The mafia boss’s baby cries nonstop when touched, until a poor nurse does the unimaginable.
The scream ripped through the mansion like a blade of metal slicing through the air. It ricocheted off the cream marble walls, climbed the coffered ceilings with antique gold, and hung there, unbearable, as if the pain had an echo of its own.
It wasn’t the capricious crying of a spoiled baby.
It was pure suffering.
In the center of that obscene opulence, little Emiliano Montoya, ten months old, writhed in his hand-carved ebony crib. The blanket—fine silk embroidered with gold thread—brushed against his skin, and his whole body reacted as if it had been burned. His fingers clenched into tiny fists; his cheeks, red; his eyes, watery.
To one side, Sebastián Montoya stared out the window, motionless, with the rigidity of a man accustomed to the world bending to his will. His impeccable suit did not conceal his weariness. His fortune—they say—exceeded four billion pesos, and his surname opened doors in offices and silenced whispers in alleyways. But there, in front of his son, he looked defeated.
Fifteen specialists had passed through that same room: pediatricians from private hospitals in Monterrey, neurologists who flew in from Europe, allergists with CVs longer than the highway to Toluca. They all got paid, they all filled out files, they all said the same thing:
—Clinically, he’s perfectly fine. The tests came back normal.
And the scream continued.
Sitting in an armchair, Valeria Torres, Emiliano’s mother and a former international runway model, was no longer the cover girl she looked. Her hair was haphazardly pulled back, she wore a wrinkled designer robe, and there were coffee stains on her sleeve. The dark circles under her eyes were like ink. She hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time for seven weeks.
“This is the last one,” Sebastian said, his voice as taut as a wire. “If this nurse turns out like the others… we’ll take her anywhere. And if no one gives me answers, I swear I’ll…” He swallowed the threat, but the whole house understood.
Outside, behind the iron gate that looked as if guarded by sleeping dragons, an old, white car climbed the slope, its headlights cloudy and its engine coughing. It wasn’t an armored truck, nor a German sedan. It was a 2009 Tsuru that sounded like it had been through a lot.
Ximena Salazar, a nurse at a public hospital in Mexico City, stepped out of the driver’s seat. Her shoes were comfortable and worn; her uniform, made of well-washed cotton. But her large, dark eyes were awake and alive, as if double shifts hadn’t stolen her soul.
The butler, Don Ernesto, opened the door without smiling. He gestured briefly for her to enter. Ximena walked across the polished marble floor that reflected her silhouette like a mirror. She didn’t stop to look at the enormous paintings or the crystal chandeliers. She had come for a suffering child, not for a museum.
Halfway down the hallway, a woman who seemed designed to intimidate awaited her: Victoria Montoya, Sebastián’s mother. She wore an ivory outfit, flawless pearls, and an expensive perfume that clung to her throat. Her gray eyes scanned Ximena from head to toe with undisguised contempt.
“Is this what’s left after wasting two million?” he said, with a cold smile. “My son brings a nurse from the public hospital.”
Ximena held his gaze. She had grown up jumping from one foster home to another; she knew the tone of those who believe the world belongs to them.
“I’m here for the baby,” he replied. “Not for your approval.”
Victoria’s lips tightened.
—Girl, you don’t know what house you’re standing in.
“I know there’s a child screaming in pain,” Ximena said calmly. “That’s all that matters.”
Victoria took a step, just enough for the pearls to sparkle inches from Ximena’s face.
—If you cause problems in this family, I’ll make a call and you’ll never work in medicine again.
Then, a deep voice cut through the air:
—Mother. Enough.
Sebastian stepped out of the shadows. With a single word—a muted but sharp “go away”—he made Victoria back away. She left, her heels clicking on the floor like a countdown.
Sebastian looked at Ximena, and in his eyes there was something that wasn’t a threat: it was exhaustion.
—Follow me.
In his studio, surrounded by dark wood and the scent of leather, Sebastián made her wait in silence, as if silence were a weapon. Ximena didn’t move. She didn’t shrink back.
“Fifteen doctors were here,” he finally said, approaching. “Fifteen. They charged me. They let me down. If you’re going to waste my time…”
“Threatening me isn’t going to help your son, Mr. Montoya,” Ximena interrupted, without raising her voice. “I didn’t come for your money. I came for Emiliano. If you let me do my job, fine. If not, I’m leaving right now.”
