Chapter 8 - THE SHADOWS BEHIND BARSHigh concrete walls topped with coils of razor wire cut the bright Madrid sky into jagged, unforgiving geometric pieces.
Inside the visiting room of Soto del Real correctional facility, the air smelled of industrial disinfectant and stale institutional coffee. The harsh fluorescent lights hummed a monotonous, soul-crushing tune.
Ramona Morales sat on the bolted metal stool on the other side of the thick plexiglass partition. Her hair, usually impeccably dyed and styled into a aristocratic silver bun, was now ragged and unbrushed. Her expensive cashmere shawl had been replaced by a coarse, gray prison jumpsuit that hung loosely over her frail frame.
She pressed her palm against the glass, her eyes bloodshot, glaring at the empty chair opposite her with a mix of fury and pathetic desperation.
The heavy steel door at the back of the visitor’s booth clicked open.
Luis walked in. He looked like a ghost of his former self—shoulders hunched, his designer suits replaced by cheap denim jeans and a faded sweatshirt. He dragged his feet as he sat down on the stool, picking up the heavy plastic telephone receiver with shaking hands.
Ramona snatched up her receiver instantly, pressing it so hard against her ear that her knuckles turned white.
“You took your sweet time getting here!” Ramona’s voice hissed shrilly through the speaker box, echoing with the remnants of her old tyranny. “Did you bring the legal papers? Did you talk to the appellate judge? How long am I supposed to rot in this hellhole while that ungrateful little viper lives like a queen in Madrid?”
Luis stared at his mother through the smudged glass. For years, decades, his entire life, those shrill demands had been his law. Every decision he made, every career move, every girlfriend he chose or discarded, had been filtered through the suffocating lens of his mother’s approval.
He didn't answer immediately. He just looked at her.
He saw the wrinkles around her eyes not as signs of wisdom, but as deep canyons carved by a lifetime of malice, control, and bitter isolation.
“Mom…” Luis finally spoke, his voice dead, flat, and hollow. “There are no appellate judges coming to save you. The lawyers won't take our calls because our accounts are frozen down to the last cent. The house in Vallecas is gone. It was auctioned off by the tax authority yesterday.”
Ramona froze. Her jaw dropped open, and the color drained entirely from her already pale face.
“Gone?” she whispered, her voice cracking over the speaker. “That house… our family legacy… my husband worked his entire life—!”
“Your husband’s legacy was built on fraud and extortion,” Luis interrupted, his voice surprisingly firm for the first time in his life. He didn't yell; there was no energy left for shouting. There was only a profound, crushing emptiness. “And you destroyed it. You destroyed everything because you couldn't bear the thought of sharing your control with anyone else.”
Ramona slammed her fist against the plexiglass partition, her face twisting into a mask of pure, unadulterated rage.
“I did it for you! You ungrateful, spineless coward! I built this empire so you could live like a king, and you let a common girl destroy us all because you couldn't even control your own wife!”
Luis slowly lowered his telephone receiver an inch from his ear.
He looked at the woman on the other side of the glass—the woman who had commanded his obedience, who had watched him stand by while she assaulted a pregnant woman, who had taught him that love was nothing more than a transaction of power.
He didn't feel angry anymore. He didn't even feel sad.
He just felt tired.
Slowly, deliberately, Luis placed the plastic receiver down on the metal console. The heavy clatter echoed through the booth.
May you like
Ramona shrieked something frantically into her side of the speaker, her mouth moving in silent, desperate fury behind the glass, banging her fists against the partition as guards began stepping forward to restrain her.
Luis stood up from the metal stool, turned his back on the visiting booth, and walked out of the prison room without looking back once.
