of a difficult employee.

Needs stronger response after crying.

Still clings to old habits.

Reduce contact with staff.

Fear remains effective.

Victoria looked annoyed, not ashamed.

“You shouldn’t be reading that in front of her,” she said coolly.

“It only frightens her more.”

Ximena made a broken sound from the chaise.

Sofía stared at the notebook like someone seeing the shape of her nightmare on paper for the first time.

Alejandro flipped to the final pages and found something worse.

Clipped inside was a typed report already signed by Rosaura, describing Sofía as emotionally unstable, obsessive about cleanliness, prone to irrational episodes, and potentially unfit to care for her child after delivery without supervised intervention.

At the top of the page was the letterhead of a private maternal wellness center Alejandro had never heard of.

He looked up so sharply his neck hurt.

“What is this?”

Victoria answered before Rosaura could.

“A precaution.

You work too much to understand what these situations require.

If she collapsed after the birth, the baby would need structure.

Family.

Guidance.”

The room tilted.

Before Alejandro could speak, Dr.

Estévez, the family physician he had ordered over the moment he saw the bruises, arrived with a medical bag and a face that hardened within seconds of entering the hall.

He examined Sofía’s arms, checked her pulse, looked at her pupils, and asked quietly what medication she had taken that day.

Sofía’s lips parted, but no words came out.

Rosaura tried to answer for her.

“Only supplements.”

Dr.

Estévez uncapped the bottle on the floor, smelled it, and looked at Alejandro.

“This is not a prenatal supplement.

She needs to go to the hospital now.

The burns are superficial, but the stress is severe, and I want the baby monitored immediately.”

Sofía panicked at the word hospital.

Her hand flew to her stomach.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she whispered.

“Please don’t let them say I’m unstable.”

Alejandro knelt in front of her.

He did not care that his mother and the nurse were watching him break.

“No one is taking our child from you.

No one is sending you anywhere.

You’re coming with me.

That’s all.”

In the car, with Ximena in the backseat holding ice wrapped in cloth against Sofía’s arms, the truth began to leak out in frightened fragments.

At first it had been about manners.

Victoria said a woman carrying the next heir of the family had to learn how to sit, how to speak, how to eat, how to host.

Rosaura framed everything as prenatal care.

Less phone time for stress.

More rest.

Fewer visitors.

Better posture.

Better diction.

Sofía had tried to laugh it off, but the corrections never stopped.

Soon Victoria was replacing her clothes, removing the books from the bedside table, commenting on the way she pronounced certain words, and telling the household staff not to indulge her “old neighborhood habits.”

Then came the rules.

No meals in the kitchen.

No sitting with the staff.

No calling friends without letting Rosaura know first.

No leaving the property alone because the city was dangerous for a pregnant woman.

No touching anything prepared for the baby after handling raw food, house supplies, or “outside people.”

When Sofía resisted, they made her stand for lectures that lasted an hour.

When she