Chapter 2 - The UltimatumI scooped Camila up into my arms, pulling her freezing little body against my chest. She was shivering so hard her teeth were clicking together. She felt impossibly light—far lighter than a healthy three-year-old ought to feel.
I wrapped my trench coat around her, holding her so tightly I could feel her rapid, terrified heartbeat against my ribs.
I turned back into the dining room.
Six adults sat around my table, surrounding a five-hundred-dollar seafood dinner paid for entirely by my hard work.
"What is my daughter doing on the balcony?" I asked. I didn't yell. I didn't scream. The sheer rage in my chest felt like liquid nitrogen—freezing, heavy, and absolute.
Carmen casually placed her fork down, wiping her mouth with deliberate slowness. "Oh, Mariana, don't start with the dramatic act. Seafood isn't suitable for young children anyway. She threw a little tantrum because she wanted king crab, so I put her outside to cool off. A little discomfort teaches discipline. You treat her like a princess, and she’s turning into a spoiled brat."
Valeria snickered into her wine glass. "Seriously, Mariana. You act like she was in a dungeon. It’s just fresh air."
My gaze shifted from my insufferable mother-in-law to my husband. The man I had married four years ago. The man whose living expenses, car payment, and credit card debts I paid every single month. I searched his face for a single shred of shame, remorse, or basic human decency.
Daniel sighed, rubbing his temples with an annoyed grunt. "Mariana, please don't make a scene in front of my family. My mother raised three successful kids; she knows what she’s doing. Camila needs to learn she can't always have everything she wants the second she cries for it."
"She was eating a stale piece of bread in fifty-degree weather, Daniel," I said, my voice dropping an octave. "While you sit here gorging on lobster."
"She had a sandwich earlier!" Daniel snapped back, his face flushing red with embarrassment. "Drop it! We're having a family dinner. Sit down or take her to bed."
I looked at Carmen, who smirked into her plate. I looked at Valeria, who was secretly tapping her screen to record my reaction. I looked at Daniel, a spineless coward leeching off my salary.
Every month, I transferred 35,000 pesos directly to Carmen to take care of Camila while I worked sixty hours a week. I covered the rent on this luxury apartment, paid for my father-in-law’s expensive heart medication, financed Valeria’s shopping sprees, and handed Daniel a black credit card with no limit.
I thought I was supporting a family. In reality, I was funding a pack of bloodsucking parasites who abused my child the second my back was turned.
I clutched Camila tighter against my chest, feeling her warm cheek rest against my neck as her breathing finally stabilized.
"You're right," I said softly, looking Daniel dead in the eye.
He blinked, confused by my sudden surrender. "What?"
"You're right," I repeated, a cold, sharp smile touching my lips. "She needs to learn that she can't always get what she wants. And starting tonight, so do all of you."
I turned on my heel, walked out of the dining room, and locked myself inside the master bedroom with my daughter.
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I set Camila down on the bed, pulled every warm blanket around her, and sat beside her on the mattress.
Then I pulled out my cell phone.
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