My mother-in-law placed a bottle of sleeping pills in front of me and said, “If anything happens to Julián, you’ll be the first person everyone blames.”

I burst through the double doors of the living room.

Diego was standing over the hospital bed. In his gloved hand was a plastic syringe filled with a clear liquid. Potassium chloride. It would stop Mateo’s heart instantly and leave virtually no trace in a standard autopsy.

Valeria was cowering in the corner.

“Get out of here, Sofia,” Diego hissed, his eyes wide and manic. “It’s already done. The logs are signed. If you scream, I swear to God I’ll have you arrested for his murder right now.”

He lowered the needle toward Mateo’s IV port.

“I wouldn't do that, Diego,” a deep, gravelly voice echoed through the room.

Diego froze. The needle hovered an inch from the plastic tube.

Mateo opened his eyes.

The color drained from Diego’s face. He stumbled backward, dropping the syringe onto the hardwood floor with a sharp clatter. “What... how?”

Mateo sat up. He ripped the IV needle out of his arm and tossed it aside.

“You always were sloppy, little brother,” Mateo growled, swinging his legs out of the bed and standing up to his full height. “You forgot that I build things from the ground up. I know how to find the structural flaws.”

Alejandro and Isabella burst into the room behind me, drawn by the noise.

When Alejandro saw his comatose son standing in the middle of the room, the patriarch of the Navarro family looked as though he had seen a ghost.