Chapter 5 Double life

The rain fell furiously on the windows, as if trying to break the silence that reigned in the house. Alejandro had been locked in the library for hours, surrounded by half-read reports and a cup of cold coffee. His father's portrait hung over the fireplace, watching with that same stern gaze as always, as if reminding him that he couldn't afford to let his guard down.

And there she was. Again.

Elena.

Elena Rivera.

Or Elena Torres.

Or whatever.

She had returned under a false name, with a shattered history, and yet she walked the halls as if time hadn't passed. As if it hadn't shattered him to pieces when she simply disappeared six years ago.

Alejandro gritted his teeth and picked up the phone.

"I need you to research something for me."

"Name?" his assistant asked instantly.

Alejandro stared at his computer screen, his gaze fixed, his jaw tense. He dialed a number.

"Lucía, I need you to investigate someone," he said tersely. "Elena Rivera."

Legal name. Her papers have been in order since 2019.

There was a brief silence on the other end.

"Any connection to her original name?"

"Yes. Her real name is Elena Torres. But I want to know everything about her, Lucía: where she's been, who she's with, what she's done. Without leaving anything out."

Lucía's voice faltered for a second.

"Are you sure you want to know everything?"

"I'm tired of not knowing anything."

He hung up before she could answer. Outside, the city lights flickered like warnings. A feeling burned in her stomach. It wasn't just a hunch anymore. It was a pattern.

Florence, Italy. Three years ago.

Elena walked out of the conservatory with a folder against her chest, her hair pulled back in a messy bun. She walked quickly along Via dei Servi, glancing back every so often. Not because anyone was following her. But because she no longer trusted even her own shadow.

"Rivera, how was your anatomy drawing class?" a classmate asked from the café entrance.

She forced a smile.

"Better than yesterday, I suppose."

No one there knew her real last name. Or her history. Or her country. She had become someone else. Not on a whim, but out of necessity.

Every time someone said "Rivera," she struggled to remember that was her name now. But it was better than going back to being Elena Torres. That one no longer existed.

"Since when do you use another name?" Alejandro's voice surprised her in the middle of the night. She was in the greenhouse, watering the plants with slow, almost automatic movements.

She didn't turn around. She knew he was behind her. She felt it.

"Since I stopped being the person you knew."

He entered with slow steps, without taking his eyes off her back.

"And who are you now?"

"I don't know." The watering can trembled in her hands. "Sometimes, not even I can answer that."

Alejandro looked at the sunflowers she had been tending since she arrived. It was absurd. So delicate. So resilient. Like her.

"I found your registration form in a gallery in Valencia. You said you had studied in Italy. But there's no public record of that. Your signature changes. You use different initials. In some places you are Elena S. Rivera, in others just "E. R.". You're erasing your tracks, little by little."

Elena turned around. Her eyes weren't afraid. They held guilt.

"Are you investigating me?"

"I'm doing what I should have done six years ago."

The silence that followed wasn't tense. It was dense. Like an abyss between them.

She didn't interrupt him.

Nor did he apologize.

Six years ago. Santa Lucía Clinic.

A young Elena was receiving a sealed envelope from a soft-spoken doctor.

"Take it easy. Read it when you're ready."

She didn't answer. She just put it in her bag and walked out to the parking lot, where Clara was waiting for her in an old car.

"Did they tell you?" her sister asked, gripping the steering wheel tightly.

Elena shook her head.

"I don't want to know yet."

She would open that envelope days later, alone, in a boarding house in Florence.

And nothing was the same again.

"Why did you change your identity?" Alejandro insisted. "It's not just fear. There's something else. Something you're not saying."

Elena stepped away, leaving the watering can on the floor.

"You didn't come looking for me. Never. I thought you hated me. That you had erased me from your life."

"What if I did?" he asked bluntly. "Didn't you deserve it?"

She didn't answer. "What happened at that clinic?" he asked, his voice sharpening. "Because I do know you were there. I found out today."

Elena looked at him, puzzled.

"How do you know that?"

Alejandro didn't answer.

"Santa Lucía Clinic. You were hospitalized for three days. You used a middle name. Then you disappeared from the system. There's no discharge certificate. No public medical report. Nothing."

She paled.

"That has nothing to do with you."

"It has nothing to do with me?!" Alejandro's voice cracked, mixing rage with an ancient despair. "You left me not knowing if you were alive, if you'd been hurt, if you'd gone with someone else, for another life..."

"It wasn't someone else," she finally blurted out, in a low voice.

Alejandro stepped back, puzzled.

"Then what was it?"

But Elena lowered her gaze. She couldn't say it. Not yet.

Later that night, in the guest room, Elena's phone vibrated.

"Clara?"

"Lena, I don't like this. I know you're thinking about staying there longer. But something's not right. I know it. I have a feeling."

"What do you have a feeling?"

"I can't talk right now. Dad's here. But listen to me... if anyone mentions the name 'Benedetti'... get out of there. Don't ask. Just get out."

Elena froze.

"Benedetti? What does that family have to do with this?"

But Clara had already hung up.

That night, Alejandro reopened the envelope Lucía had sent him.

Among the digital files, one was labeled "Confidential Medical Observations – E.T.M.".

He tried to open it, but it was encrypted.

Password required.

"What are you hiding, Elena...?" he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. And as the storm raged outside, he knew there was no turning back.

He had to get to the bottom of it. At all costs.