Emiliano finally turned toward the screen, his expression still composed, but his eyes no longer aligned with the version of himself he had been presenting.
For a second—just one—his gaze flickered toward the back of the room.
Toward me.
And I didn’t look away.
I held his gaze the way I had held everything else for years: steady, silent, refusing to flinch even when it would have been easier.
Someone near the board table whispered something sharp, urgent, but it didn’t matter.
The damage wasn’t in the whispers.
It was in the recognition.
In the way people began connecting pieces they hadn’t even realized were missing before this moment.
Camila took a step back.
Then another.
Her heel caught slightly on the edge of the carpet, a small, human mistake that suddenly made everything about her seem less untouchable.
I could almost hear her thoughts racing, calculating, searching for some version of this in which she could still walk out intact.
There wasn’t one.
The video ended.
But the silence didn’t.
It stretched.
Expanded.
Pressed against every wall, every polished surface, every carefully constructed illusion that had lived in that room until now.