PART 4 — THE LIST OF WOMEN WHO NEVER KNEW
I didn’t stop running until I reached the corner.
Rain soaked my hair and coat, and my hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped the medical file twice.
Behind me, the alarm from Diego’s clinic continued screaming into the night.
I looked back.
No one had followed me yet.
But I knew Diego would.
I ducked beneath the awning of a closed pharmacy and pulled out my phone.
There were already four missed calls from him.
Then a message appeared.
Lucía, come back. You are making this worse.
Another came seconds later.
You don’t understand what Marta is doing.
Then another.
Do not go to the police until we talk.
I stared at the words.
That was the moment I knew exactly what I was going to do.
I called Dr. Serrano.
He answered after two rings.
“Lucía?”
“I found the records.”
His voice changed immediately.
“What records?”
“My file. There’s a forged consent form. Diego admitted he signed my name.”
There was a brief silence.
“Where are you?”
“Outside his clinic.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Leave the area.”
“There’s more.”
I told him about Elena.
About the man outside.
About Marta.
And about the list.
When I finished, Álvaro spoke slowly.
“If there are other patients, this is much bigger than your case.”
“I know.”
“Do you have the original file?”
“Yes.”
“Keep it with you. Photograph every page as soon as you’re somewhere safe.”
I looked toward the clinic again.
“Where should I go?”
“Not home.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Go somewhere Diego won’t immediately think of.”
Then I remembered my sister Isabel.
She lived on the other side of Madrid.
Diego and she had never liked each other.
He had always complained that she “interfered too much.”
At that moment, I finally understood why.
“I have somewhere.”
“Go now. And Lucía?”
“Yes?”
“Do not meet him alone.”
I ordered a taxi.
As I waited, I photographed every page in the file.
Procedure notes.
Medication entries.
Nursing logs.
Consent forms.
Some pages contained abbreviations I didn’t understand.
But I understood the signatures.
Mine appeared six times.
Only two were actually mine.
The taxi arrived.
I climbed into the back seat and gave Isabel’s address.
Halfway there, my phone rang again.
This time it was Marta.
I answered immediately.
“Marta?”
Her voice was barely audible.
“He knows I told you.”
“Where are you?”
“In my car.”
“Are you safe?”
“I don’t know.”
“Leave the clinic.”
“I did.”
“What about the other file?”
There was a pause.
“I still have it.”
My heart jumped.
“You took it?”
“I kept it years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because Elena came back after the procedure.”
The taxi moved through wet streets while neon lights blurred across the windows.
“What happened?”
Marta began crying.
“She was devastated. She kept saying she never agreed to it. Diego told everyone she was confused because of the sedation.”
My stomach tightened.
“Did you believe her?”
“Not at first.”
“And later?”
“I found a form.”
“What form?”
“Her consent page.”
My fingers went cold.
“It was forged?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
Marta continued.
“Then I started checking older records.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Marta.”
“I found seven.”
Seven.
The number felt unreal.
“Seven women?”
“Seven suspicious cases. But there could be more.”
“Did Diego know you found them?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He told me I was misunderstanding medical coding.”
“And you believed him?”
“No.”
“Then why didn’t you report him?”
Marta went silent.
When she finally answered, her voice was full of shame.
“Because he threatened me.”
“With what?”
“My son had just started university. I had debts. Diego knew everything about my finances.”
I looked out the window.
“He told me if I accused him, he would say I had altered the records myself.”
“That’s why you kept the file.”
“Yes.”
“As insurance.”
“Yes.”
My phone vibrated.
Another call was coming through.
Diego.
I ignored it.
“Marta, where is the file now?”
“In my car.”
“Bring it to me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because someone is following me.”
I sat upright.
“What?”
“A black car.”
My pulse quickened.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s been behind me since I left Salamanca.”
“Drive somewhere public.”
“I’m trying.”
“Call the police.”
“I will.”
Then I heard a sharp sound.
Marta gasped.
“What happened?”
“He hit my car.”
“What?”
“The car behind me.”
“Marta, call emergency services now.”
“I’m turning onto Serrano.”
Her breathing became fast.
Then I heard a horn.
Tires.
A scream.
The call disconnected.
“Marta?”
Nothing.
I called back.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
I told the taxi driver to stop.
He looked at me through the mirror.
“Señora?”
“Please stop.”
The taxi pulled to the curb.
I immediately called emergency services and reported everything I knew.
By the time I reached Isabel’s apartment, my entire body was numb.
She opened the door wearing pajamas and stared at me.
“Lucía?”
I burst into tears.
For the first time that day, I let myself collapse.
Isabel pulled me inside.
“What happened?”
“My marriage was a lie.”
She locked the door behind me.
I told her everything.
Not gracefully.
Not in order.
The doctor.
The procedure.
The forged signature.
Elena.
The list.
Marta.
The car.
Isabel listened without interrupting.
When I finished, her face looked completely different.
Not shocked.
Angry.
“So all these years…”
“I don’t know what was real anymore.”
She sat beside me.
“Did Diego ever tell you why?”
“He said he was protecting our marriage.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“Then there’s another reason.”
I looked at her.
“That’s what I think.”
Isabel suddenly stood.
“Wait.”
She walked toward the hallway and returned carrying an old tablet.
“What?”
“Years ago, you left some files here.”
“What files?”
“Photos. Documents. Things from when you and Diego were moving.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I do.”
She unlocked the tablet.
“There was something strange.”
