Chapter 75: The Kidnapping

NARRATOR

Morning dawned gray over Jasper, Alberta. The sky was covered with clouds heavy as lead, and the air smelled of approaching snow. Lucía woke before sunrise, as she did every day since she had arrived. She prepared the formula bottles, carefully bundled Isabella and Sofía, and opened the window to let in a bit of fresh mountain air.

It was an ordinary day. Or at least, that’s what she thought.

The eight-month-old twins were still sleeping when she went down to the hotel dining room to get hot milk for her coffee. She greeted Robert, the manager, paid with the last Canadian dollars she had left, and climbed the wooden stairs.

Everything was normal. Until she noticed the door to her room was ajar.

Her heart lurched violently.

She set the glass of milk down on the hallway floor. She pushed the door open with trembling hands.

The crib was completely empty.

“No… no, no, no, no…” she whispered, rushing in like a desperate whirlwind.

She checked the small bathroom, the closet, under the bed, behind the curtains. Nothing. Only the pink blankets in disarray, the smell of baby powder, and the cruelest, most terrifying silence she had ever heard in her life.

She ran to the window with her heart racing wildly. Below, the snow-covered street was empty, but stuck to the icy glass from the outside was a piece of paper taped in place. She ripped it off with shaking hands.

“I told you I would find you. Now they are MINE.”

Her world literally collapsed.

She fell to her knees on the cold floor, the paper in her hand, screaming her daughters’ names until her voice gave out. She cried until there was no air left in her lungs.

Then she knew with absolute certainty. Damián was back. And he had taken Isabella and Sofía.

Minutes passed, maybe hours. She didn’t remember going down the stairs or running out into the snowy street. She only saw herself stumbling through the snow, desperately searching for help, falling and getting back up.

“My daughters! My babies! He took them!” she screamed, mixing Spanish and English.

Robert, the hotel owner, tried to calm her with words she didn’t understand. He immediately called the local Jasper police. Two RCMP officers arrived within fifteen minutes.

They asked her questions she couldn’t answer coherently. What exact time? What clothes were they wearing? Had she seen anyone suspicious? Everything was distant, unintelligible noise. She only repeated her daughters’ names over and over like a mantra of pain.

“Isabella and Sofía. My twins. They’re eight months old.”

A serious-faced officer asked her to sit in the lobby. He offered her water and a thermal blanket.

“Calm down, ma’am. We’re going to check the security cameras. Maybe we can see something.”

She only nodded, lost in terror, unable to process the English words.

The fear was so great, so absolute, that she could barely think clearly.

While the officers checked the hotel area and spoke over the radio, Lucía returned to the empty room. She sat on the wooden floor, clutching one of the pink blankets they had left behind. It still smelled of Isabella and Sofía, of milk and baby powder.

Then she felt it: the need, the impulse, the absolute desperation.

She couldn’t wait for the Canadian police. She couldn’t trust anyone who didn’t truly understand who Damián was.

She took out her cell phone. She had kept it turned off, only for extreme emergencies. The number was there, stored in her memory forever, though she had never dared to dial it. She stared at it for a long moment, trembling with fear and hope.

“Forgive me, Mateo,” she whispered. “But I need you to save me one more time.”

She dialed with trembling fingers.

In San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, the phone in the episcopal office rang just as Mateo was finishing organizing some charity documents. It was almost midnight. The cathedral was completely empty. He answered with a calm but tired voice.

“Episcopal residence, Monsignor Mateo speaking.”

On the other end, he heard only ragged breathing and sobs. Then a completely broken voice he would recognize among a thousand.

“Mateo… it’s me.”

His heart literally stopped in his chest.

He would recognize that voice anywhere in the world, after any amount of time.

“Lucía?” he whispered, unable to believe it.

“He took them…” she said through desperate sobs. “Damián took my daughters. Our daughters.”

The entire world stopped for an eternal second.

“What did you say?” he asked, unable to process the words.

“I have two daughters. Twins. They’re yours, Mateo. From that night. And Damián kidnapped them. He went into the room while I went downstairs… they were sleeping… I don’t know how he did it. When I came back, they were gone. He only left a note. He says they’re his… that he’s going to… I don’t know what he’s going to do to them.”

The silence that followed was absolutely unbearable.

Mateo pressed the phone to his ear so hard his fingers hurt. His mind tried to process it: Daughters. Twins. Mine. Kidnapped.

