Parttie 2 :
I don’t remember how loudly I screamed when I saw the little boy on the camera feed.
I only remember my knees giving out beneath me.
My phone nearly slipping from my hands.
And my heart… feeling like it had been ripped open.
The child in the basement stared directly into the camera with dark, trembling eyes exactly like Matheus’s.
So identical it was impossible to deny.
Then he whispered again:
— Mommy…
Henrique lunged toward me, trying to snatch the phone away, but this time I stepped back.
— Don’t touch me! 😨
I had never heard my own voice sound so terrifying.
Dona Helena stepped forward, forcing calm into her expression.
— Valentina, you need to rest. You just had a baby, your mind isn’t stable—
— SHUT UP!
My scream echoed through the nursery.
Matheus began crying too.
His tiny cries filled the room like something breaking apart inside me.
Rosa held him tightly against her chest.
Then, for the first time, she looked directly at me.
No fear left in her eyes.
Only pity.
— Ma’am… they told you one baby died after birth… didn’t they?
I froze.
Memories crashed into me all at once.
The pain of labor.
The anesthesia.
Blurred doctors moving around me.
A voice whispering near my ear:
“We’re so sorry…”
I remembered sobbing until I passed out after they told me one of my twins hadn’t survived.
One of my twins.
Ice spread through my body.
I had never seen that baby’s body.
Never held him.
Never buried him.
Because Dona Helena said it would “help me heal faster.”
I slowly turned toward her.
— The boy in the basement… is my son?
For a few seconds, she said nothing.
Then she sighed like she was exhausted from carrying the secret for too long.
— He was born weak. A congenital heart condition. The doctors said he would eventually need a compatible donor.
I still didn’t understand.
Until Henrique spoke in a broken voice:
— Matheus was a perfect match…
The world tilted beneath me.
My legs shook so violently I could barely stand.
— You had another child… just to save the first one?
No one answered.
And somehow, that silence was worse than any confession.
Rosa sobbed harder.
— They kept the little boy hidden in the basement all these years… I found out because I heard him crying at night…
I looked at Henrique.
The man who promised to love me forever.
The man who kissed our son goodnight every evening.
The man who was ready to put his own baby on an operating table like he was nothing more than spare parts.
My voice cracked.
— You’re monsters…
Henrique finally broke down crying.
The first real tears I had ever seen from him.
But they came too late.
Far too late.
Suddenly, the boy on the camera feed began coughing violently downstairs.
The doctor panicked.
— He needs treatment now.
Dona Helena grabbed my arm desperately.
— Valentina, please listen to me. We did this to save him!
I yanked my arm away.
— By destroying another child?!
Matheus was still crying in Rosa’s arms.
And in that moment, something inside me changed forever.
For months they had convinced me I was weak.
Paranoid.
Unstable.
But a mother always knows when her child is in danger.
Always.
I turned to Rosa.
— Take Matheus and lock yourself in my bedroom. Call the police.
Henrique stepped toward me.
— Valentina, please—
I looked at him with tears streaming down my face.
— If you come near my children again, I swear you’ll regret the day you met me.
Children.
Not child.
Children.
For the first time in five years, my hidden son was no longer a ghost.
He was real.
And he was waiting for me downstairs.
I ran barefoot toward the basement while sirens slowly began echoing outside the mansion.
The door at the bottom of the stairs was locked with three heavy bolts.
Three.
Like they were trying to imprison a monster instead of a little boy.
My hands trembled as I unlocked them one by one.
When the door finally opened, the smell of humidity and medicine hit me instantly.
And there he was.
Curled inside the rusty crib.
Small.
Thin.
Terrified.
He looked up at me with enormous eyes filled with fear and hope.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then I fell to my knees.
My entire body shaking.
— Baby…
The little boy stared at me like he didn’t believe I was real.
Like he had imagined this moment a thousand times.
Slowly, carefully, he reached out his tiny hand.
And I completely shattered.
I pulled him into my arms and cried harder than I ever had in my life.
He was warm.
Alive.
Mine.
After a few seconds, he wrapped his skinny arms around my neck and whispered:
— You came back for me…
No child should ever say those words to his own mother.
I held him tighter.
— I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry I didn’t know…
Upstairs, I could hear police officers storming into the house.
Dona Helena screaming.
Henrique begging.
But none of it mattered anymore.
Because for the first time since becoming a mother… I finally had both my sons in my arms.
And no one was ever going to take them away from me again.