Sebastian stood still. For a second, surprise softened his expression.
The door burst open and Valeria walked in, her eyes red.
—Please —she said, her voice breaking—. Save him.
Ximena lifted her gently.
—I’ll do everything I can. But I need one thing: an hour alone with Emiliano. No cameras, no people outside, no interruptions.
Sebastian hesitated… and nodded.
-One hour.
The baby’s room was a temple: ebony crib, heavy curtains, imported wooden toys. And in the middle of it all, the scream: Emiliano was red, sweating, as if the pain were seeping out of his skin.
Ximena didn’t touch the three-hundred-page file. She looked at the baby.
First she lifted him carefully. The crying continued, but lessened a little, as if the world hurt less in her arms. She laid him back in the crib: the scream erupted, fierce, immediate. She picked him up again: it subsided.
He repeated the gesture three times.
And then he understood.
The problem wasn’t Emiliano.
The problem was something in the crib.
She sat the baby in an armchair, securing him with a large pillow, and checked: wood, blanket, clothes, detergent. Everything normal. Until she saw, hidden in a corner, a small ivory-colored pillow, too plain, with a finely embroidered logo: Alhena Sedas.
As soon as she brought her closer, Emiliano screamed even louder. When she moved away, the crying subsided.
Ximena felt an icy blow to her stomach.
Valeria entered, her hope trembling.
—Is she… is she crying less?
Ximena lifted the pillow.
—Where did this come from?
Valeria blinked, lost.
—I don’t know… it appeared about two months ago. I thought it was a gift. Maybe from Victoria… or someone close to Sebastián. I never imagined…
Two months. Exactly since hell began.
Ximena put the small pillow in her briefcase. She said nothing more. But her mind was already racing.
In the hallway, she called a friend from college, now working in a toxicology lab at UNAM.
—Jimena Morales, I need an urgent analysis of a fabric sample. Today.
—Send it to me. I’ll reply as soon as I can.
As Ximena was putting away the small bag with the fabric scrap, an icy voice stopped her in her tracks:
—What does he do with that?
Victoria was behind her. Her gaze wasn’t just contempt. It was fear.
“I’m checking everything that touches the baby’s skin,” Ximena said.
—That pillow is very expensive. He has no right to cut it.
Victoria tried to snatch it away. Ximena held firm. A brief struggle. And then, suddenly, Victoria let go. She stepped back like someone who’s seen a ghost.
“You’re making a mistake,” she whispered, and left too quickly for someone so haughty.
Sebastian watched them from the corner of the hallway. His eyes were fixed on the pillow.
“Why did my mother want that?” he asked.
“That’s what I’m about to find out,” Ximena replied.
That night, Sebastian asked her to stay. Not as an order. As a confession.
At three in the morning, Ximena went down to the kitchen for water. Sebastián was there, alone, in the dark, with a glass of whiskey and his shoulders slumped.
“You’re not afraid of anyone here,” he said.
“I’ve seen worse than a rich man with a bad temper,” Ximena replied.
And, unintentionally, he told her the bare minimum about his childhood: orphanages, abandonment, feeling invisible.
Sebastian listened to her as if no one had ever spoken to him like that in his life.
—You’re different, Ximena.
—You too… from what they say —she replied.
At dawn, the phone vibrated.
“Ximena,” Jimena Morales said seriously. “Sit down. That fabric is impregnated with a slow-acting industrial irritant. Designed to cause inflammation and prolonged pain upon contact. It’s not sold in stores. Someone knew what they were doing.”
Ximena felt nauseous. They had tortured a baby.
She ran to find Sebastián. She found him in a secluded room of the house, talking to men in suits, his tone leaving no doubt that his power came from dark places. Ximena didn’t stop.
“Your son is being poisoned,” he said, entering.
Sebastian froze. Then he slammed his fist on the table and the wood creaked.
-Who?
—The pillow. I have proof.
He ordered a review of the purchases. Don Ernesto returned pale with a tablet.
—Sir… the pillow was purchased two months ago. From the account of… Mrs. Victoria Montoya.
The silence was deadly.
