CHAPTER 2: The Hidden Room
CHAPTER 2: The Hidden Room
Later that night, the house felt unfamiliar.
Too quiet. Too clean. Like it had been scrubbed of its cruelty but not yet forgiven for it.
The officers had taken Victoria away. The evidence was gone. But nothing inside me felt lighter.
Alejandro didn’t sleep.
Instead, he walked through the house slowly, opening drawers, cabinets, closets—like he was reading a second version of our life written in invisible ink.
I followed him.
“Were you really gone the whole time?” I asked quietly.
He stopped at a locked door near the hallway.
“I was deployed,” he said. “But not disconnected.”
Then he pulled out a small electronic keycard.
My heart dropped slightly.
“That door wasn’t part of this house before,” I said.
“It was added while I was away.”
The lock clicked.
Inside was a room I had never seen.
Not a storage room.
A control room.
Documents. Screens. Copies of medical reports. Phone logs. Even surveillance notes—some of them labeled with my name.
My breath caught.
“Elena,” Alejandro said carefully, watching my reaction, “you weren’t just being isolated emotionally.”
He pointed to a folder.
“You were being studied.”
My knees felt weak.
“By her?” I whispered.
May you like
He didn’t answer immediately.
And that silence was worse than confirmation.
