An invisible thread bound them together without either of them knowing it yet.
Her name was Alma.
She spoke with an almost too mature calm about escaping an abusive orphanage, about sleeping where there were no dangerous men, about surviving day by day.
Something inside Sebastian changed, as if a door that had been closed for years opened with a creak.
He couldn’t leave her there, he couldn’t go back into his glass tower pretending he hadn’t seen her.
Ignoring the stares of passersby and, later, those of his own employees, Sebastian took the girl with him towards the NovaPay tower.
When the revolving doors closed behind them, he felt he had just touched a truth capable of destroying everything he thought he knew.
In her office, her assistant Rosa, visibly moved, took Alma to a private room and offered her a cup of hot chocolate.
The girl looked at the place in amazement, like someone entering a world where the floor has no cracks.
The peace was shattered when the door burst open.
Elea Rojas, Sebastian’s mother and president of the council, entered, elegant, cold, imposing, like a well-polished blade.
“What is this nonsense?” he snapped, looking at Alma with contempt. “The investors are waiting, and you’re playing at being the savior of a street child.”
“Call security,” he ordered. “Have her get out of here.”
Alma leaned back on the sofa, her eyes fixed on Elea, as if she recognized the danger in the voice more than in the face.
Then Rosa accidentally dropped a folder, and the papers scattered across the floor as if pushed by the air.
A photograph slid down until it was visible.
Alma gasped and lunged forward.
“That’s my mom!” he shouted. “It’s her!”
Sebastian picked it up with trembling hands and felt his heart hammering in his throat.
The ID card read: Maria Caldero — Night Cleaning Staff, and the NovaPay logo shone above it mockingly.
“I used to work here,” Alma said urgently. “I always said I cleaned a building with a tree logo. This is it!”
Elea’s reaction was explosive, too fast, too fierce to be casual.
He snatched the photo from Sebastian and tore it in two.
“That woman was fired a year ago,” he barked. “She was incompetent. Enough of this nonsense.”
Her fury was too intense for a mere employee.
Why so much hatred towards a cleaning woman, and why did her disappearance coincide exactly with the day Sebastian lost Lucas?
That night, Sebastian took Alma to his house, vowing to uncover the truth, no matter the cost.
While the girl slept in a bed that was too big for her small body, he studied her face in the dim light.
The curve of her eyebrows.
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