Valeria, upon hearing the news, collapsed into a chair.
—But… she’s his grandmother…
Sebastian stared into space, as if something ancient was breaking inside him.
“My father left a trust for Emiliano,” she said, her voice stern. “If he’s declared ‘unfit,’ guardianship passes… to the next in line.”
Ximena understood before he even said it:
—Victoria.
Sebastian took a deep breath, like someone who decides to stop being a monster so as not to become something worse.
“I’m going to call the prosecutor’s office,” he said. “And let the law take its course. Because if I do it myself…”
Ximena stopped him with her gaze.
—Don’t destroy what you’re trying to save.
Sebastian just nodded stiffly and walked out towards the east wing.
Victoria awaited him like a queen. She denied nothing. She mocked him. She said Emiliano was weak. She said the family needed control. And, in a blood-curdling turn, she uttered a phrase that opened a grave:
—Like when your father wanted to “go legal”… and they had to stop him.
Sebastian paled.
—The accident…?
Victoria’s smile was the confession.
When the agents arrived—a commander with a stern gaze named Mauricio Vega—Victoria shouted names, threats, “I know judges,” “I built this.” The handcuffs clicked shut. For the first time, the queen fell.
While that was happening, Ximena stayed with Emiliano. She washed him with warm water, removed any residue, and applied soothing cream. The baby cried weakly… and suddenly, as if the pain had finally subsided, he fell silent.
He looked at Ximena with enormous eyes.
And she smiled.
Valeria came in and covered her mouth, crying with relief. She hugged him with a gratitude beyond words. Sebastián appeared in the doorway, broken inside, and only asked, his voice hoarse:
Are you safe?
—Yes —Ximena said—. She’s safe now.
Two days later, with the house strangely empty, Sebastián summoned Ximena to the studio. He placed a check on the desk. An absurd amount.
—It’s the least you can do.
Ximena looked at him… and didn’t touch him.
“You can pay the whole world,” he said, “but your son was saved because someone saw the obvious. Because someone asked, ‘Where did that pillow come from?’ I don’t want to become someone who sees money before people.”
Sebastian looked at her as if he had been given a lesson that no one else had dared to teach him.
—So… what do you want?
—I want to leave knowing that Emiliano will grow up loved and protected. And if he truly wants to do something… use that power so that other children don’t suffer like he did.
Ximena went back to her life in Mexico City: night shifts, trucks, the hospital cafeteria. But a week later, Sebastián appeared outside the General Hospital, impeccably dressed and with dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she admitted. “I just know I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Ximena took him for a coffee in a Styrofoam cup, at a small restaurant with plastic chairs.
“One chance,” he told her. “One. If you fail, you lose me.”
Sebastian smiled, small, real.
Three months later, on a corner in Iztapalapa, a new, well-equipped, bright community clinic opened. No one said who financed it. But Ximena knew. Sebastián, little by little, began to bring his businesses out of the shadows. Not through perfect redemption—that doesn’t exist—but through daily choice.
Valeria signed the divorce papers without a fight. She remained a mother. She remained part of the family, just in a different way.
And Emiliano, at thirteen months old, ran through the gardens of Valle de Bravo shouting:
—¡Mena! ¡Mena!
Beneath a huge ahuehuete tree, Sebastian knelt with a simple, elegant ring, designed for a hardworking hand.
“You saved me with something as simple as a pillow,” she said. “And you saved me with the way you looked at me. Will you stay… so that this house can truly be a home?”
Ximena cried. Not like when she was a child and no one chose her. She cried like someone who, at last, was chosen.
-Yeah.
The wedding day was small. No fireworks or press coverage. Emiliano carried the rings on a small red cushion (new, clean, safe) and almost knocked it over twice, provoking laughter that heals.
And finally, in the parking lot, Ximena’s old Tsuru was parked next to Sebastián’s black car. He looked at her, amused.
—I can buy you any car you want.
Ximena shook her head with a smile.
—This reminds me who I am.
Sebastian hugged her from behind and whispered:
—And it reminds me why I changed.
In the mansion where once there had only been shouting, now the laughter of a child could be heard. Not because money had been won, but because someone, with keen eyes and a steadfast heart, saw the truth hidden in the most unexpected place.
