He kissed me on the forehead and came out again, saying he was going to get a coffee. As soon as the door closed, I grabbed the landline with trembling fingers and dialed again.

I saw the glow. Just a flash. But there it was. The most naked greed I’ve ever seen on a human face.

He leaned over and kissed my hand.

“I knew you’d do the right thing.

The right thing.

My God.

That night I didn’t sleep. I pretended to do it.

Andrea came in at midnight with a new nurse and discreetly handed me another piece of paper under the cover.

“Preliminary toxicology positive to microdoses of hepatotoxic. I can’t close the diagnosis yet, but I can confirm that someone has been poisoning you.”

I had to grit my teeth so that Javier, dozing in the armchair, would not hear me crying.

I didn’t cry for fear of dying.

I cried over the obscenity of having opened my house, my body, my trust, to a man who had calculated my end as if it were an investment.

At three in the morning, he woke up with a start and came to touch my forehead.

“Are you still here?” she murmured, thinking I was asleep.

I didn’t answer.

His hand went slowly down to my neck, not as one who caresses, but as one who measures.

I breathed as softly as I could.

After a few seconds, he returned to the armchair.

I knew then that she was no longer waiting for me to die alone.

I was considering helping destiny.

At six o’clock, with the sky barely clearing behind the blind, Maria came in dressed as usual: a simple uniform, her hair tied up, her eyes tired. But he had something new on his face.

Decision.

She was accompanied by a thin man, in a dark suit and leather briefcase.

“Madam,” he said, approaching my bed without looking at Javier, “I brought you the notary who worked with your father. The only one who doesn’t owe favors to her husband.

Javier suddenly stood up.

“What does this mean?”

Maria, for the first time since she had met her, looked at him without lowering her head.

“It means that the lady is going to put her thing in order. And you’re going to stay silent.

Javier laughed incredulously.

“And who do you think you are?”

The notary opened his briefcase calmly.

“Someone who can read a deed of ownership,” he said. And that also knows how to recognize coercion in vulnerable patients. If the Lord wants to stay here, it will be in silence and at a distance.

I had never seen Javier back down from anyone. That morning he did.

Not out of respect.

By calculation again.

Because he still believed that, somehow, he had won it.

I signed a new will with a trembling hand, yes, but firm. Revocation of powers. Cancellation of bank authorisations. Suspending access to my accounts. Transfer of the house to a trust managed by an association that my mother had always supported. A life annuity for María. A fund for my cousin’s children. A specific clause: if my death occurred under investigation for possible intoxication, no beneficiary with a direct interest could touch a peso until a judicial resolution.

Javier paled at each page.

“Lucia, this is madness,” he said at last, losing his sweetness. You’re confused. Medicated. They are manipulating you.

Andrea walked in just at that moment.

“No,” he answered, leaving some results on the table. Manipulated it was before. Now she is finally informed.

Javier looked at the papers. Then to me. Then to Mary.

And for the first time he understood that the room was no longer his.

His voice came out lower.

“What did that woman say to you?”

Maria didn’t wait for my reply.