“Mateo…”
“He’s here,” Evelyn said quickly. “He’s breathing. He’s loud. That’s good. You keep listening to him.”
The ambulance arrived seven minutes later, though to Mariana it felt like seven lifetimes. Paramedics rushed through the front door, followed by police when they saw the amount of blood and heard Evelyn’s clipped explanation. One officer asked where the husband was. Evelyn pointed to the phone still lying on the floor.
“Celebrating his birthday,” she said coldly. “He left her like this.”
Mariana heard pieces of the world around her: straps clicking, medical words, Mateo crying, Evelyn telling someone to bring the diaper bag, a police officer asking if there were cameras, a paramedic saying her blood pressure was dropping. Then the ceiling lights blurred above her as they carried her out of the house. The last thing she saw before the ambulance doors closed was Evelyn holding Mateo wrapped in a blue blanket, her face fierce and trembling.
At that same moment, two hours away in the mountains, Alejandro was laughing.
The luxury cabin in Sedona had floor-to-ceiling windows, a heated pool, a private chef, and a bar stocked with expensive bourbon. Alejandro stood on the balcony with his friends, wearing the white linen shirt he had been so careful not to stain. His phone was already on airplane mode, just as he had promised. He raised a glass while the sunset turned the red rocks gold.
“To thirty,” his best friend Brandon shouted. “And to finally escaping baby prison.”
Everyone laughed.
Alejandro laughed the loudest.
He didn’t know that police were standing inside his home.
He didn’t know that his wife was being rushed into emergency surgery.
He didn’t know that his son was being checked by doctors because nobody knew how long he had been screaming beside his unconscious mother.
And he definitely didn’t know that the first piece of evidence against him had already been saved.
Evelyn had taken a screenshot of his Instagram story before it disappeared.
By midnight, Mariana was alive, but barely. Doctors told Evelyn that another hour could have changed everything. Mariana had suffered a severe postpartum hemorrhage, the kind that could kill quickly if ignored. She needed blood transfusions, emergency treatment, and several days in the hospital before anyone could even talk about recovery.
When she woke the next morning, her whole body felt like it had been filled with stones.
The hospital room was quiet except for the soft beeping beside her bed. Sunlight slipped through the blinds in thin white lines. For a few seconds, Mariana didn’t remember where she was. Then the memories returned all at once: the nursery floor, the blood, Alejandro’s shoes avoiding the stain, his voice telling her to stop making drama.
