally, the letter.
It didn’t arrive in the mail. It appeared under Lucia’s crib pillow.
It was a simple note, written on cheap paper, in shaky but sharp handwriting: “The debt is not paid. Blood demands blood.”
That night, I didn’t call the police. I called Valeriano, my lawyer, and hired the best private security team in Spain, former GEO agents. If Bernarda wanted to play games from hell, I’d go down to hell and slam the door in her face.
Part VI: Chronicles from Hell
While I was fortifying my own life, Rodrigo’s life in Soto del Real prison was a very different story, one that I made it my mission to monitor through contacts. I needed to know he was suffering. It may sound cruel, but knowing that he was paying for every tear I shed was my fuel.
Rodrigo wasn’t cut out for prison. He was a “posh” kid, a man used to fine linen sheets and having breakfast served to him. In Module 4, he was a nobody. Worse still, he was “the child killer.” In the prison code, even murderers and thieves have red lines, and trying to kill your pregnant wife and children puts you at the very bottom of the food chain.
I received reports that Rodrigo was spending his days scrubbing the communal showers, “protected” by a local boss in exchange for all the money he had left in his commissary account. He had lost his hair, his picture-perfect smile had rotted from poor dental hygiene and stress. He cried at night, calling Sofia, calling his mother, calling me.
But the real story was in the women’s prison of Alcalá Meco, where Doña Bernarda resided.
Unlike her son, Bernarda didn’t break. She adapted. Like a cockroach surviving a nuclear holocaust, my mother-in-law found her niche. She used her devout old woman persona to win over the most naive civil servants, organizing the chapel’s rosary group. But behind the scenes, she trafficked in information. Bernarda knew secrets about half of Madrid thanks to the years she spent serving tea and eavesdropping at high-society parties.
It was Valeriano who discovered the connection. “Elena, we have a problem,” he told me one morning in my office. “We’ve traced the origin of the note that appeared in the crib. It wasn’t Bernarda directly. It was a messenger. But the order came from Alcalá Meco prison. Bernarda is selling secrets of your father’s former associates in exchange for favors outside of prison. She’s trying to destroy your business reputation so the stock price drops and a shell company can buy the chain for a song.”
“Which investment group?” I asked, feeling bile rise in my throat. “A front man. But we suspect that one of Bernarda’s former lovers is behind it all. A powerful man in the real estate sector who we thought was retired: Don Anselmo Cifuentes.”
Everything fit together. Bernarda wasn’t just seeking emotional revenge; she was trying to recover the money she believed was hers. Even imprisoned, her greed was the driving force behind her dark heart.
Part VII: The Ambush
I decided I wasn’t going to wait to be attacked again. I had learned that defense is for the weak; I was born to attack.
I organized a charity gala at the main hotel. I invited all of Madrid’s elite, including Don Anselmo Cifuentes, Bernarda’s supposed ally. I knew he would come. The curiosity and the arrogance of seeing the “merry widow” fall were too tempting.
On the night of the gala, the ballroom was resplendent. Crystal chandeliers, live violin music, and I, dressed in a blood-red velvet gown, greeted the guests with a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes.
My children were safe in a safe house in the mountains with Dr. Salazar and two bodyguards. I was the bait.
Don Anselmo approached me around midnight. He was a burly man, smelling of stale tobacco and expensive cologne. “Doña Elena,” he said, kissing my hand with a disgusting familiarity. “A magnificent party. It’s a shame about the rumors regarding the instability of your hotels.” “Rumors are like smoke, Don Anselmo,” I replied, looking at him intently. “They disappear if you blow hard enough. Or if you put out the fire that causes them.”
He smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. “Sometimes the fire is uncontrollable. Bernarda sends her regards, by the way. She says she’s praying for you.” “Tell her to save her prayers for her final judgment. And you, Don Anselmo, should worry about yours.”
At that moment, I signaled to the head of security. The giant screens in the hall, which displayed photos of the foundation’s charitable work, suddenly changed.
The music stopped. A murmur rippled through the room.
A video appeared on the screens. It wasn’t high quality; it looked like it had been recorded with a hidden camera or a smuggled cell phone. It was Bernarda, in the prison yard, talking to a corrupt lawyer. “Anselmo has to put pressure on the suppliers. Make them cut off the supply of fresh food. If Elena can’t feed people in her hotels, she’ll go under in a month. And tell him that 20% of the purchase will go into my Swiss bank account. He shouldn’t forget who introduced him to the Minister of Urban Planning back in ’98.”
