I reached the sanctuary before sunrise.

The ninety-nine stone steps looked steeper than I remembered.

I put one foot on the first.

“One step, one wish.”

My father’s voice came back so clearly that I almost turned around.

Step ten.

I wished for breakfast.

Step twenty-seven.

I wished my leg would stop hurting.

Step forty-three.

I wished I could forget Adrián Vega.

By step sixty, my hands were shaking.

I didn’t know Adrián was standing below, watching me climb.

He had followed me but kept his distance.

For once, he seemed to understand that getting closer would only make me run.

At step eighty-two, my right leg gave out.

I fell to my knees.

Before I could catch myself, a hand grabbed my arm.

I froze.

Adrián released me immediately.

“Sorry.”

I looked at him.

He looked terrible.

Not rich-man tired.

Not sleepless-after-a-business-deal tired.

Destroyed.

“What are you doing here?”

“I found something.”

“I don’t care.”

“It’s about your father.”

My body went still.

Adrián pulled an envelope from inside his coat.

“Three years ago, the hospital told me you were dangerous. They showed me medical reports, recordings, evaluations. Everything said you were unstable.”

“You signed the papers.”

His face tightened.

“Yes.”

That single word hurt more than any excuse could have.

“So live with it.”

I turned toward the stairs.

Then he said:

“Your father tried to get you out.”

I stopped.

Adrián held out a photograph.

It showed my father entering the psychiatric hospital.

The date printed in the corner was impossible.

Six months after his supposed death.

I stared at it until the numbers blurred.

“No.”

“There’s more.”

“No.”

“Elena—”

“My father is dead.”

“That’s what both of us were made to believe.”

I snatched the photograph from him.

My father looked thinner.

Older.

But it was him.

The same scar near his eyebrow.

The same watch I had given him.

My knees weakened.

“Where did you get this?”

“From my mother’s private archive.”

I slowly looked up.

Adrián’s face had gone pale.

“For three years, I thought I had destroyed you because I trusted the wrong doctors. But it wasn’t a mistake.”

He swallowed.

“It was planned.”

He handed me another document.

A transfer authorization.

My name appeared at the top.

Below it was the name of the private institution where I had spent three years.

And at the bottom—

Lucía Vega.

Adrián’s mother.

“She arranged everything,” he whispered.

“Why?”

“Because of what your father discovered.”

Before I could ask, the sanctuary bell rang.

Once.

Twice.

Then an elderly priest appeared at the top of the stairs.

He looked directly at me.

His face lost all color.

“Elena?”

I stared at him.

He hurried down several steps.

“You came.”

“You know me?”

His eyes filled with tears.

“Your father said you would come here on your birthday if you ever escaped.”

My heart stopped.

“If I ever… escaped?”

The priest reached inside his robe and removed a small brass key.

“He left something for you.”

Adrián moved closer.

The priest immediately stepped between us.

“Not you.”

Adrián froze.

The old man looked at him with unmistakable hatred.

“Your family has already taken enough from her.”

Ten minutes later, I was inside a tiny room behind the chapel.

The priest unlocked an old wooden cabinet.

Inside was a metal box.

My name was written across the lid in my father’s handwriting.

My fingers trembled as I opened it.

There were documents.

Bank records.

Photographs.

A flash drive.

And one sealed letter.

FOR ELENA — ONLY AFTER SHE IS FREE.

I tore it open.

The first line made my blood run cold.

My little girl, if you are reading this, then they failed to keep you imprisoned forever.

I covered my mouth.

The letter explained everything.

My father had discovered that the Vega family had been secretly moving money from a company jointly owned by our families.

Millions.

When he threatened to expose them, they needed his voting shares.

But those shares would pass to me if he died.

So they needed me declared legally incompetent.

My hospitalization hadn’t been about my mental health.

It had been about controlling my inheritance.

I looked at Adrián.

He seemed unable to breathe.

Then I reached the final paragraph.

My father had written one last warning:

Do not trust Adrián until you know what he signed on the night they took me.

My eyes lifted slowly.

“What did you sign?”

Adrián stared at the floor.

“Tell me.”

His silence answered first.

Then he whispered:

“A transfer order.”

“For my father?”

He nodded.

My hands turned cold.

“Where did they take him?”

Adrián finally looked at me.

“I didn’t know it was him. My mother told me it was a protected witness being relocated.”

“Where?”

He opened his mouth—

And the chapel door slammed downstairs.

Footsteps echoed through the sanctuary.

Several people.

The priest rushed to the window and immediately closed the curtain.

“They found you.”

Adrián grabbed his phone.

“No signal.”

Then a woman’s voice rose from below.

Calm.

Elegant.

Familiar.

“Elena, sweetheart.”

I had heard that voice three years earlier.

It was the last voice I heard before the hospital doors locked behind me.

Lucía Vega.

Adrián’s mother.

She called again.

“You’ve been searching for your father.”

My fingers closed around his letter.

Lucía laughed softly.

“You should have asked me.”

A pause.

“Because your father is still alive.”