Rafael’s knees weakened. He gripped the back of a chair to steady himself. His wife at home was named Aurora. He had eaten breakfast with her that morning. She had kissed his cheek and asked him to drive carefully.
The maid stepped closer. “Please sit down. You look unwell.”
But Rafael was already moving toward the exit. He gathered the scattered documents without care, thrust them into the maid’s hands, and rushed outside. His motorbike roared to life as he sped away, leaving the mansion behind but unable to leave the image burned into his mind.
He reached their small apartment within minutes. Aurora was in the kitchen, slicing vegetables for dinner. She smiled when she saw him, then frowned at his expression.
“Rafael, what happened?”
He crossed the room and held her shoulders, searching her face as if confirming she was real. “Tell me the truth. Who are you?”
Aurora stiffened. “What are you talking about?”
“There is a portrait of you in a mansion on Briarstone Avenue. Funeral candles, black ribbons, your face, your name. They say you died three years ago.”
The knife slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the cutting board. Silence filled the kitchen, heavy and suffocating. Aurora slowly sat at the table, her hands folded together as if bracing herself.
“So you saw it,” she whispered.
Rafael’s voice shook. “Is it true?”
Aurora closed her eyes. When she spoke again, her voice carried a weight that had never been there before.
“Three years ago, I was Aurora Kingsley. My mother married a man named Preston Hale after my father died. He controlled everything, including the family fortune. When I refused to sign ownership papers, he began to isolate me. I knew he was planning something, but I did not know how far he would go.”
She paused, her gaze distant.
“One night, my car brakes failed on a mountain road. I survived because a passing truck driver pulled me from the wreck before the car caught fire. By the time I woke in a clinic, news reports already declared me dead. There was a funeral. There was mourning. There was that portrait.”
Rafael listened without interrupting, afraid that any word might break the fragile truth unfolding before him.
“When I recovered, I realized that staying would mean dying for real. So I vanished. I changed my name. I came to Phoenix. I wanted a quiet life, something normal, something safe. Then I met you.”