The silence in the room was absolute. Don Anselmo paled, dropping his champagne glass, which shattered on the floor.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” my voice boomed over the loudspeakers. “What you have just witnessed is proof of a conspiracy to distort the free market and commit corporate fraud. The Civil Guard, who are waiting in the lobby, will be delighted to hear your explanation, Don Anselmo.”
It was a masterstroke. She had bribed a fellow inmate of Bernarda’s to record that conversation weeks earlier. She had waited for the perfect moment.
Seeing Don Anselmo being handcuffed in front of all of Madrid society was the final blow. But one thing was missing. They still had to look the beast in the eyes one last time.
Part VIII: Visit to Purgatory
Two days later, I went to Alcalá Meco.
The visiting room was cold, with that characteristic smell of bleach and despair. I sat down facing the bulletproof glass. Bernarda shuffled in. She had aged ten years in the last few months. Her plan had failed, her ally had fallen, and now she knew I was untouchable.
She sat down and picked up her phone. I did the same.
“You look tired, Bernarda,” I said. She spat at the glass. “Damn you, Elena. Damn you and your bastards.” “My children have names. And they have a future. Something you no longer have. I’ve spoken with the warden. Because of your attempt to coordinate crimes from within, you’re going to be transferred.” Bernarda’s eyes widened in panic. “Transferred? Where to?” “To a prison in the south. Solitary confinement. No cellmates to manipulate, no phone, no visitors. Just you and your thoughts, Bernarda. You’ll have plenty of time to pray.”
“You can’t do this to me! I’m an old woman!” “You’re a murderer. And this is mercy compared to what you planned for me. I let you live, Bernarda. Use that life to repent.”
I hung up the phone as she pounded on the glass, shouting obscenities that were muffled behind the security glass. I stood up, smoothed down my skirt, and left without looking back. Stepping out into the afternoon sun, I took a deep breath. The air had never smelled so clean.
Part IX: Ten Years Later
Time has a curious way of healing, not by erasing scars, but by making them part of your life map.
Ten years had passed since that night in the hospital. I was sitting in the garden of the mansion, watching Mateo and Lucía, now ten years old, running after our dog, a Golden Retriever named “Justo”.
Mateo had his grandfather’s analytical intelligence. Lucía had my temperament and my eyes. They were happy children, surrounded by love, art, and culture. I never lied to them about their father, but I waited for the right moment.
That afternoon, Mateo approached, sweaty and panting. “Mom, at school a boy said my dad is in jail because he was bad. Is that true?”
I felt a pang in my chest, but I was ready. I gestured for them to sit beside me on the stone bench. “Your father…” I began, searching for the words, “was a man who lost his way. He wanted things, material things, more than he wanted people. And when you love money more than your family, you make terrible mistakes. Yes, he’s in prison because he hurt people. He hurt me. But you are not him.”
Lucía looked at me seriously. “Did he love us?” “He didn’t know how to love, Lucía. That’s his tragedy, not yours. You are the fruit of my strength, not his weakness. You have my blood, the blood of your grandfather De la Vega, and above all, you have your own hearts.”
I hugged them. There was no more fear. Rodrigo had died in prison two years ago, in a fight over a gambling debt. No one claimed his body. Bernarda was still alive, but her mind was gone; senile dementia had trapped her in a loop where she relived her glory days, alone in a padded cell.
Sofia was released after serving part of her sentence, but no one wanted to hire her. The last I heard of her, she was working cleaning tables at a roadside bar on the coast, aged and bitter. In the end, fate put everyone in their place.
I never remarried. I had lovers, yes, good men who understood my independence and respected my past, but my heart was complete with my children and my mission. I had created a foundation for women at risk of social exclusion and victims of domestic violence. I used my experience and my fortune to give others the tools I had to forge in the dark.
Dr. Salazar, now retired, used to come every Sunday for paella. He was the only father figure my children needed.
That afternoon, as the sun set, painting the Madrid sky in shades of violet and orange, I looked at my reflection in the glass door of the living room. I saw the fine wrinkles around my eyes, marks of laughter and worries, marks of life.
I remembered the monitor’s beep. Beep… beep… beep… That sound that marked my end was actually my beginning.
I got up and called the children. “Dinner’s ready! I made dessert today.” “It’s not your burnt cookies!” Mateo joked, running towards the house. “Respect the chef!” I shouted, laughing.
I entered the house, closing the door behind me. The house was warm, bright, alive. And finally, completely mine.
