CHAPTER 4 — "THE MAN EVERYONE BELIEVED WAS DEAD WALKED INTO THE HOSPITAL… AND CALLED CARMEN HIS SISTER."
The assassin never had the chance to fire.
His wrist twisted violently.
CRACK.
The suppressed pistol hit the floor.
Before he could cry out, the stranger slammed him against the wall with terrifying strength.
Everything happened in less than three seconds.
The nurse screamed.
Doctors rushed into the hallway.
The children stared in disbelief.
The gray-haired man calmly picked up the pistol, removed the magazine, and slipped it into his coat.
Only then did he look toward Carmen.
His eyes filled with emotion.
"Carmen..."
His voice trembled.
"It's really you."
Carmen stared at him in confusion.
"I'm... sorry."
"Do I know you?"
The man's smile faded.
"No."
"I suppose you don't."
"The doctors told me what happened."
He slowly turned toward Mateo and Sofía.
"So these are your children."
Mateo instinctively stepped in front of his little sister.
"Who are you?"
The stranger knelt until they were eye level.
"My name is Alejandro."
"I'm your mother's older brother."
Silence swallowed the room.
Mateo looked back at Carmen.
"You never told us you had a brother."
Alejandro lowered his eyes.
"She couldn't."
"Because everyone believed I died twenty-six years ago."
Across the city...
Deep beneath the Montes de Oca mansion...
Rodrigo stood frozen inside the secret tunnel.
"You said Alejandro was dead."
Fernando nodded slowly.
"That's what we were told."
"His body was never found."
Rodrigo's pulse quickened.
"So if he's alive..."
Fernando finished the sentence.
"Then someone has been lying for decades."
Just then, Esteban received an encrypted message on his secure phone.
His face turned pale.
"They found Carmen."
Fernando looked relieved.
"For once, we aren't too late."
But Esteban wasn't finished.
"There was also an assassination attempt."
Rodrigo's blood ran cold.
"The children?"
"They're alive."
"Someone stopped the killer."
"Who?"
Esteban hesitated.
"The report says..."
"It was Alejandro."
Fernando's flashlight slipped from his hand.
The beam rolled across the tunnel floor.
"No..."
"It can't be."
General Hospital was immediately placed under police protection.
Detectives questioned nurses.
Security officers searched every corridor.
The captured assassin refused to speak.
Not even after investigators discovered a large payment waiting in an offshore account.
He repeated only one sentence.
"I failed."
"There will be others."
Late that night...
Alejandro sat alone outside Carmen's hospital room.
Rodrigo arrived twenty minutes later.
The moment the two men saw each other...
Neither spoke.
They studied one another carefully.
Rodrigo noticed the resemblance immediately.
The same dark eyes his mother once had.
The same crescent-shaped scar on the wrist.
The same stubborn expression.
"You saved them."
Alejandro nodded.
"I owed Carmen that much."
Rodrigo took a cautious step closer.
"My mother..."
"Lucía."
Alejandro closed his eyes.
"I've waited twenty-six years to hear someone say her name."
Rodrigo's voice shook.
"She was your sister."
"Yes."
"What happened to your family?"
Alejandro looked toward the hospital window where Carmen slept.
"For years..."
"I believed they were all dead."
"Until three weeks ago."
Rodrigo frowned.
"What changed?"
Alejandro reached into the inside pocket of his old leather jacket.
He carefully unfolded a yellow envelope.
"I received this."
Inside was a faded photograph of Lucía, Carmen, and Alejandro as teenagers.
Behind it was a handwritten letter.
The signature made Rodrigo stop breathing.
It was signed...
Lucía Montes de Oca.
His mother's name.
"But..."
Rodrigo whispered.
"My mother died twenty years ago."
Alejandro slowly looked up.
"That's what they wanted us to believe."
Rodrigo felt the world tilt beneath his feet.
"What are you saying?"
Alejandro slid one final document across the table.
It was a certified death certificate.
The name was correct.
The date was correct.
But one detail wasn't.
Under Cause of Death, someone had typed:
"Unknown Female — Identity Confirmed by Family."
Alejandro tapped the paper.
"There was never a DNA test."
"There were no fingerprints."
"No dental records."
"Only your grandfather's word."
Rodrigo stared at the certificate.
His hands began to shake.
"You think..."
Alejandro finished the sentence.
"I don't believe your mother ever died."
At that exact moment...
In a private office on the top floor of the Montes de Oca headquarters...
Doña Teresa unlocked a hidden safe.
Inside were dozens of confidential files.
Old hospital records.
Adoption papers.
Financial transfers.
She removed one thin folder marked only with a handwritten date.
June 14, 1998.
Inside lay a single photograph.
It showed a frightened young woman tied to a chair inside a small cabin.
Across the back, written in Fernando's late father's handwriting, were eight chilling words:
"Keep her alive until the inheritance is secured."
The woman's face was bruised.
But there was no mistaking her.
It was Lucía.
And the photograph had been taken...
May you like
Three years after the day the family claimed she had died.
END OF CHAPTER 4
