Chapter 7 - The Unopened FileBy noon, the hospital had returned to a fragile, tense normalcy.
Vance was locked in a holding cell downtown, but my gut told me men like him didn't fall easily. They had tentacles everywhere—judges, politicians, and mercenaries willing to do dirty work in the shadows.
I walked into the pediatric ward.
Sofia was sitting up in her hospital bed, eating a bowl of oatmeal that Lupita had brought her. Her feet were heavily bandaged, but color had returned to her cheeks.
When she saw me, she stopped eating, her big amber eyes watching me warily.
I pulled up a chair and sat down beside her, keeping my movements slow and gentle.
"How are your feet, Sofia?" I asked softly.
"They itch," she mumbled, looking down at her bowl. "When can I see my mom?"
My heart fractured all over again. How do you tell a seven-year-old hero that her mother is gone forever, sacrificed in a war she didn't even know she was fighting?
"Sofia," I said, my voice cracking slightly. "Remember when we talked about your mom coming to the hospital?"
She nodded slowly.
"She... she was very sick, Sofia. Even sicker than we thought. The doctors tried everything, but..." I swallowed the lump in my throat. "Your mom didn't make it."
Sofia didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
She simply set her spoon down, folded her small, bruised hands in her lap, and stared out the window at the grey sky. It was that terrifying, adult stillness again—the armor of a child who had lived through too much horror.
"I know," she whispered.
"You... you knew?"
"She told me before she fell asleep on Saturday," Sofia said, her voice completely flat. "She said if she didn't wake up, I had to be strong. She told me to find Dr. Rivera at the San Gabriel hospital because you were the only person in the world who would protect us."
A tear slipped down my cheek, hot and unbidden.
I reached out and gently placed my hand over her small, bruised fingers. "I am going to protect you, Sofia. I swear it on my life. You, Mateo, and Lucía. You're never going to be alone again."
She looked up, studying my face with those familiar amber eyes—eyes that looked back at me from the mirror every single morning.
"Are you my dad?" she asked suddenly, point-blank, with a piercing innocence that knocked the wind right out of my lungs.
I froze. I hadn't prepared for this question. How could I explain eight years of stolen time, lies, and corporate terror to a seven-year-old?
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed violently in my pocket.
It was an alert from my office computer. The encrypted video file on the USB drive—the one I hadn't opened yet—had just finished automatic decryption and uploaded a secondary backup to an external server.
And the file name had changed.
It was no longer a corporate ledger. It was a live security camera feed.
Live Feed: Pediatrics Ward - Room 312.
My blood ran instantly cold.
May you like
Room 312 wasn't my office.
Room 312 was the neonatal intensive care unit where Mateo and Lucía were sleeping.
