Chapter 6 — The Hospital Without a Name
The photograph was only three inches wide.
But Alejandro stared at it as if it had the power to tear his entire life apart.
Esteban Montero was standing beside a hospital bed.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
There was an oxygen tube beneath his nose, an IV running into his arm, and a gray blanket covering his chest.
But it was unmistakably him.
Alejandro had spent four years believing his father was buried beneath a marble monument in the Montero family cemetery.
Now he was looking at a photograph taken less than two weeks ago.
His hands tightened around the edges of the paper.
“Where is this place?”
Valeria stood several feet away.
Her face was pale.
“I don't know the exact location.”
Alejandro looked at her.
“You said he was alive.”
“I said I was told he was alive.”
“By whom?”
Valeria hesitated.
“Victor.”
Lucía immediately stepped forward.
“Don't trust anything Victor says.”
Alejandro looked at his wife.
“You know something.”
Lucía's eyes filled with fear.
“I remember a hallway.”
“What hallway?”
“A hospital.”
She pressed one hand against her stomach.
“The walls were white. There was a red light above a door. I remember hearing a machine.”
Alejandro moved closer.
“What else?”
Lucía closed her eyes.
“I remember your father.”
The room went silent.
Alejandro's breathing stopped.
“You saw my father?”
“I don't know.”
“You just said you remembered him.”
“I remember his face.”
Lucía swallowed.
“But I don't know when.”
Alejandro stared at her.
“How long ago?”
“I don't know.”
“Before we were married?”
She nodded slowly.
“I think so.”
Alejandro stepped back.
The implications were impossible.
They had supposedly met seven years ago.
They had supposedly fallen in love after meeting at a charity event in Miami.
They had married two years later.
At least, that was the story everyone had told them.
But now Lucía remembered Esteban before the marriage.
And the documents inside Archive Box 17 suggested that Alejandro and Lucía had already been connected years earlier.
A thought entered Alejandro's mind.
A terrible one.
“What happened to the first child?”
Lucía's face changed.
She looked at him as if he had struck her.
“I don't know.”
“You remember being pregnant?”
“I remember a room.”
“What room?”
“A nursery.”
She began trembling.
“White walls. A small wooden crib. A mobile hanging above it.”
Alejandro's voice softened.
“Was there a baby?”
Lucía shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Then she whispered:
“I remember crying.”
Marta, who had been standing near the door, quietly closed it.
“No one leaves this room,” she said.
Alejandro looked at her.
“What do you know?”
Marta hesitated.
“I know this hotel has a private medical wing beneath it.”
Alejandro froze.
“What?”
Marta nodded.
“Guests don't know about it. Most employees don't either.”
“Why would a hotel have a medical wing?”
“It isn't for guests.”
Lucía looked frightened.
“Then who is it for?”
Marta lowered her voice.
“People who aren't supposed to exist.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Alejandro turned toward Mateo.
“Get the blueprints.”
Mateo immediately pulled out his phone.
“Already working on it.”
Valeria looked toward the door.
“We need to leave.”
Alejandro turned.
“Why?”
“Because if Victor knows you're looking for the hospital, he'll move your father.”
Alejandro stepped toward her.
“How do you know that?”
Valeria's lips trembled.
“Because that's what he did before.”
Alejandro's eyes narrowed.
“With whom?”
“My sister.”
The room fell silent again.
Valeria wiped a tear from her cheek.
“She was sixteen.”
Alejandro said nothing.
“Victor took her when I refused to do another job for him.”
“What job?”
“Delivering documents.”
“What documents?”
“Medical records.”
Lucía looked at her sharply.
“Whose?”
Valeria looked at Lucía.
“Yours.”
Lucía's face went white.
Valeria continued.
“Every time I brought him what he wanted, he let me speak to my sister for five minutes.”
Alejandro's jaw tightened.
“And when you stopped?”
“I stopped hearing her voice.”
Mateo looked up from his phone.
“I found something.”
He turned the screen around.
A building schematic.
The Gran Imperial Hotel had twenty-two floors above ground.
But the blueprint showed something else.
Two additional underground levels.
One was labeled parking.
The other had no designation.
Alejandro pointed at it.
“What's down there?”
Mateo looked at him.
“The elevator doesn't have a button for it.”
Marta whispered:
“Because only Victor has access.”
Alejandro immediately stood.
“We're going down.”
Lucía grabbed his arm.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“If my father is down there—”
“That's exactly why you can't go.”
“Lucía—”
“Think.”
Her eyes were wet.
“You've already been drugged. Your investigator is dead. Someone tried to shoot us tonight. Victor knows we're looking for your father.”
She placed her palm against Alejandro's chest.
“If he is keeping Esteban alive, he's doing it for a reason.”
Alejandro stared at her.
“And what reason could be worth keeping a dead man alive for four years?”
Lucía whispered:
“The truth.”
The elevator doors opened.
Mateo stepped inside first.
Alejandro followed.
Lucía hesitated.
Then entered.
The doors closed.
The elevator descended.
Floor B1.
B2.
Then stopped.
The lights flickered.
A voice came through the speaker.
“Mr. Montero.”
Alejandro looked up.
Victor.
“Your father has been waiting for you.”
Lucía's fingers tightened around Alejandro's hand.
Victor continued.
“But before you see him, there's something you need to understand.”
The elevator lights went out.
A red emergency light came on.
Victor's voice became almost a whisper.
“Your father didn't fake his death.”
Alejandro's heart pounded.
“He survived it.”
The doors opened.
A corridor stretched ahead.
White walls.
Medical lights.
Security cameras.
And at the very end—
a steel door with a black serpent wrapped around a crown.
Lucía stopped breathing.
She had seen that symbol before.
Not in the hotel.
Not in a file.
Not in a photograph.
In her own memory.
A flash.
A nursery.
A crying infant.
Esteban standing over her.
And someone saying:
“Take the child.”
Lucía suddenly collapsed against Alejandro.
“Lucía!”
She gripped his shirt.
Her eyes were wide with terror.
“I remember.”
“What?”
Her voice broke.
“The baby wasn't dead.”
Alejandro froze.
“What did you say?”
Lucía looked at him.
“The first child…”
She began crying.
“They took the baby.”
Before Alejandro could answer, the steel door unlocked by itself.
And slowly opened.
Inside stood an old man in a wheelchair.
His hair was white.
His face was thin.
But his eyes—
Alejandro knew those eyes.
“Dad?”
The old man lifted his head.
For several seconds, he simply stared.
Then tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Son…”
Alejandro couldn't move.
Esteban Montero was alive.
And behind him, on the wall, were dozens of photographs.
Photographs of Alejandro.
Photographs of Lucía.
Photographs of their wedding.
Their apartment.
Their first meeting.
And one photograph that made Alejandro's blood run cold.
It showed Lucía holding a newborn baby.
The date printed beneath it was seven years old.
Alejandro stepped closer.
“That isn't possible.”
Esteban looked at him.
“It was never supposed to be.”
May you like
Then the door slammed shut behind them.
And every light in the corridor turned red.
