Chapter 12 - THE LAST SECRET BEATRIZ HID

Three weeks passed.

The house changed.

Not because of new furniture.

Not because of repairs.

Because the fear was gone.

Isabella started laughing again.

Real laughter.

The kind I hadn’t heard in months.

She painted.

She played outside.

She asked questions.

Normal questions.

Child questions.

And every time I saw that, I remembered how close I came to losing that version of her.

One afternoon, she came into my office.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Can I ask something?”

“Of course.”

She sat down.

“Did you hate Beatriz?”

The question surprised me.

I closed my laptop.

“No.”

She looked confused.

“Why not?”

“Because hate keeps you connected to someone.”

She thought about that.

“Are you sad?”

I looked out the window.

“Yes.”

“Because she hurt me?”

“Yes.”

A pause.

“But also because I believed I knew her.”

Isabella nodded.

Children understand more than adults think.

Then my phone rang.

It was Daniel.

“Come to the office.”

“Why?”

“We received something.”

“What?”

“A letter.”

I frowned.

“From who?”

Silence.

Then:

“Beatriz.”

When I arrived, Daniel handed me the envelope.

I opened it.

Inside was a handwritten letter.

No lawyer.

No excuses.

Just words.

I read it slowly.

She admitted everything.

Not because she suddenly became honest.

Because she had lost everything.

She wrote about feeling invisible.

About jealousy.

About wanting control.

But one sentence stopped me.

I never planned for Isabella to be hurt.

I stared at the words.

Because somehow…

That made me even angrier.

Because she was still trying to separate the crimes.

As if hurting my daughter was an accident.

As if everything else mattered less.

Daniel looked at me.

“What are you going to do?”

I folded the letter.

“I don’t know.”

And that was the truth.

Because revenge was easy.

Anger was easy.

But healing?

That was harder.

That night, I sat beside Isabella.

She was drawing.

“What are you making?”

She smiled.

“Our family.”

I looked at the paper.

There were only two people.

Me.

Her.

I noticed.

“Sweetheart?”

“Yes?”

“Why isn’t anyone else here?”

She looked down.

Then quietly said:

“Because I know who stayed.”

Those words stayed with me.

Because my daughter didn’t remember who promised to love her.

She remembered who protected her.

A few days later, I received another call.

From the police.

The investigation was not finished.

“There is a problem,” the officer said.

“What problem?”

“We found evidence that someone attempted to interfere with the investigation.”

I frowned.

“Who?”

The officer paused.

Then answered:

“Mrs. Alvarez.”

My heart sank.

Because it meant one thing.

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Beatriz wasn’t finished.

Not yet.