Elena lowered her eyes.
That night, she slept at the edge of the bed, wrapped tight in the blanket, her body angled away from mine. When I reached for her hand, she flinched so violently I felt something inside me crack.
“Are you seeing someone?” I asked, hating myself for the words.
Her face collapsed, but she said nothing.
The next day I found deleted messages on her old phone: money transfers, legal appointments, a photograph of a document signed with her trembling signature. My name appeared on it too, but I had signed nothing. The family house. My investments. The small company Elena and I had built before I enlisted. Everything had been transferred to a shell business under Ricardo’s control.
