You place his dinner tray on the desk.
“I’m fine.”
His expression hardens.
“Was it Damian?”
You freeze.
That is answer enough.
Alejandro looks toward the door like he wants to roll out and break something.
“What did he say?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Those words stop you.
In your own family, your feelings were a luxury no one could afford. Your father drank through apologies he never gave. Your mother called sacrifice obedience. Your brothers ate first because “men need strength,” while you learned to make hunger quiet.
No one had ever said your humiliation mattered.
You turn away before he can see your eyes.
“He called you something cruel,” you say.
Alejandro’s face closes.
“Oh.”
“And he laughed.”
For a long moment, he says nothing.
Then he whispers, “He used to laugh after the accident too.”
You look at him.
Not directly.
Carefully.
“What happened that night?”
His hands tighten around the wheels of his chair.
“I was driving back from San Francisco. Damian was in the passenger seat. We had gone to a private party. He was drunk. I wasn’t supposed to drive, but he was worse.”
Your chest tightens.
“The police report said a truck cut us off,” he continues. “The car went off the road. I woke up in the hospital two days later. Damian had a broken wrist. I had a broken spine.”
You sit slowly on the edge of the chair across from him.
“Do you remember the crash?”
He looks out the window.
“Not clearly.”
“But you remember something.”
His silence stretches.
Then he says, “I remember Damian grabbing the wheel.”
A chill moves through you.
“Why?”
Alejandro’s voice drops.
“We were arguing.”
“About what?”
He looks at you, and for the first time you see something beyond sadness.
Suspicion.
“About our father’s company.”
The DeVega family owns DeVega Holdings, one of the largest real estate development firms in California. Their name is on luxury hotels, apartment towers, hospitals, shopping centers, even private schools. In the newspapers, they are called visionaries. In the mansion, they feel more like royalty.
“What about the company?” you ask.
Alejandro hesitates.
“Before the accident, my father planned to make me CEO after I finished college. Damian hated it.”
You think of Damian’s smile near the wine room.
Your stomach turns.
“Do you think he caused the crash?”
Alejandro lets out a bitter laugh.
“What I think doesn’t matter. I was on pain medication. Damian told everyone I was confused. My father said I needed peace. My mother said talking about it would damage the family.”
“And after that?”
“After that, I became the thing they hid upstairs.”
You stare at the polished floor.
Suddenly the mansion feels different.
Not just cold.
Dangerous.
The next weeks become a pattern.
By day, you scrub marble floors, polish silver, fold sheets, and disappear whenever guests arrive. By night, you enter Alejandro’s room with towels wrapped around the braces so they do not clink against the furniture.
You help him stretch.
You help him stand.
You massage his legs when cramps make him bite down on a towel to keep from crying out.
You read physical therapy exercises from old medical books he kept hidden behind novels.
Sometimes he curses you.