My heart started beating harder.
“What?”
“About five or six years ago, you asked me to scan some documents because your home printer wasn’t working.”
I tried to remember.
Then something came back.
A folder Diego had given me.
Insurance forms.
Clinic documents.
Tax papers.
“You still have them?”
“I might.”
She searched through an old cloud folder.
Dozens of files appeared.
Receipts.
Contracts.
Scans.
Then Isabel stopped.
“This.”
She opened a PDF.
I leaned closer.
It was a letter.
Addressed to Diego.
From a private genetics laboratory.
The date was six months before my procedure.
I read the first paragraph.
Then again.
My heart seemed to stop.
Isabel whispered, “Lucía…”
The letter referenced genetic testing.
Not mine.
Diego’s.
I kept reading.
There were medical terms I didn’t understand.
But one sentence was painfully clear.
The findings indicated a significant hereditary risk that could potentially be passed to biological children.
I stared at the screen.
“Why didn’t he ever tell me?”
Isabel shook her head.
“That could be why he didn’t want children.”
“No.”
I stood.
“If that were the reason, he could have told me.”
“Maybe he was ashamed.”
“That still doesn’t explain Elena.”
We looked at each other.
Exactly.
It explained nothing about the other women.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered cautiously.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice said, “Lucía?”
I recognized him immediately.
The man from outside the clinic.
“Elena’s father?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get my number?”
“Marta gave it to me months ago.”
I sat down slowly.
“She knew this might happen?”
“She hoped it wouldn’t.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
I told him about the crash.
He cursed under his breath.
Then he said, “Listen carefully. My name is Rafael.”
“Okay.”
“Elena died three years ago.”
My chest tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
“She never recovered from what happened at that clinic.”
I closed my eyes.
“Did she report Diego?”
“She tried.”
“What happened?”
“Her complaint disappeared.”
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“Records were missing. Staff said they remembered nothing. Diego’s lawyers said she had misunderstood the procedure.”
Rafael’s voice broke slightly.
“She began thinking nobody believed her.”
I pressed my hand against my forehead.
“What was Diego’s connection to her?”
“That’s the question I spent years trying to answer.”
“Did you find out?”
“Yes.”
My breath stopped.
Rafael continued.
“Elena was not the first patient to accuse him.”
“What?”
“There was another woman before her.”
I stood again.
“Who?”
“I don’t know her name. Only initials.”
“What initials?”
Rafael hesitated.
“C.M.”
I frowned.
“That means nothing to me.”
“It might soon.”
“Why?”
“Because Marta found something last year.”
“What?”
“A payment ledger.”
My heart began pounding.
“What kind of payments?”
“Women were paying Diego for fertility treatment.”
“Yes?”
“But someone else was paying him more.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“For what?”
Rafael went quiet.
Then he said, “For making sure certain women never became pregnant.”
My entire body turned cold.
“That’s impossible.”
“I thought so too.”
“Who would pay for that?”
“That’s what Elena was trying to discover before she died.”
I looked at Isabel.
She could see from my expression that something had changed.
“Rafael, why those women?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were they connected?”
“Possibly.”
“How?”
“I only know what Elena wrote in her notebook.”
“What did she write?”
There was a pause.
“She believed all of them had one thing in common.”
“What?”
“They had partners who didn’t want children.”
I sat completely still.
Rafael continued.
“And some of those partners were wealthy enough to pay someone to solve that problem quietly.”
My stomach turned.
“You think Diego was taking money from husbands?”
“I think Diego was doing something.”
I looked again at the genetic letter.
Suddenly my own case felt different.
Had Diego done it because of his genetic results?
Or had I simply been treated like the other women?
Then Rafael said something that changed everything.
“Marta told me your name appeared in the payment ledger too.”
My throat tightened.
“My name?”
“Yes.”
“Who paid?”
“She wouldn’t tell me over the phone.”
“Why?”
“She said I wouldn’t believe it.”
A knock sounded at Isabel’s apartment door.
Three slow knocks.
We both froze.
I whispered, “Rafael, stay on the line.”
Another knock.
Isabel looked through the peephole.
Her face lost all color.
“It’s Diego.”
My heart began hammering.
He knocked again.
“Lucía,” he called through the door. “I know you’re in there.”
I said nothing.
He continued.
“We need to talk before you destroy both our lives.”
I clutched the phone.
Rafael heard him.
“Do not open that door.”
Diego knocked again.
Then he said something that made me forget how to breathe.
“Lucía, I know you found the genetics letter.”
Isabel and I stared at each other.
How could he possibly know?
Then my phone buzzed.
A message from Marta.
Only five words.
I opened it.
DON’T TRUST THE GENETICS LETTER.
Before I could respond, another message arrived.
THE REAL REASON IS IN THE LEDGER.
Then a photograph appeared.
It showed a handwritten page.
Seven women’s names.
Amounts beside each one.
Dates.
And next to my name was a payment larger than all the others.
€40,000.
The payer’s name was partly obscured by Marta’s thumb.
I enlarged the image.
My hands began trembling violently.
The surname became visible first.
Martín.
My maiden name.
Then the first name.
I dropped the phone.
Isabel bent down and picked it up.
She read the line.
Her face went blank.
“No,” she whispered.
I couldn’t speak.
Because the person who had paid Diego €40,000 to make sure I never had a child was not a stranger.
It was someone I had trusted my entire life.
My own father……….
TO BE CONTINUED IN LAST PART…
