Chapter 1 - The Hollow Underneath
The iron poker struck the pristine floorboards with a sound like a bone snapping. Splinters of pale, expensive ash wood flew into the air, landing in the spilled coffee. Rebeca screamed, a high, thin sound that didn't belong in her perfect house.
Mateo didn't care about her scream. He didn't care about the ruin of her magazine-worthy living room. His entire universe had shrunk to the jagged, dark gap he had just forced open in the floor.
"Emiliano?" Mateo’s voice was barely a gasp. He was terrified that if he spoke too loudly, the fragile hand reaching out of the dark would vanish like a ghost.
The hand was tiny, the skin gray-pale from lack of sunlight, and the fingernails worn down to the quick. But as Mateo reached down, those small, cold fingers locked around his thumb with surprising, desperate strength.
"Daddy..." a voice whimpered from the dark. It was muffled, raspy, and weak, but it was a voice Mateo would know anywhere in the cosmos.
"I've got you," Mateo sobbed. He threw the iron poker aside and began tearing at the broken wood with his bare hands. The sharp edges sliced into his palms, but he felt no pain. He only felt the urgent, burning need to pull his boy into the light. "I've got you, buddy. I'm here."
Beside him, five-year-old Jimena stood frozen, her eyes wide as she watched her brother's hand.
On the other side of the room, Rebeca was on her knees, her hands covering her face. She was rocking back and forth, muttering incoherently. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be quiet. It was supposed to be over."
Mateo ignored her. He wedged his fingers under a thick, stubborn plank and pulled upward with every ounce of strength he possessed. The wood groaned, the hidden nails shrieking as they tore free from the joists. The gap widened, exposing a narrow, concrete crawlspace beneath the house.
It was a void—barely three feet deep, cold, damp, and smelling of earth and old rot.
And there, curled on a thin, filthy mattress, was Emiliano.
He was wearing the same faded blue t-shirt he had been wearing on the Sunday he vanished in Coyoacán, though it was now ragged and far too small for him. His hair was long and matted, and his face was painfully thin. A plastic water bottle and a half-eaten sleeve of crackers lay near his feet.
"Oh God, Emiliano..." Mateo reached down, wrapping his arms around his son's fragile torso, and lifted him out of the grave.
The boy weighed almost nothing. As Mateo pulled him into the bright, warm living room, Emiliano shielded his eyes from the light, weeping silently. He clung to Mateo’s neck like a drowning child clinging to a liferaft.
"You're safe. You're safe," Mateo chanted, burying his face in his son's dusty hair. He could feel every rib in the boy's chest. "I'm never letting you go."
"Mateo..." Rebeca’s voice was a whisper now. She had stopped rocking. She was staring at them, her eyes glassy with terror. "Mateo, please. Let me explain. You don't understand what they would have done to me..."
Mateo slowly turned his head to look at his sister. The warmth of holding his son turned into an icy, venomous rage in his veins. He looked at the woman who had brought his grieving wife soup, who had held his crying daughter, and who had slept in her own comfortable bed while her nephew was buried alive beneath her feet.
"Explain?" Mateo's voice was dangerously quiet, vibrating with a father's ultimate wrath. "You have exactly ten seconds before I use that poker on you."
Before Rebeca could speak, the front door of the house clicked open.
"Rebeca, darling? I bought the organic lemons you wanted," a man's voice called out from the foyer.
May you like
It was Julian, Rebeca’s husband. A highly respected criminal defense attorney in Querétaro. A man known for his spotless reputation, his powerful connections, and his absolute, unyielding control.
Mateo stood up, keeping Emiliano locked in one arm while pulling Jimena behind his back with the other. The nightmare was far from over.
