Chapter 4 - THE MEDICINE IN THE MILK

Valeria barely had time to step away from the hidden panel before Gabriel entered the library.

His smile remained pleasant.

His eyes did not.

“There you are,” he said.

Mateo moved behind Valeria.

Gabriel noticed and gave a soft laugh.

“I see my nephew has chosen a new shield.”

Valeria kept her voice level.

“He brought me here.”

“Mateo does not bring anyone anywhere.”

“He does now.”

Gabriel looked toward the shelf.

The panel had closed, but one book sat crooked where Mateo’s foot had struck it.

Valeria shifted slightly to block his view.

“What were you looking for?” he asked.

“A quiet room.”

“In this house, quiet rooms are usually the most dangerous.”

He stepped closer.

The faint scent of cedar and expensive cologne reached her.

The intruder in the nursery had smelled like jasmine, not cedar.

That did not prove Gabriel’s innocence.

It only proved he understood the value of changing details.

Mateo made a low warning sound.

Gabriel crouched.

“Do you remember me, little wolf?”

Mateo’s nails dug into Valeria’s arm.

Gabriel reached forward.

Valeria moved between them.

“Do not touch him.”

The smile vanished from Gabriel’s face.

No one had spoken to him that way in years.

“You are brave for someone whose family owes so much money.”

Valeria’s blood turned cold.

She had told only Alejandro about Tomás’s hospital debt.

“How do you know about my family?”

Gabriel’s smile returned.

“My cousin investigates everyone who enters his home.”

“Alejandro did not mention my brother to you.”

“Did he not?”

The question was designed to create doubt.

Before Valeria could answer, Alejandro appeared at the door.

“Gabriel.”

The warning in his voice was unmistakable.

Gabriel stood.

“We were becoming acquainted.”

“You are needed downstairs.”

“For what?”

“Captain Salcedo’s interrogation.”

Gabriel’s eyes flickered.

“Of course.”

He walked past Alejandro, then looked back at Valeria.

“Guard that courage carefully.”

“In this house, it may be the most expensive thing you own.”

Alejandro waited until he was gone.

“What did he say to you?”

“He knows about my brother.”

Alejandro’s expression darkened.

“I did not tell him.”

“I know.”

Valeria removed the photograph from beneath her uniform.

Alejandro stared at it.

When he saw Ernesto, his face changed from suspicion to fury.

“Where did you find this?”

“Mateo showed me a hidden compartment.”

“Who is the driver to you?”

“My father.”

Alejandro looked at her as though every wall in the mansion had shifted.

“Ernesto Gómez was accused of selling Camila’s route to the men who attacked her.”

“My father was not a traitor.”

“He disappeared the same day.”

“He never came home.”

“He emptied an account before the attack.”

“My family never saw that money.”

Alejandro turned the photograph over.

His eyes stopped on Camila’s message.

Ernesto knows who opened the gate.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

Then he locked the library door.

“Your father drove Camila for three years.”

“I knew he worked for a wealthy family.”

“He never told you my name?”

“He told us names could become dangerous.”

“He was right.”

Valeria looked at Mateo.

The boy was watching Alejandro with tense concentration.

“What gate?” she asked.

Alejandro sat at a reading table.

“The ambush happened after Camila left a charity clinic.”

“Her route was changed at the last minute.”

“Only six people knew.”

“And someone opened a private service gate that allowed the attackers to avoid the main road.”

“My father knew who did it.”

“According to Camila.”

“Then why did you decide he betrayed her?”

“Because all the evidence said he did.”

“Evidence placed by the person who opened the gate.”

Alejandro’s eyes hardened.

“Do not confuse possibility with truth.”

“Do not confuse power with certainty.”

The words hung between them.

Mateo suddenly pressed both hands against his stomach.

His face twisted.

Valeria moved toward him.

“What is wrong?”

He ran to a wastebasket and vomited.

Alejandro called the house nurse.

A woman named Isabel arrived carrying a medical case.

She was middle-aged, calm, and familiar enough with Mateo that she did not appear afraid of him.

She checked his temperature and pulse.

“Another stress reaction,” she said.

“He needs his evening medicine.”

“What medicine?” Valeria asked.

Isabel gave her a dismissive look.

“Prescribed medication.”

“By whom?”

“His physician.”

“Which physician?”

Alejandro interrupted.

“Dr. Navarro.”

Lucía, who had entered behind the nurse, frowned.

“I reviewed Mateo’s file.”

“There is no evening medication listed.”

Isabel’s hand paused over the case.

“It is an older prescription.”

“For what condition?” Lucía asked.

“Agitation.”

“What dosage?”

Isabel closed the case.

“I do not discuss treatment with employees.”

Lucía’s voice became firm.

“I am his consulting psychologist.”

