CHAPTER 4

The dust from Mateo’s car had barely settled on the road before the world turned cold. For weeks after he left, I sat by that stone pillar every morning, waiting for a car to return. I waited for a letter. I waited for a miracle. But the Alarcón gates stayed shut, and the silence in our small room became a heavy weight that crushed my spirit.

Seventeen years passed like a slow, painful dream. I grew up in the shadows of the mansion, watching my mother’s hair turn gray and her heart turn to stone. We were broke. We were worse than broke; we were owned.

I was twenty-three now. I spent my days scrubbing the same tiles I scrubbed as a child. My mother, Rosa, was even more angry than before.

"Stop looking at those books, Valeria!" she screamed at me one night. I was sitting on the floor of our laundry room, trying to read a law textbook I had found in the trash behind the village library. "Books do not put bread on the table. You are a maid. Your mother is a maid. Your grandmother was a maid. That is all you will ever be!"

"I want to be a lawyer, Mamá," I said, my voice trembling. "I want to go to the university. I want to go to the United States and be someone important. I want to find a better life."

"You want to find a dream that does not exist for people like us?" she sneered, pointing a bony finger at me. "You will stay here and scrub these floors until you die. Now, get back to work!"

But I could not stay. Every time I looked at my mother’s bent back, I saw my future, and it terrified me. I had a plan. I would save every cent. I would get to America. I would get my degree. I needed money to make it real, and I needed it fast.

That was when I met Lucia. She worked in the kitchen, but she always had extra cash. She saw me crying over my empty coin jar one night.

"You want to get out of here?" Lucia asked. "You want to go to the US? You will never get there on a maid’s salary. Come with me to the city tonight. Wear something tight."

That was the night Valeria died and Luna was born.

She took me to a place called Club Máscara. It was hidden in a basement, away from the prying eyes of the Alarcón family. The smell of the club was thick—a mix of cheap perfume, expensive cigars, and the metallic scent of money. I saw the girls on the poles. I saw the way the men looked at them.

"I can't do this," I whispered, my stomach turning.

"Do you want to scrub toilets for the rest of your life?" Lucia asked, her voice hard. "Or do you want to fly across the ocean? Choose now."

I chose the ocean.

I remember my first night. I was terrified. They gave me a silver lace mask to hide my face. I had to learn how to move my body. I had to learn how to let men touch my skin without screaming. I didn't hate it after a while. I liked the power.

Two days ago, I had finally saved three thousand euros. It was everything. It was my freedom. I had hidden it under a loose floorboard in the mansion’s laundry room, right under my mother’s nose.

But Marcos, one of the kitchen boys, had been watching me. He waited until I went to sleep, and he took it all. When I woke up and saw the empty hole in the floor, I felt like someone had ripped my heart out.

"Looking for this?" Marcos asked the next morning, waving my envelope of cash in the hallway. "A little bird told me you’ve been working in the city, Valeria. Maybe I should tell your mother. Maybe I should tell the Patron."

"Give it back, Marcos. Please," I begged, tears streaming down my face. "That is my whole life."

"It’s my money now," he laughed, shoving it into his pocket. "Consider it the price for my silence."

I was back at zero. I had spent two days in bed, crying until my eyes were raw. But tonight, I stood up. I went back to the club. I needed that money back, and I needed more.

The club was loud. The music was thumping in my chest. I walked onto the stage wearing nothing but a few silver chains. I grabbed the pole and started to wind my waist. I moved slowly, making sure every man in the room saw my curves. I didn't feel like a maid. I felt like a queen.

A man in the front row was throwing twenty-euro bills at me. He was shouting in Spanish, "¡Qué rica! ¡Muévete más!"

I wound my waist right in front of his face. I dropped to the floor and arched my back, letting him see everything. He was sweating, throwing more and more money. I picked up the bills and tucked them into my G-string. I felt the paper against my skin. It felt like hope.

"Luna! Private room!" the manager shouted.

I followed a man with a heavy gold watch into a dark room with red lights. He didn't want to just talk. He threw five hundred euros on the small table.

"I want the whole night," he said. He smelled like expensive cognac.

He pushed me onto the velvet sofa. He was heavy and his hands were rough. He started to kiss my neck, his beard scratching my skin. I closed my eyes and thought about the law books. I thought about the airplane. I let him touch me. I let him take off the silver chains.

It was a long night. Every time he wanted more, I made him pay more. By the time the sun was coming up, the table was covered in cash. My body was sore, and my skin felt bruised, but I didn't care. I counted the money. Two thousand euros.

I dressed quickly and snuck back into the mansion through the laundry door. I walked past Marcos in the hall. He looked at me and started to smirk, but I just looked him dead in the eye. I had more money in my bag now than he would ever see in his life.

I went to my room and hid the cash in a new spot, deep inside the lining of an old coat. I lay down on my cot. My back ached and my head was spinning, but I felt a dark kind of happiness. I was going to get out. I was going to leave this house, leave Marcos, and leave my mother's bitterness behind.

I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep, listening to the birds outside, knowing that soon, I would be flying away just like them.