“I let the pill rest on my tongue, then slid it under my cheek and forced a sleepy smile. ‘Goodnight, love,’ my husband whispered, kissing my forehead as always. Minutes later, I heard the bedroom door creak open again. ‘She’s asleep,’ he murmured. But when I cracked my eyes open and saw who was walking into the room behind him, my blood ran cold… and I realized the pills were the least scary part.”

I shook my head. He went to open the door. I first heard Marta’s voice and, almost simultaneously, another, firmer voice: “Civil Guard. Don’t close the door.” My whole body went limp. Javier froze in the doorway. Lucía appeared from the hallway, pale, with her cell phone in her hand.

Everything happened very quickly after that. Marta came straight to me and hugged me. One of the officers asked that no one touch anything. I handed over the small bag with the pill, the tissue, the forwarded email, and the phone recording. Then I pointed to the folder on the table. Javier tried to smile, to talk about a misunderstanding, to say that I was upset, that I’d been emotionally unstable for months. But it didn’t work. His own tone from the night before buried him: “If she doesn’t sign willingly tomorrow, we’ll make it look like an outburst.”

The agents searched the office. They found copies of my documents, prepared forms, notes with partial passwords, and messages between him and Lucía talking about “speeding up the entry” and “closing the sale before summer.” It was all there. It was all real. It was all dirtier than I had imagined.