The beeping was like a steel wire piercing my soul. Beep… beep… beep… beeeeeeeeeeeee. That sound, high-pitched and endless, marked the end of Elena de la Vega.

Or at least, that’s what they wanted to believe. As I felt my body sink into an induced, icy, and profound darkness, my senses, heightened by maternal instinct, registered every movement in that Madrid hospital room.

I didn’t hear any crying. I didn’t hear the heart-wrenching scream of a man who had just lost his wife after twelve agonizing hours of childbirth. What I heard was a sigh. A sigh of relief that escaped the lungs of Rodrigo, the man I once called “my life.”

“Finally,” she whispered. Her voice held no trace of pain, only a disgusting impatience.

Riding Motorbike Αlone Αcross Laos – Beautiful Memories from LΑOS – Nếm TV

“It’s over now, my son. God knows what He’s doing,” said Doña Bernarda, my mother-in-law. I could imagine her crossing herself with that hypocrisy that only she possessed, clutching her silver rosary while in her mind she was already counting the zeros in my bank account.

And then there was Sofia, his assistant… his lover. I felt the brush of her cheap perfume as she approached Rodrigo. “We did it, love. Everything is yours now. Everything is ours.”

At that moment, Dr. Salazar, my only ally in that viper’s nest, lowered his mask. His face was a mask of professional seriousness, but I knew that beneath his latex gloves, the plan was already underway. “Time of death: 10:14 PM,” he stated firmly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vargas.”

Rodrigo didn’t even come near to kiss my cold forehead. He was too busy looking at his watch, anxious to call the notary. But Salazar didn’t leave.

She turned around, looked at me for a second, and then addressed them with chilling coldness. “There’s something else. The delivery had unforeseen complications… but it was successful in the beginning. They’re twins.”

The silence that followed was so thick you could almost touch it. “Twins?” Rodrigo’s voice trembled, but not with joy. “The ultrasounds… only showed one.” “Nature sometimes hides from science, Mr. Vargas,” Salazar replied.

“They have a boy and a girl. They are in the neonatal ICU, fighting for their lives.”

From my sedated limbo, I watched as greed rearranged its pieces. Bernarda, ever quick, hissed: “Two heirs… that doubles our allowance as guardians, Rodrigo. Shut up and smile.”

They had no idea. Those hyenas were celebrating over my “corpse,” unaware that the nightmare was just beginning for them. Because my story didn’t start in that hospital bed.

It began six months earlier, in our country house outside Madrid, when I discovered that the man sleeping next to me was not a brilliant architect, but a patient killer.

I was the heiress to the De la Vega Hotels. After my father’s death, I was left alone in a world of sharks. Rodrigo appeared like a lifeline; he was charming, he talked about family, about values, about a future together. But the day we said “I do,” the mask fell. His mother moved in with us “to help with the pregnancy,” but soon the house was filled with shadows.

I remember perfectly the afternoon the veil fell from my eyes. I was four months pregnant. I went down to the kitchen, barefoot on the cold marble, and heard whispers in the dining room.

“You have to hold on, Rodrigo,” Bernarda said. “The lawyer is clear: if you divorce now, the prenuptial agreement will leave you penniless. But if she dies… and there’s a child, you’ll run the empire as legal guardian.”

“She’s unbearable, Mom. So sensitive, so clingy. Sofia doesn’t want to keep waiting in the shadows.” “Tell that girl to be patient. It’s a high-risk pregnancy.”

A slight lapse in her vitamins, a bit of accumulated stress… and nature will do the rest. Just make sure she drinks the tea I make for her every night.”

My heart stopped at that moment. The tea. That infusion with the flavor of rustic herbs that Bernarda forced me to drink “for the baby’s sake.” That night, instead of drinking it, I poured it into a pot of azaleas on the balcony. By dawn, the flowers were black, burned from the roots up.

That’s when I realized I couldn’t run away. If I tried to get a divorce, Rodrigo would use his charm and connections to have me declared unstable and take my son away. I had to play his game. I had to outsmart them.

