The heavy, broken sobbing of a four-year-old boy finally echoed into silence, replaced only by the rhythmic, shallow gasps of a child utterly exhausted by his own grief. Valeria remained kneeling on the cold marble floor for over twenty minutes, her knees aching, her bruised ribs throbbing beneath her oversized uniform, yet she refused to move an inch. She simply rested her chin against Mateo’s soft, unwashed black hair, her hand gently tracing circles along his small, tense spine.

It wasn't a bomb timer. It was the security override code for the mansion’s high-voltage perimeter grid—a system Alejandro had re-engineered specifically to trap intruders inside the central courtyard.

Heavy steel security shutters slammed down over every single window and exit of the library, plunging the room into total, pitch-black darkness, save for the emergency red strobe lights.

"System active," an automated robotic voice echoed through the estate’s intercom. "Intruders contained. Releasing high-density non-lethal sleeping gas in thirty seconds."

Panic broke out among the mercenaries. "The system's locked! We're trapped!" one shouted, firing blindly at the steel shutters.

From the shadows near the doorway, a small figure stepped forward. In his hand, Mateo held the manual override control panel he had pulled from the service wall. He looked directly at Scorpion with wide, fearless eyes.

"You're bad guys," Mateo said clearly, his voice echoing in the tense room. "And you're not allowed in our house."