Silence expanded between them.
Laura paused at the terrace doors.
She did not turn around.
Looking back would mean acknowledging how replaceable she had been made to feel.
She stepped into the golden evening light.
San Miguel’s sunset mocked the moment with beauty.
Terracotta rooftops glowed.
Church bells rang faintly in the distance.
Cruelty can exist inside beauty.
That contradiction is what makes it unbearable.
Sofía moved closer to her father.
“I heard you,” she whispered.
Elliot’s posture shifted.
“Heard what?”
“In your office. When Mr. Salazar was here.”
Elliot felt something unfamiliar.
Not anger.
Not yet.
Fear.
Sofía’s voice lowered further.
“Laura heard too.”
The room felt smaller.
“What are you talking about?” he asked carefully.
“She heard you say the contracts were fake.”
The words landed like a crack in glass.
“She heard you say the numbers weren’t real.”
Elliot’s hand tightened around the edge of the console table.
“That is not something children should repeat.”
“She didn’t repeat it,” Sofía said firmly.
“She didn’t tell anyone.”
“She was protecting you.”
Silence.
The kind that exposes.
Sofía looked up at him.
“You fired her because she knows.”
The collapse did not look dramatic.
It looked internal.
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