The first night Mateo Garza installed the eight hidden security cameras in his enormous mansion in San Pedro Garza García, he convinced himself it was simply a precaution. At 34, Mateo was the most feared and influential real estate and technology magnate in all of Monterrey. He was a man accustomed to having absolute control over everything around him: market fluctuations, multimillion-dollar contracts, corporate risks. But this time, what he was desperately trying to protect had absolutely nothing to do with his bank accounts.
They were his three sons. His triplets. Leo, Santi, and Diego.
The three little ones had been born prematurely after an extremely complicated pregnancy, a medical tragedy that had not only cost the children their health but had also taken the life of his beloved wife, Sofía. Since that fateful day, Mateo’s immense house had been shrouded in an overwhelming and painful silence. The best specialists in Mexico and the United States were brutally honest with him: the children suffered from an extremely rare degenerative neurological condition. They warned him that they might never walk, that they might never utter a single word.
They were already two years old. And, just as the doctors predicted, they still couldn’t sit up on their own. They didn’t babble. They barely showed any reaction to stimuli from the outside world.
The atmosphere in the Garza family was toxic. Mateo’s mother-in-law, Doña Leticia, a woman from Monterrey’s high society who cared only about appearances, never stopped pressuring him.
“Mateo, for God’s sake!” she had yelled at him one afternoon in the living room. “Those children are a burden. Send them to that specialized clinic in Houston. They’ll be cared for there behind closed doors. You can’t have them here, ruining your life. They have no future!”
Mateo had kicked her out of the house that day, but deep down, exhaustion was consuming him. Dozens of nurses and caregivers had come and gone from that house. Some left after three days because they couldn’t handle the pressure. Others simply looked at them with a pity that made Mateo’s stomach churn.
That’s why, when the agency sent him a young woman named Elena, Mateo took extreme measures. Elena arrived one Monday morning in a torrential downpour. She was 22 years old. She wore well-worn sneakers, a simple uniform, and her face was free of makeup. Unlike the others, she didn’t gape at the crystal chandeliers or ask about the salary in the first five minutes. When Mateo led her to the room, Elena ignored the millionaire and immediately knelt on the floor to be at the same level as the three children. She gave them such a warm and sincere smile that Mateo felt a lump in his throat.
However, his suspicious side won out. That same afternoon, he hid cameras in every corner of the playroom. He wanted to see who that woman really was when no one was watching. He wanted to know if she would mistreat them or ignore them like the others.
For the first four days, everything was normal. But in the early morning of the fifth day, at exactly 3:15 AM, Mateo’s phone issued a motion alert.
Unable to sleep, he opened the security app. The black and white screen showed him a scene that left him paralyzed. Elena wasn’t sleeping in her cot. She was sitting on the floor, surrounded by the three children. She made sure to look toward the door, as if checking that no one could discover her. Then, with quick, nervous movements, she pulled a strange metallic device covered in wires and a red light that blinked incessantly from her backpack.
Elena crawled across the floor to Santi’s crib. She placed the device directly under the child’s mattress, connected two tiny wires near the headboard, and with a trembling voice, whispered into the darkness:
“Please… let this work… before Mr. Garza finds out and sends me to jail.”
Mateo’s blood ran cold. His heart began to race. He had no idea who that woman really was, or what on earth she was doing to his son in the middle of the night. He grabbed a baseball bat from his closet and ran into the room. He couldn’t believe what was about to happen.
- PART 2
