Chapter 3 - The Countdown
The second strike fell. Then the third.
Raquel knelt on the glowing floor, one arm wrapped tightly around her stomach, the other pressing against the icy marble for balance. Each blow felt like a line of liquid fire tearing across the blue fabric of her dress. Each breath she took scraped against her ribs like crushed glass.
"Let everyone see your true colors, Raquel," Mauricio said loudly, his voice steady. "A manipulative liar who tried to ruin my family."
She squeezed her eyes shut. She began to count in her head. It was the only way to keep her mind from shattering, the only way to prevent herself from completely passing out from the blinding pain.
Thirty-seven.
Thirty-eight.
Thirty-nine.
The baby kicked violently against her ribs. That tiny, frantic movement was the only thing anchoring Raquel to reality. It was a desperate reminder that her body still had one absolute mission: protect the child.
She looked up through the curtain of her messy hair. Near the stage, Doña Rebeca was calmly sipping her champagne, a thin, cruel smile playing on her lips. A few feet away, Emilio—Mauricio’s older brother and the family’s ruthless lawyer—was holding up his smartphone. He was recording the beating, not as evidence of a crime, but as a twisted trophy, capturing the exact moment the woman they hated finally broke. Paola, the youngest sister, watched with bright, fascinated eyes, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of her sister-in-law's destruction.
They thought they had won. They thought this public humiliation was the final nail in her coffin.
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But Raquel was not empty-handed.
Beneath the embroidered cuff of her dress, taped securely to her wrist, was a tiny, high-grade audio recorder. Inside the lining of her evening clutch, resting on the floor a few feet away, was another. She was capturing every laugh, every strike, every cruel word. She was enduring hell because it was the only way to forge the key to her salvation.
