Part 1

I lost sight of my wife for only ten minutes, and in those ten minutes, my family tried to cover up a crime with champagne, music, and polished smiles. By midnight, the same people who had spent years looking down on us were begging me not to destroy them.

That night, the house glowed like a palace. My parents had hired violinists, filled the garden with white roses, and invited half the city to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary. My older brother, Mateo, moved through the crowd like royalty, smiling with perfect teeth, touching shoulders, and accepting praise he had never earned. I was the quiet son—the one who had left home, the one they called too soft, too serious, too loyal to people they considered outsiders.

My wife, Elena, was that outsider in their eyes.

“She still doesn’t belong here,” my mother whispered earlier, not knowing I was standing behind her.