Chapter Two

He laid her on the table like she was something sacred.

I watched his hands. The way his fingers lingered on her shoulder. The way he brushed her hair back from her forehead and murmured something I couldn't hear. My husband. Touching another woman with more care than he had shown me in our entire marriage.

I felt the familiar numbness settle over me like a second skin. Good. Numb was useful. Numb got the job done.

"Camila." I kept my voice flat. Clinical. "I need you to tell me where you're hurt."

She looked up at Mateo instead of me. Her eyes were red and swollen, and she gripped his wrist like she was drowning. "I don't want her touching me. Anyone but her."

"There's no one else right now." Mateo's hand closed over hers. "She's a doctor. She'll be professional."

She'll be professional. Not she's my wife. Not she's good at her job. Just she'll be professional, like I was some machine he was turning on to perform a function.

"I'll be outside," he added, leaning down until his forehead almost touched hers. "Right outside. I'm not going anywhere."

My throat burned. I swallowed it down.

The moment the door closed behind him, the tenderness vanished from Camila's face like someone had flipped a switch. She looked at me with eyes that were cold and calculating, nothing like the helpless woman she played for Mateo.

"Don't think this means anything," she whispered through her teeth.

"Lift your knees. Feet in the stirrups." I didn't look at her face. I didn't need to. "And save the performance for your audience. He's not in the room."

Her jaw clenched, but she complied. I pulled on fresh gloves and began my examination with steady hands and a dead heart.

Second degree vaginal tear. Consistent with recent, aggressive sexual activity. Andrés had been locked up for five months.

I didn't react. I cleaned the area, prepared the suture tray, and kept my breathing even. My hands knew what to do. They had done this a thousand times. It was only my mind that kept circling back to the image of Mateo carrying her through that door, his arms wrapped around her like she was the most precious thing in his world.

"You should know something." Camila's voice floated up from the table, casual as a weather report. "I'm pregnant."

My hand stopped moving. Just for a second. One heartbeat. Two.

Pregnant. Andrés in prison for five months. Mateo carrying her in his arms with blood on his shirt and please on his lips.

"Congratulations." The word came out flat as cardboard. "How far along?"

"About eight weeks." She tilted her head to study me, and a small, satisfied smile curled across her mouth. "Mateo's been very attentive. You know how he gets when he cares about something."

No. I didn't know. Because he had never cared about me enough for me to see it.

I thought about six years ago. The balcony in Paris. Get rid of it. The way he hadn't even looked up from his phone when he said it. Like the idea of a child with me was something to be scraped off his shoe.

And now here he was, rushing through hospital doors covered in blood for this woman, saying please for this woman, guarding the door for this woman and her convenient eight week pregnancy that lined up perfectly with the timeline of his cousin's imprisonment.

"I need to finish the sutures." My voice came from somewhere outside my body. "Hold still."

"Does it bother you?" She pressed, her smile widening. "That he wants this baby? That he wants my baby?"

I pulled the suture thread through with precise, mechanical movements. In and out. Tie. Cut. In and out. Tie. Cut.

"I'm your doctor right now, Camila. Not your therapist."

"That's not an answer."

"You're not owed one."

I finished in silence. Cleaned up. Stripped my gloves. Wrote her discharge notes with handwriting that barely trembled.

When I opened the door, Mateo was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, his bloody shirt stretched tight over his chest. He didn't look at me. He looked past me. At her.

"Is she okay?"

Not how did it go. Not thank you. Just is she okay.

"She'll need to rest for several days. No strenuous activity. I've written the care instructions."

He was already moving past me, brushing my shoulder like I was a piece of furniture in his way. He went to Camila's side, scooped her up again with that unbearable tenderness, and carried her toward the ward without a single glance back.

I stood in the empty hallway. The fluorescent lights buzzed above me. The linoleum was cold under my shoes. I could smell the antiseptic and the faint copper trace of blood and something like expensive cologne that didn't belong to me.

"Dr. Castillo?" A young nurse appeared at the end of the corridor, clutching a clipboard. She was new. Couldn't have been more than twenty two. "I didn't know you were married to Mr. Castillo. He's so... I mean, you two must be so..."

She trailed off, clearly fishing.

Something snapped inside me. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a quiet, clean break, like a branch giving way under too much snow.

"Happy?" I filled in. I let my voice carry. Nice and loud. Clear enough to bounce off every wall in that hallway. "Oh, we're very happy. Except for the erectile dysfunction. Seven years of it. Not a single performance to report."

The nurse's clipboard hit the floor.

Down the hall, I heard footsteps stop. I knew those footsteps. Heavy. Measured. Italian leather shoes on linoleum.

I turned slowly. Mateo was standing twenty feet away, Camila still cradled against him, his face absolutely frozen. His eyes burned into mine with a fury so cold it could have cracked glass.

I held his gaze. No guilt. No shame. Nothing but seven years of silence finally finding a voice.

"Then again," I added, tilting my head with a sweet, thoughtful expression, "maybe the equipment works fine. Just not at home."

The corridor went dead silent. The nurse looked like she wanted the floor to swallow her. Mateo's jaw could have cut steel.

I turned on my heel and walked away. Slow. Steady. The click of my shoes echoing off the walls like a heartbeat.

Back in my office, I closed the door and leaned against it. My legs gave out, and I slid to the floor.

The equity transfer documents sat on my desk where I had hidden them. The signature line had a jagged mark across it where my pen had slipped when Mateo burst in. A messy, broken line cutting through the space where my name was supposed to go.

My phone buzzed. Santiago. Eight messages in a row.

Did he see her?? Val answer me. Is Luciana safe? Did he find the documents? VALENTINA.

I picked up my phone. My thumb moved across the screen, but it wasn't Santiago I messaged.

I opened my chat with Mateo. The last message was from three months ago. Him telling me not to bother coming to a family dinner.

I typed four words and hit send.

I want a divorce.