You showed him the note.
He read it twice.
His expression darkened.
“My mother said the medicine helped with nerve pain.”
“Maybe it does,” you said carefully. “Or maybe it keeps you too weak to improve.”
Alejandro said nothing for a long time.
The next morning, you watched.
Doña Isabel did not bring the pills herself. She never did anything directly when staff could do it for her. The butler, Ramiro, placed a small white cup on Alejandro’s breakfast tray with two capsules inside.
You memorized their colors.
Blue and white.
Yellow.
Then you searched.
Not online—servants had limited internet access and every computer was monitored. You asked the old gardener, Don Chucho, whose son worked as a pharmacy assistant. You described the pills carefully, pretending they were for your uncle.
The answer came two days later.
One was for nerve pain.
The other was a strong sedative.
Too strong for daily use unless closely monitored.
When you told Alejandro, he went still.
Not angry.
Worse.
Quiet.
“My mother wouldn’t…”
He did not finish.
Because he knew.
Something about his recovery had never made sense. Too much money, too little progress. Too many specialists, too little follow-through. Too much pity, too little effort.
That night, he refused the yellow pill.
By morning, he was more awake than you had ever seen him.
By the end of the week, he stood for eight seconds.
That was when you realized the accident had not been the only thing that paralyzed him.
The house had.
The city outside still believed Alejandro de la Vega was a tragic heir, hidden away by a grieving family. Magazines occasionally published soft stories about Doña Isabel’s “private pain” and her charity work for spinal injury foundations. They called her elegant, devoted, saintly.
Inside the mansion, she spoke of him in the past tense while he sat upstairs, alive.
“My Alejandro used to love horses.”
“My Alejandro was brilliant.”
“My Alejandro had such potential.”
Used to.
Was.
Had.
Every word buried him deeper.
