27.
DANTE FERRAZ
Aurora did not release my hand immediately.
She remained that way for several seconds, her small fingers between mine, while Tomás pushed a toy car across the floor and imitated the sound of an engine.
It was not forgiveness.
I needed to repeat that to myself.
It was not a romantic choice.
It was fear.
A temporary alliance in the face of a concrete threat.
Even so, when she moved away, my hand felt empty.
“I need to collect the girls,” Aurora said.
“We’ll go together.”
She nodded.
No resistance.
We took Tomás with us.
During the drive to school, he repeated that Mommy and Daddy were going to travel in a helicopter.
“I want to go too,” he complained.
“You’re staying with Mrs. Lurdes,” Aurora answered.
“She doesn’t have helicopter.”
“She doesn’t need one.”
“I need.”
“What for?”
Tomás thought.
“To fly.”
“People don’t need to fly.”
“Birds need.”
“You are not a bird.”
Dante, be quiet.
The order appeared in my mind before I could respond.
I was learning not to encourage every argument.
Tomás waited.
“All right,” I said.
“What?”
“You’re a bird.”
“I’m not.”
Aurora laughed.
“He only does it to disagree.”
“I noticed.”
“I’m not disagleeling,” Tomás protested.
“Of course not,” she replied.
The girls left school together.
Elisa ran toward us.
Cecília followed, holding the teacher’s hand.
“Daddy!” Elisa shouted.
The word was already beginning to emerge without my name attached.
It affected me every time.
I picked her up.
“How was school?”
“I painted a cow.”
“Was it good?”
“It was a cow.”
“Then it worked.”
Cecília reached Aurora and hugged her leg.
“You came.”
“I did.”
“Daddy too.”
“Daddy too.”
She looked at me.
“Both.”
“Both,” I confirmed.
Inside the car, Aurora explained that we would travel the following day.
Elisa wanted to know why.
“Work,” we answered simultaneously.
The synchronized response appeared suspicious even to a three-year-old.
“What kind of work?” she asked.
Aurora turned partially around.
“I need to find something inside a storage facility.”
“Treasure?”
“No.”
“Then it’s boring.”
“Very.”
“Daddy helps?”
“He does.”
“He’s strong.”
“Not everything can be solved through strength,” Aurora said.
“He has helicopter.”
As though one explained the other.
“The helicopter belongs to the company,” I corrected.
“Then you have.”
Aurora looked at me.
“Do not explain assets to children.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Almost.”
We returned home.
Miguel met us at the studio late that afternoon.
He brought a floor plan of the storage facility.
It was a conservation warehouse connected to an old Ferraz Group property in Petrópolis.
“The sculpture is in Sector C,” he explained. “Or it should be.”
“Should?” Aurora asked.
“The inventory has not been updated in two years.”
I looked at the plan.
“Who is in charge?”
“Augusto Meirelles,” Miguel answered. “He has worked for the group for twenty-three years.”
I knew the name.
Not the man.
That said too much about the way I managed people.
“Is he trustworthy?” Aurora asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
She looked at me.
“You don’t know?”
“I have never met him personally.”
“And he will open one of your warehouses for you.”
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
It did now.
“It should have bothered me before.”
Miguel pointed to two entrances.
“The main access requires registration. There is a service entrance used for transportation.”
“Cameras?” I asked.
“At the entrance. Inside, only along the main corridors.”
Aurora studied the map.
“If Otávio discovered the piece was transferred, he may have tried to enter.”
“There is no record,” I said.
“Records can be falsified.”
She repeated what she had been forced to learn.
“We should inspect the site before announcing our presence,” Miguel suggested.
“How?” I asked.
“We arrive in an ordinary vehicle. Augusto only opens the facility once we are there.”
“No visible security?” Aurora asked.
“We will have two men outside.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I,” I said. “But this time, I will not yield.”
She stiffened.
“You don’t decide.”
“I am not deciding alone. I am saying I will not enter a potentially compromised warehouse without protection.”
“I don’t want to enter unprotected either.”
Her agreement surprised me.
“Then two,” she allowed. “Outside. No visible weapons.”
“All right.”
“And the children do not know where we are going.”
“Work in Petrópolis.”
“Only that.”
Miguel folded the plan.
“There is another matter.”
“What?” Aurora asked.
“The journalist who received money published part of a document about the pregnancy.”
My body went cold.
“What document?”
“An old medical report. It does not contain the children’s names, but it mentions a high-risk triplet pregnancy.”
Aurora lost all color.
“How did they get it?”
“Probably from the files used in the criminal proceedings.”
“They were confidential.”
“Otávio had copies.”
She stood.
“What did they publish?”
Miguel handed her his telephone.
Aurora read.
I saw the moment her eyes found a specific sentence.
