Ricardo had claimed the box was lost during the move.
But here it was.
Hidden in the wall.
Inside was not a dancer—but a photograph. Mateo at seven, smiling beside his mother. On the back was frantic handwriting.
“I don’t know how to hide it. The boy saw everything. I can’t let Ricardo find out. This would destroy everything.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Mateo hadn’t gone blind from shock.
He had gone blind because his mother had tried to hide something—from him, and from Ricardo.
“What did I see?” Mateo whispered.
“The memory is returning,” Sofía said. “The connection is back.”
Mateo clutched his head.
“The car… it wasn’t an accident,” he said. “I saw it before Dad came home. She wasn’t alone.”
A shadow shifted.
From behind a hidden service panel stepped a man—Daniel, a former engineer Ricardo had fired years ago.
He aimed a gun at Sofía.
“The girl has to die,” he hissed. “She ruined everything.”
Chaos erupted.
Sofía hurled the Nocturne at Daniel’s face. Drawn to terror, it latched onto his skin.
Ricardo tackled him.
Daniel confessed everything: embezzlement, threats, the chase that caused the crash. Mateo had witnessed it all.
The Nocturnes weren’t the disease.