You twist just enough.
Not enough to expose yourself. Not enough to send him into real panic. Just enough that his fingers buckle open on reflex and he stares at you as if he has touched a wire where a woman used to be. The room freezes.
“What was that?” he asks.
You lower your eyes like Lidia would and say, “You were hurting me.”
That works better than if you had lied.
Because now he has to decide whether he imagined the strength in that tiny motion or whether fear has begun changing his wife in ways he doesn’t understand. Abusers hate uncertainty more than resistance. Resistance can be punished. Uncertainty keeps them awake.
Later, when he falls asleep facedown and snoring, you take his phone.
The passcode is Sofi’s birthday. Of course it is. Men like him like to borrow innocence even for their locks. You move quickly, copying messages to Lidia’s email draft folder, photographing loan notices, and forwarding a thread between Damián and a man named Chino Serrano who is done “waiting like a fool while your wife still has assets.”
Assets.
You read that word three times. Not savings. Not money. Assets. Somewhere under the bruises and terror, Damián thinks like a scavenger with a calculator. The messages make it clear. He owes enough gambling debt to be desperate, and his plan is nearly ready.
He wants Lidia to sign over a small house lot outside Toluca left to her by your late grandmother.
You had forgotten the lot existed.
