Chapter 3
Chapter 3: The Cruel Texts
Reality violently snapped Javier back into the blue-lit room. He looked at Elena, the woman he had once loved, who was now using her own body as a shield to protect her child.
"Elena..." Javier whispered, his voice fracturing. "Why didn't you tell me? All these years... why?"
Laura instantly seized the opening. She let out a loud, bitter laugh, dripping with venom.
"Do you see? It’s a gold-digger's trap! Now she’s playing the victim to make you feel guilty. She wants a payout!"
Elena slowly raised her head. The look she gave Laura was devoid of anger; it was pure, unadulterated disgust.
"You know exactly why I didn't tell him, Laura."
Javier slowly turned his body to face his fiancée. His eyes, usually warm, had turned to absolute ice.
"What does she mean by that?"
Laura took a step back, the heel of her shoe clicking sharply against the wood floor.
"Nothing! She’s just trying to manipulate you."
But Elena wasn't going to let her control the narrative anymore. Her voice rang out, steady and clear:
"Eight years ago, the night I came to you in the rain... I came to tell you I was pregnant."
Javier's heart seized.
"But the next day, I received messages from your phone," Elena continued, her eyes red but refusing to shed a tear. "You wrote that you never wanted to see me again. That if I was pregnant, it was my problem. You threatened me. You said if I ever came near your family, the Salvatierras would destroy my life and my child."
Javier’s eyes widened in horror. He lunged forward, grabbing Elena by the shoulders.
"No! I swear to God, Elena, I never wrote those words! I would never..."
Elena simply shifted her gaze toward the woman in the red dress trembling by the door.
"I know. I know now who was holding your phone that night."
The silence in the room became absolute. Even Mateo stopped crying, his large eyes darting fearfully between the adults. Javier spun around, advancing on Laura.
"It was you? You sent those messages?"
Laura lifted her chin, trying to maintain her haughty exterior, but her hands were shaking violently.
"I protected you!"
"You call that protecting me?!" Javier roared.
"Yes! I sent them! What did you expect me to do? Sit back and watch you throw away your family’s empire for some pathetic art restorer? Your father was signing a merger with my family. If she showed up with a pregnant belly, what do you think she wanted besides your money and a free ride?"
Javier stepped back, looking at Laura as if she were a monstrous stranger.
"You stole my son from me. You robbed me of eight years of fatherhood."
"He wasn't your son then! He was a threat!" Laura shrieked maliciously.
At the word "threat," little Mateo flinched, hiding his face entirely against his mother's back. Elena immediately wrapped her arms around him.
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"Mateo, cover your ears. Don't listen to her."
But the child had heard it. And so had Javier. For the first time in his life, he felt a crushing, suffocating wave of shame. Not for what Laura had done, but because he had been weak enough to share a life with a demon capable of calling an innocent child a threat.
