Chapter 1: The Prison Hidden Behind Luxury
Chapter 1: The Prison Hidden Behind Luxury
The silence inside the Castillo mansion became suffocating.
No one dared to move.
The servants stood frozen with their heads lowered, while Vivian Moretti slowly descended the staircase, every graceful step hiding the panic beginning to consume her.
She forced herself to smile.
"Alejandro, you're overreacting," she said lightly. "This woman has obviously confused you. She only started working here a few months ago."
Alejandro didn't even look at her.
His eyes remained locked on Elena.
She looked thinner than he remembered. Her once vibrant chestnut hair had been cut unevenly. The sparkle that had always filled her hazel eyes had been replaced by something far more heartbreaking—constant fear.
He stepped closer.
"Elena..."
She instinctively stepped backward.
The movement stabbed deeper than any knife.
Three years ago, she had run into his arms every time he returned from a business trip.
Now she flinched from him.
"Alejandro..." she whispered, her voice shaking. "Please... don't make this worse."
His heart shattered.
Before he could answer, the front doors burst open.
Nearly twenty members of Castillo Security entered the mansion, followed by two attorneys and the family's longtime chief of staff.
"Seal every entrance," Alejandro ordered.
"No one leaves."
Vivian laughed.
"You have no proof of anything."
Alejandro slowly turned toward her.
"No."
"I have my wife."
One of the lawyers approached Elena carefully.
"Mrs. Castillo..."
She stared at him in confusion.
"I..."
Her voice cracked.
"I don't remember being Mrs. Castillo."
The room went completely still.
Alejandro's blood ran cold.
"What did you say?"
Elena looked embarrassed.
"They told me my name was Maria."
"I've been Maria for three years."
"I don't remember anything before that."
Alejandro felt the world tilt beneath him.
Memory loss.
Vivian hadn't simply hidden Elena.
She had erased her life.
Within an hour, doctors arrived at the mansion.
After examining Elena, one neurologist quietly asked Alejandro to step aside.
"The scars behind her ears..."
"They're consistent with repeated blunt-force trauma."
Alejandro clenched his fists.
"And the medication in her bloodstream..."
The doctor hesitated.
"Someone has been giving her sedatives for a very long time."
"Enough to suppress memories."
Alejandro closed his eyes.
Every investigator.
Every police report.
Every search across Europe and South America...
All while Elena had been sleeping in a servant's attic only forty feet above his own bedroom.
Meanwhile, Vivian remained perfectly calm.
"This is ridiculous," she scoffed.
"You can't arrest me because your wife forgot who she is."
Then the chief of security walked into the foyer carrying a dusty metal box.
"We found this hidden beneath the basement furnace."
Inside were dozens of passports.
Driver's licenses.
Cash.
Burner phones.
And one familiar gold wedding ring.
Alejandro recognized it instantly.
He had slipped it onto Elena's finger on the day they were married.
Vivian's smile disappeared.
May you like
For the first time...
She looked afraid.
