THE NIGHT MATEO SAW WHO WAS STARVING HIS DAUGHTERS

The mansion transformed in seconds. Exterior shutters lowered. The iron gates locked. Emergency lights glowed along the corridors. Mateo had designed the system to keep attackers out, but Camila had learned how to use it to keep everyone in.

He and Rafael remained beneath the nursery while Beatriz searched the room. Camila's heels crossed the floor directly above Mateo's head.

"The panel," Camila said. "Check the wardrobe."

Mateo looked toward the hidden staircase. If she knew about the wardrobe passage, the carriage-house apartment would not remain safe for long.

Rafael typed a command into his tablet. "I can loop the east hall cameras for ninety seconds. After that, the system will flag the mismatch."

"Do it."

They climbed into the nursery. Beatriz had gone to alert the guards. Camila stood at the window with her back turned, speaking into a phone.

"No police," she said. "Tell the family council Mateo has suffered another episode. Say he removed the children without medical approval."

Mateo stepped from behind the wardrobe.

"Another episode?"

Camila spun around. For one unguarded instant, fear emptied her face. Then concern replaced it with the skill of an actress.

"Mateo, thank God. Beatriz said the girls disappeared. We need to find them."

"You paid her to starve them."

Camila's gaze flicked toward the ceiling rabbit. She understood immediately that he had found the cameras.

"You have been awake for days," she said gently. "Valeria's anniversary is next week. Grief can make patterns where none exist."

Mateo held up his phone and played the garden recording. Camila watched herself hand Beatriz the money. She did not deny it.

Instead, she sighed.

"That money was for silence," she said. "Because Beatriz discovered Isabel entering the grounds. I was protecting the family from scandal."

"The audio says keep them weak until he signs."

"Edited audio is easy. Ask your own companies."

She took one step closer. "Where are Sofia and Lucia?"

Mateo realized the question mattered more to her than the accusation.

"Safe."

"With Isabel?" Camila's calm cracked. "Mateo, listen to me. Isabel is not who you think. Valeria dismissed her for drugging Lucia when she was a baby."

From the doorway, Beatriz appeared with two estate guards. Both men looked uncertain. They were Mateo's employees, but Camila chaired the family security committee during his travel.

"Mr. Alvarez," one guard said, "Ms. Camila says the children may be in danger."

Mateo did not look away from his sister. "Disarm Beatriz."

Camila raised her phone. "The board has activated the health protocol. Until a physician evaluates you, Rafael is suspended and estate security reports to me."

The guards hesitated.

That was enough.

Rafael struck the light switch. Darkness swallowed the room. Mateo drove his shoulder into the nearest guard, took his radio, and pulled the wardrobe panel open. He and Rafael dropped into the passage as Beatriz shouted behind them.

They ran through the underground corridor toward the carriage house. Halfway there, Rafael's tablet lit with a red warning.

"Motion in the apartment."

Mateo saw the camera feed. Elena stood before the hidden door, holding a fire poker. Isabel had the girls behind her. Someone knocked from the other side.

"Mateo?" a man's voice called. "It's Father Tomas. Camila sent me."

Father Tomas had baptized the girls and prayed beside Valeria's coffin. He was one of the few people Mateo's daughters trusted.

Sofia moved toward the door.

Isabel caught her hand.

On the camera, the priest leaned close to the wood.

"Sofia," he said, "your mother told me the song. High, low, low, high, three. Open the door and I will take you to your father."

Mateo stopped running.

Only four people had known Valeria's lullaby sequence: Mateo, Valeria, the girls, and now whoever had accessed the hidden archive.

Father Tomas had spoken the code before Mateo had shared it with anyone.

As alarms moved through the estate, Camila ordered the staff into the ballroom and spoke to them like a compassionate commander. She said Mateo had taken the girls during a grief episode and might harm himself. Several employees believed her because she included details of his insomnia and medication. Mateo listened through a stolen radio while running underground. He realized that Camila's strongest weapon was not money but intimacy. She knew which truths to place around a lie so the lie felt merciful. Rafael intercepted messages to the family council. Mercer had already drafted a statement announcing that Camila would assume temporary guardianship. The statement included a photograph of her embracing the twins at Valeria's funeral. Sofia had been crying in that picture. Mateo remembered thinking she wanted her aunt. Now he wondered whether she had been trying to pull away.