“‘Aurora Valen?a already knew she was expecting three children when she left Rio,’” she read quietly. “That is a lie.”
“We know,” I said.
“I discovered that night.”
“I know.”
“They are saying I deliberately hid it from you.”
“The statement makes it clear that you attempted contact.”
“It does not clarify when I learned it was a triplet pregnancy.”
I took the telephone.
“We’ll publish a correction.”
“I don’t want to expose medical tests.”
“We don’t need to.”
“How will we prove it?”
“My word.”
Aurora looked at me.
“Your word does not change the facts for everyone.”
“Not for everyone. But it changes the official position.”
Miguel waited.
“I want the box,” Aurora said.
“What box?” I asked.
She closed her eyes.
“The one I intended to bring to the wedding.”
My heart stopped.
“It still exists?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Stored away.”
“It contains the first ultrasound.”
“Yes.”
“It is dated.”
“Yes.”
The box.
The tiny shoes.
The image of one baby who had actually been three, not yet identified.
The note.
Our greatest asset is on the way.
I remembered her voice at the altar.
“The box is with Clara.”
I had refused to see it.
“You don’t need to use that,” I said.
“It is evidence.”
“It is also yours.”
“My entire life became evidence.”
The sentence struck me.
“Then don’t surrender it.”
“And allow them to say I lied?”
“I will say you did not.”
“You believed me too late.”
“Then this time I will believe you publicly before you show a single document.”
Aurora held the telephone tightly.
“I don’t want the children finding that article one day.”
“We cannot eliminate every trace.”
“I know.”
“But we can create a truthful record.”
“Without the box?”
“Without the box.”
She looked at Miguel.
“What do you think?”
“The box would prove the timeline, but it would also feed the exposure.”
“Then no,” Aurora decided.
She returned the telephone.
“Only publish that I discovered the triplet pregnancy after the ceremony and that the document was obtained illegally.”
“All right.”
“No medical details.”
“All right.”
Elisa ran into the room.
“T?mas put rock in nose.”
We all moved at once.
We found Tomás sitting on the floor, one finger in his nose, his eyes wide.
“Don’t touch it,” Aurora ordered.
“It’s stuck.”
“What rock?” I asked.
“Small.”
Cecília held an empty box.
“Was mine.”
“That does not matter now,” Aurora said.
I knelt.
“Breathe through your mouth.”
Tomás opened his mouth dramatically.
“Am I gonna die?”
“No,” Aurora answered.
“Doctor?”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t want stab.”
“No one is going to stab you.”
Miguel watched, perhaps reconsidering every decision that had led him into that room.
“Flashlight,” I asked.
Aurora brought one.
The rock was visible.
“Do not try to remove it with tweezers,” she said.
“I know.”
“How?”
“Book.”
“Of course.”
Tomás began crying.
“Want out.”
“We’re going to the doctor,” Aurora decided.
“I can take him.”
“Everyone goes.”
The investigation, the warehouse, and the press vanished in the face of a rock inside a nose.
One hour later, a doctor removed the object using a small instrument.
Tomás received the rock inside a container.
“Mine,” Cecília said.
“Was in my nose,” he answered.
“Was mine first.”
“Now it belongs to the doctor,” Aurora declared.
Tomás was outraged.
“I want.”
“No.”
“It’s my treasure.”
“You put it inside your nose.”
“By accident.”
“How does a rock enter your nose by accident?” I asked.
He thought.
“It jumped.”
Elisa laughed.
On the way out, Aurora held Tomás’s hand.
I carried Cecília.
Elisa walked between us.
Miguel had already left.
“Is your life always like this?” I asked.
Aurora looked at me.
“Today was calm.”
“You’re joking.”
“A little.”
Elisa raised her hand.
“I didn’t do nothing.”
“Yet,” Aurora replied.
Inside the car, the children began singing.
Aurora joined them.
So did I.
Badly.
They complained.
For several minutes, there was no Otávio.
No altar.
No fear.
Only three children arguing over whether rocks could jump.
But when I left Aurora at home, the following day’s trip returned to occupy everything.
She remained at the door.
“Tomorrow at seven.”
“I’ll be here at six fifty-eight.”
“Seven.”
“I’ll wait in the car.”
“I know.”
“Aurora.”
“What?”
“About the box…”
Her face closed.
“No.”
“I don’t want to see it.”
“Then why did you mention it?”
“I want you to know that if you ever decide to show it to me, I will not use it against you.”
Pain crossed her eyes.
“You used everything against me once.”
“I know.”
“Good night, Dante.”
The door closed.
I remained outside.
I could not change that night.
But the following day, I would enter a warehouse beside her.
And when we found whatever was hidden there, I would listen before judging.
Even if the truth destroyed what remained of my name.