“And I am asking because undocumented sedatives can worsen trauma symptoms in children.”

Alejandro turned to Isabel.

“Show us the bottle.”

The nurse hesitated.

That was enough.

A guard moved toward her.

Isabel grabbed a glass vial from her pocket and tried to throw it into the fireplace.

Valeria caught her wrist.

The vial fell to the rug but did not break.

Mateo screamed and backed into the wall.

Alejandro’s guards restrained Isabel.

“What is in it?” he demanded.

“I was following orders.”

“Whose orders?”

She said nothing.

Alejandro stepped close enough that the color drained from her face.

“Whose orders?”

“Dr. Navarro adjusted the dose.”

“Without documenting it?” Lucía asked.

“He said the boy needed to remain calm.”

Valeria looked at Mateo.

He was not calm.

He was terrified, restless, violent, and trapped inside confusion.

“How long?” she asked.

Isabel avoided her eyes.

“How long have you been giving it to him?”

“Almost two years.”

Alejandro went completely still.

“Since the attack?”

Isabel began to cry.

“I did not know what it would do.”

“What does it do?” Valeria asked.

Lucía lifted the vial toward the light.

“Depending on the compound, it could disrupt sleep, increase irritability, interfere with memory formation, and create panic when withdrawn.”

Mateo had not only been living with trauma.

Someone had been chemically keeping him unstable.

Lucía asked to see every medication record from the previous two years.

The files arrived in six polished binders.

They looked complete until she compared dates.

Several pages had been replaced.

Signatures repeated with identical pressure marks.

Dosage changes appeared on days when Dr. Navarro had been outside the country.

Someone had created a medical history designed to survive a casual review.

Alejandro called the physician's office himself.

The receptionist claimed Navarro was in surgery.

Five minutes later, she changed the story and said he was traveling.

Ten minutes after that, the office stopped answering.

Valeria remained beside Mateo while Lucía explained withdrawal.

The drug could not simply be stopped without monitoring.

His body had adapted to it.

Removing it might cause fever, shaking, insomnia, and worse panic before improvement began.

"So the poison can hurt him even when we stop giving it," Valeria said.

Lucía nodded.

"That is often how control works."

"It punishes the person for escaping it."

Alejandro heard the sentence from across the room.

It seemed to reach beyond the medicine.

His entire family operated through systems that punished anyone who tried to leave.

Camila had tried.

Ernesto had tried.

Now Valeria was trying to uncover why.

Isabel finally admitted that the blue vial arrived every month inside charitable medical shipments.

The packages carried Elena's foundation seal.

She never met the sender.

Captain Salcedo delivered the box personally and collected the empty containers.

"Why did you keep doing it?" Valeria asked.

Isabel wept.

"My husband owed Gabriel money."

"He said the debt would disappear if I followed instructions."

"And if you refused?"

"He showed me a photograph of my daughter leaving school."

The same method Elena had used on Socorro.

Fear moved through the house in inherited patterns.

Each frightened adult became another wall around Mateo.

Isabel begged Alejandro to protect her daughter.

He promised nothing.

Then he ordered a team to retrieve the girl before Gabriel's men could reach her.

For once, his silence was not cruelty.

It was caution.

Alejandro ordered the nurse confined and sent the vial to three independent laboratories.

He also ordered Dr. Navarro brought to the mansion.

The physician never arrived.

His office was empty.

His phone had been disconnected.

His home had been cleared out before dawn.

Captain Salcedo continued denying involvement.

Gabriel claimed he had never heard of the medicine.

Elena called from Madrid and insisted Alejandro stop humiliating loyal staff over the fantasies of a maid.

By morning, the laboratory results confirmed Lucía’s fear.

The vial contained a powerful combination not approved for a child Mateo’s age.

Long-term use could intensify aggression and blur traumatic memories.

Alejandro read the report twice.

Then he placed both hands on his desk and lowered his head.

Someone had been poisoning his son inside his own home.

Valeria stood near the window with the photograph of her father.

“The medicine and the attack are connected,” she said.

Alejandro looked up.

“You cannot know that.”

“They began at the same time.”

“That proves timing.”

“It proves someone was afraid Mateo remembered.”

Before he could answer, a guard rushed into the study.

“Señor, Nurse Isabel is gone.”

Alejandro’s chair struck the wall as he stood.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“Her room was locked from the outside.”

“The window was open.”

“There is blood on the sill.”

They ran to the servants’ wing.

Isabel had vanished.

A message had been carved into the wooden frame beside her bed.

The words were deep and uneven.

STOP DIGGING OR THE SICK BOY DIES FIRST.

Valeria’s knees nearly gave way.

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The sick boy was not Mateo.

The attached hospital bracelet belonged to her younger brother, Tomás.