The sound of a heart monitor echoed in my ears. A sharp pain behind my eyes and the feeling of my brain throbbing.I opened my eyelids with effort. The white light from the ceiling blinded me for a moment, and the sensation was as strange as it was familiar. The ceiling was white, flat, and had a small crack in the left corner.That crack...My heart stopped.I... I had seen that ceiling before. Not once. Hundreds of times. It was the same one I saw when I was hospitalized after a nervous breakdown... five years ago.But that didn't make sense."Isabella?" said a trembling voice.I turned my face. Eva, my best friend, was sitting next to my bed, tears in her eyes."How... how long have I been here?" I asked, my voice raspy."Three days. You said you were going to accept Benjamin's offer and then... you collapsed. You said something about chest pain and lost consciousness."Benjamin.My stomach clenched.It wasn't possible. The last time I saw Benjamin Arriaga... I was screaming for he

The meeting room quickly dispersed. Some came over to greet Benjamin, others simply returned to their tasks. I headed straight for Room B. I needed space. Not to hide, but to think calmly.Less than five minutes had passed when the door burst open."What the hell are you doing here?" Benjamin snapped, closing the door behind him so hard that the glass wall shook.I turned slowly, putting down the pen I was using to review the blueprint."Excuse me?""Don't tell me you didn't know I'd be working on this project. Did you disappear because of me?"His voice was full of indignation, but I knew that tone well. It wasn't pain. It was loss of control."Benjamin, I didn't disappear because of you," I said coldly. "I left for myself.""And not even a message? A phone call! An 'I don't want to be with you anymore'! After everything we planned...""Planned?" I laughed humorlessly. "You planned. I just followed your ideas because I thought you loved me. I was wrong."His face tensed."Is Roman pa

The morning after dinner at the Del Valle's house, the company woke up to a scandal on social media.A note published on a business gossip website insinuated that Román Del Valle was having an "inappropriate relationship" with one of his employees, and that his "closeness" had displaced consultants with years of experience, such as those from TierraNova.They didn't mention my name.But it didn't take long for social media to find it.A blurry photo—taken from a distance, probably from a drone—showed Román talking to me at the construction site, near the restricted area. In the image, he had his hand resting on a railing, I was holding some plans, but they overlapped in such a way that it looked like he was holding me. Added to that, many people knew that my ex was Benjamin and could conclude that the accusations against TerraNova were just out of spite from a woman helped by her new lover. Therefore, the photo was not compromising at all... except for those who wanted to misrepresent

Camila and Daniel's betrayal shook the foundations of the Aurea project. For days, I was the shadow of an accusation that did not belong to me. They watched me with suspicion, questioning me with poisonous smiles. Daniel had manipulated plans, altered delivery dates, and diverted funds under my name. Camila leaked selected documents to incriminate me, subtly constructing the image of an ambitious woman who played dirty.But they made a mistake.With Eva and Javier's help, I accessed security logs and server backups they didn't know existed.We found a series of transfers made from Camila's account to a shell company registered in Daniel's cousin's name. The altered blueprints had metadata proving they had been modified from Daniel's computer after hours. I downloaded everything, organized it, and took it straight to Román Del Valle.He didn't say a word as he reviewed the folder.He didn't need to.Hours later, Camila was suspended indefinitely and the guards were instructed to bar he

The city had a different rhythm on Sunday afternoons. The noise of traffic mingled with a strange silence, as if everyone were breathing more slowly. I went out for a walk without an escort, without my architect's helmet, without folders under my arm. Just a coffee in my hand and my cell phone turned off. I needed to forget for a couple of hours that my life had become a chess game against opponents who didn't know the rules.The street was almost empty. The trees cast long shadows on the sidewalk. Then I heard it.The roar of an accelerating engine.I turned my head just in time to see a black car violently turn the corner. The tires screeched. The headlights blinded me.For a second, I thought I wasn't going to move. That this time I wouldn't get a second chance. My body wouldn't respond. Time stood still."ISABELLA!" a voice shouted behind me.Arms pushed me hard. I rolled across the sidewalk, coffee spilling onto the ground. The car grazed me, inches from my face, and disappeared