“Where are you right now?” he asked, his voice controlled though inside he was a hurricane.

“In Alberta, Canada. In a town called Jasper… near the mountains. I’m with the Canadian police, but they don’t know anything about Damián, they don’t understand how dangerous he is.”

“Listen to me very carefully, Lucía,” he said, containing the rage, panic, and love that exploded all at once. “Don’t move from there. Don’t talk to anyone else about me. I’m coming there right now.”

“No, you can’t come. If anyone sees you with me, if they find out you’re the father… your life, your career…”

“I don’t care about any of that.” His voice was dry, firm, almost commanding. “I’m not going to stay here blessing people while that son of a bitch has my daughters. Our daughters.”

“Mateo, please, think about what you’re saying…”

“I promised you once that I wouldn’t leave you alone. And I broke that promise when I let you go. I’m not breaking it again.”

He hung up before she could respond, took a deep breath trying to calm himself, and placed his trembling hands on the desk.

His entire body shook with rage, fear, and determination.

I have daughters. Twins. And a monster has them.

He didn’t know exactly how, but he had to get to Canada.

He left the office without thinking twice, removing his cassock as he walked.

The auxiliary bishop saw him passing through the hallway in civilian clothes.

“Monsignor Mateo, is everything okay? Where are you going at this hour?”

“A family emergency,” he replied without stopping. “I must travel immediately. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

That dawn he took the first available flight: San Cristóbal–Mexico City–Calgary–Jasper. There was no time for explanations or permissions.

His drug lord brothers were right: family came first.

And he had just discovered he had one.

Meanwhile, hundreds of kilometers to the north, hell was moving in silence.

On the snowy outskirts of Calgary, Damián drove a stolen Chevrolet truck along a lonely highway. In the back seat, Isabella and Sofía slept restlessly inside blankets. Their soft breathing and small whimpers filled the vehicle.

He watched them constantly in the rearview mirror. He couldn’t deny they were beautiful babies. They resembled Lucía in their features.

But there was something else. Something that deeply irritated him.

Both girls had light-colored eyes. Not dark brown like his.

Eyes that were not his.

He gripped the steering wheel tightly until his knuckles turned white.

“They’re mine because I say so. No one is going to take them from me. And if that fucking priest dares to show up, I’ll kill him with my own hands.”

He had waited for that moment through months of obsession. He followed every lead, every trace, every rumor. He paid people. He threatened. He tortured information out of them.

And now he had them.

Lucía would pay for leaving him. For having “stolen” his daughters.

In Jasper, the police continued without concrete news. There were no functioning security cameras in that part of town. No one had seen anything suspicious. It was as if the man and the babies had been swallowed by the snowy earth.

Lucía paced frantically in front of the hotel, unable to stop the tears that kept falling.

Every passing minute was indescribable torture.

She imagined Isabella and Sofía crying, calling for her with their babbling, reaching for her arms.

When the Canadian night fell, the cell phone rang again.

She answered without thinking, with desperate hope.

“Lucía?”

It was Mateo again. His voice was firm, contained, but the emotional tremor was there beneath the surface.

“I’m at the Calgary airport. I’ll be in Jasper in three hours with a rental car. I promise we’re going to find them. Our daughters.”

She pressed a hand to her chest, sobbing.

“I’m so scared, Mateo. They’re so small…”

“I know. But you’re not going to face him alone this time. I never should have let you go. It was my greatest mistake.”

For the first time in a year and a half, she believed those words.

Night fell heavily over Jasper. Snow began to fall again, thick and silent, covering the tracks.

Lucía remained seated in front of the hotel window, not taking her eyes off the snowy street. Every shadow looked like a threatening ghost.

Suddenly, a sharp noise made her spin violently. A knock against the glass.

She stood up slowly, her heart pounding wildly.

On the outer windowsill, another folded piece of paper.

Trembling, she took it with frozen hands.

“I told you not to defy me, bitch. Now you’ll know what it feels like to lose EVERYTHING. Say goodbye to them.”

She collapsed to her knees on the cold floor, screaming in helplessness and absolute terror.

Outside, a dark truck drove away through the thick snow, leaving tracks the storm would erase in minutes.

And in the icy air of the Canadian night, Lucía could only say his name like a desperate prayer:

“Mateo… please, hurry…”

Because she knew time was running out. And that Damián was capable of anything.