I contacted Dr. Salazar, my father’s best friend. He analyzed the capsules Bernarda gave me. “It’s poison, Elena,” he told me, horrified. “Powerful anticoagulants mixed with extracts that cause placental abruption.”

They’re planning for you to bleed to death during childbirth. We have to go to the Civil Guard.”

“No,” I told him with a determination I didn’t know I possessed. “If we go now, they’ll say it was a mistake, that the mother is a confused old woman. They’ll go free, and I’ll be on the run.”

I want them to believe they’ve won. I want them to be overconfident until the noose is around their necks.

For months, I pretended. I wore makeup to create dark circles under my eyes, I faked fainting spells, I let Rodrigo yell at me and humiliate me while he recorded every word with microphones hidden in the mansion’s lamps.

I learned to empty the poison capsules and refill them with sugar. I saw them licking their lips when they saw me “weakened”.

On the day of the delivery, Rodrigo started a monumental fight. He yelled horrible things at me, broke a vase near my feet, trying to make my blood pressure skyrocket.

 When my water broke, he didn’t call an ambulance. He sat finishing his glass of red wine while calling Sofia to tell her that “the big day had arrived.”

We arrived at the hospital at the last minute. But Salazar was prepared. Together, we planned my “death.” An experimental drug that would slow my vital signs beyond what any ordinary monitor could detect, under the strict supervision of his trusted team.

And now, here we are. In room 402. The family’s lawyer, Valeriano, entered the room just as Rodrigo was trying to feign pain in front of the police who had just arrived following the “death protocol”.

“Mr. Vargas,” Valeriano said, his voice booming, “before proceeding with any formalities, I must read the vital clause your wife established three months ago.” “What clause? She’s dead!” Rodrigo shouted, losing his temper. “I’m the heir!”

—The clause is activated in the event of my clinical death —the lawyer continued, ignoring him—. It says: “In the event of my death during childbirth, if twins are born, a forensic audit of all substances in my body is immediately activated and the digital files in the ‘Justice’ folder are released to the Attorney General’s Office.”

Rodrigo paled. Bernarda tried to back away toward the exit, but two officers blocked her path. “Mr. Vargas,” said the district attorney, appearing behind the lawyer, “we have recordings of you and your mother discussing anticoagulant dosages. We have video footage of your lover celebrating Mrs. De la Vega’s death in this very hallway ten minutes ago.”

“It’s a lie!” Bernarda shrieked. “That bitch wanted to ruin us! We did everything for the family!” “It’s over, Mom,” Rodrigo stammered, collapsing into a chair.

It was at that moment that I decided the show was over. My fingers moved. My chest rose with a gasp of air that filled my lungs with real life. The monitor, adjusted by Salazar, once again displayed the rhythmic and powerful beat of a heart that refuses to give up.

I opened my eyes. The hospital light blinded me for a second, but when my vision cleared, I saw Rodrigo’s face, a picture of pure terror. He had literally urinated on himself. The puddle spread across the hospital floor as he crawled backward, as if he had seen the devil himself.

“Hi, Rodrigo,” I said in a voice that came from the depths of my strength. “How was the champagne?”

She couldn’t speak. She only babbled incoherently. “Ghost! It’s a ghost!” Sofia shouted, hiding behind the curtain.

“I’m not a ghost, darling,” I replied, slowly sitting up in bed with Salazar’s help. “I’m the woman who’s going to take the air you breathe.”

I looked at Bernarda, who was trembling like a leaf. “Your teas were rubbish, Mother-in-law. But thanks to them, my children will grow up knowing exactly what kind of monsters exist in the world. Officers, take them away. Attempted murder, conspiracy to commit fraud, and abandonment of a person.”

As they put the handcuffs on him, Rodrigo began to plead. “Elena, forgive me… it was her, it was my mother… she forced me. We have children, think of the children!”

“You have no children, Rodrigo,” I declared. “You have a sentence. Get out of my sight.”

When the room was empty, the silence was filled with the cries of two babies brought from the incubator. Salazar placed them in my arms. They were perfect. They were my victory.