CHAPTER 3
637 Words
The day dragged on like a slow, nervous animal. Valeria spent hours pacing the house aimlessly, unable to focus on anything. Every room reminded her that she couldn't leave. Every window returned her to the same certainty: Damián was cornering her, inch by inch.
At five in the afternoon, she decided to try. She grabbed her purse, took a deep breath, and walked toward the front door. She turned the key.
It didn't budge.
She turned it again. Nothing.
She tried harder. The lock wouldn't give.
Her stomach churned; nausea burned in her chest.
She stood there, motionless, her hand trembling against the metal. She didn't want to believe it. She didn't want to grant him that power so openly, so brazenly. But the reality was simple:
Damián had changed the locks.
"You son of a..." she whispered, feeling rage pushing against her throat.
She stepped back. She looked at the entire house as if it were suddenly a foreign body watching her.
At that moment, her phone vibrated.
A message from Damián.
"I told you not to go out today. I don't understand why you try the opposite when you know I always find out."
Her blood ran cold. She looked around, not knowing where the camera was. She knew it existed—she knew he would never let an entire day pass without watching her—but she never knew where it was hidden.
Another message.
"Don't make me repeat myself, Valeria. I'm disappointed."
A third vibration, immediate:
"I'll be back later. I expect you to be where you're supposed to be."
Valeria dropped her phone onto the table. The silence that followed wasn't just fear. It was humiliation. One that burned.
She needed to breathe. She needed... something. She walked up to the second floor, to the wing she never used: the guest room, the study he kept locked, the small sitting room where Valeria kept the few things she had left from her past.
She opened the door to that room.
The smell of dust hit her. There they were: boxes, folders, photographs she thought she had hidden well enough. But one of the boxes was open.
She hadn't left it that way.
She approached it. Inside, she saw the photos of her life before Damián: campaigns, runways, moments with friends and her sister. She remembered with nostalgia that this was her world, the only safe place, where she belonged. All the faces were there... but someone had crossed several of them out with black ink. A single, firm, violent stroke across their eyes.
She didn't have to think twice to know who had done it.
At the bottom of the box was a folded piece of paper.
She opened it with trembling hands.
"You don't need them anymore. I am your world now."
She felt a sting in her chest. Not a physical fear, but something deeper. As if a part of her identity had just been torn out by the roots. Tears threatened to spill, but she wouldn't give him that satisfaction—not to him.
She sank to the floor, clutching the paper. She breathed deeply. Once, twice, three times.
Damián was erasing her life from the outside in.
And he wasn't going to stop.
At that moment, the front door sounded. Loud. Sharp.
Valeria froze.
It wasn't the sound of Damián’s car. It wasn't his style to enter like that.
Someone had arrived.
For a second—just a single second—a spark of hope ignited in her chest: Julia? A neighbor? Someone who could see her?
But that spark died when she heard the voice.
Low. Cold. Heavy with authority.
"Valeria. I know you're upstairs."
It was Damián.
He had returned two hours earlier than he said.
And his tone didn't signal a conversation.
It signaled consequences.
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