Chapter 8 - Seventy-Two Hours
The next two days passed in a blur of intense, agonizing, and beautiful transformation.
Alejandro canceled every meeting on his calendar. He ignored calls from his board of directors, handed operational control of Vance Enterprises to his chief operating officer, and dedicated every waking hour to his new reality.
The cold marble mansion was dismantled piece by piece.
On Wednesday morning, a team of contractors arrived—not to install security systems, but to build child-proof gates at the top of the grand staircases, cover sharp glass coffee tables, and convert three massive, empty guest bedrooms into a brightly painted children's suite.
Alejandro didn't watch from his study; he worked alongside them. He helped assemble four twin beds, his multi-million-dollar hands wrestling with Allen wrenches and wooden bed frames until his palms were bruised.
"You're turning the bed frame upside down, Mr. Vance," Elena noted, leaning against the doorway with a broom in hand.
Alejandro wiped sweat from his forehead, looking up from the pile of wooden slats. "I run a global supply chain company, Elena. I can figure out a bed frame."
"You put the headboard where the feet go," she pointed out with a subtle smile.
Alejandro looked at the instruction manual, then at the bed, and let out a tired sigh, chuckling softly. "Fine. Help me flip it."
As they worked together, the boys became bolder. They no longer tiptoed through the hallways. Leo discovered that the long marble corridor outside the library was perfect for sliding in cotton socks. Toby found Alejandro's acoustic guitar sitting in the corner of the study and spent an hour strumming the open strings while Alejandro sat beside him, showing him how to hold the neck.
By Thursday evening, the house was unrecognizable.
Crayon drawings were taped to the stainless-steel refrigerator. Toy trucks were parked in neat rows next to Alejandro's hand-carved Italian entrance bench. The smell of fresh chocolate chip cookies baked by Elena filled the air, completely wiping away the sterile scent of floor polish.
Sitting around the long mahogany dining table that night, Alejandro looked around.
Elena sat on his left, no longer wearing her apron, eating as an equal member of the table. The four boys sat in elevated booster seats, their faces messy with spaghetti sauce.
"Daddy," Leo said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "Can we build a bigger fort tomorrow?"
Alejandro looked at the boy, feeling a warm, deep ache in his chest—a feeling he hadn't experienced since Sofia was alive.
"Tomorrow morning we have to go to a courtroom, Leo," Alejandro explained gently, reaching over to clean the sauce off the boy's chin with a napkin. "We have to talk to a judge."
"Is the judge nice?" Toby asked, his small brow furrowed.
May you like
"I don't know," Alejandro said, looking around the table at all four identical faces. "But I promise you, no matter what happens in that room, I am bringing you all back home."
That night, for the first time in five years, Alejandro didn't sleep in his master suite. He fell asleep on the rug in the children's bedroom, his arm draped over little Sam's bed frame, holding a plastic blue dinosaur in his hand.
