A port official arrested before breakfast.
Two shipping managers by noon.
A judge by evening.
A police captain before midnight.
By the next day, missing workers were found in a warehouse outside the city.
By the third day, three families received calls they had waited years to hear.
By the end of the week, Esteban Lobo was no longer a ghost people feared mentioning.
He was a prisoner in a cell, bargaining with names.
Víctor and Ramiro were charged too.
They begged.
Of course they begged.
Víctor claimed he never meant to break your wrist.
Ramiro claimed he was only following orders.
You visited neither of them.
Mercy, you learned, did not always require an audience.
Sometimes mercy was simply letting the law have them instead of a man like Damián.
At the mansion, everything changed.
Some servants walked lighter.
Some guards avoided your eyes.
Teresa cried when she saw Mateo alive.
Bruno apologized to you in the stiffest, most uncomfortable speech you had ever heard.
“I failed to screen my men properly,” he said.
You nodded.
“Yes.”
He blinked.
Maybe he expected you to comfort him.
You did not.
Then you said, “Do better.”
He bowed his head.
“I will.”
Damián did not ask you to return to work.
That unsettled you.
After three days of rest, you went to Teresa.
“Does he want me gone?”
Teresa looked at you like you had said something foolish.
“No, child.”
“Then why hasn’t he assigned me duties?”
“Because your wrist is broken.”
“I can do laundry with one hand.”
“You will not.”
“I need money.”
Teresa sighed and handed you an envelope.
Inside was your full salary for the month, plus medical coverage paperwork.
You stared at it.
“What is this?”
“Paid recovery leave.”
You frowned.
“Maids don’t get that.”
“In this house, they do now.”
