The boys laughed softly when one of them dropped a grain of rice on the table. Elena wiped it away with her thumb, unbothered, smiling as if this scene were the most ordinary thing in the world.

It wasn’t.

It was impossible.

They had his eyes.
All four of them.

The same dark, slightly slanted gaze Lucía used to tease him about. The same stubborn crease between the brows when they concentrated. One even had the tiny scar above the left eyebrow—exactly where Alejandro had one from falling off a horse at age seven.

His heart began to pound so violently he thought the boys might hear it.

“Elena,” he said hoarsely.

The spoon froze midair.

She turned slowly.

The color drained from her face.

“Señor… I—” Her voice broke. She stood up so fast the chair scraped loudly against the marble floor. “You weren’t supposed to be home until—”

“Who,” Alejandro interrupted, each word heavy and sharp, “are these children?”

The boys fell silent. Four small bodies stiffened. Four identical heads turned toward him.

They did not look afraid.

They looked curious.

Like children seeing a father walk into the room.

Elena swallowed hard. Her gloved hands trembled. “Please,” she whispered, “let me explain.”

Alejandro laughed once—short, broken, almost hysterical. “Explain?” He pointed at the table. “Explain why my house has been silent for five years… and suddenly it’s full of ghosts with my face?”

One of the boys slid off his chair and walked toward him.

Elena gasped. “Mateo, no—”

The boy stopped a few steps away and tilted his head. “Are you the man from the pictures?”

Alejandro’s breath caught. “What pictures?”

“The ones Mama kissed before she went to sleep,” the child said simply.

The word struck him like a bullet.

“Mama?”

Elena covered her mouth. Tears spilled freely now. She sank back into the chair as if her legs could no longer hold her.

Alejandro felt the room spin. “Lucía is dead,” he said. “I buried her. I stood at her grave.”

“Yes,” Elena whispered. “You buried her body.”

Silence crashed down.

“She came to the servants’ quarters one night,” Elena continued, her voice shaking but steadying with the relief of truth. “She was already sick. Very sick. But she was pregnant.”

Alejandro’s knees buckled. He grabbed the edge of the table to stay upright.

“Quadruplets,” Elena said. “The doctors said she wouldn’t survive the pregnancy. And she knew you’d be forced to choose—your empire or your children. She’d seen how the board watched you. How they waited for weakness.”

“That’s a lie,” he said automatically. “I would’ve chosen—”

“She didn’t risk it,” Elena interrupted softly. “She loved you too much.”

Lucía’s face rose in his memory—pale, determined, eyes full of a quiet fire. He remembered her saying, Promise me one thing, Alejandro. If I ever disappear, don’t look for reasons. Just know I loved you.

“She made me swear,” Elena went on. “To raise them quietly. To keep them alive. To never let anyone know who they were.”

“Why here?” Alejandro whispered. “Why in my house?”

“Because no one looks at what they already own,” Elena said bitterly. “The richest man in the city never notices the servants’ wing.”

One of the boys tugged gently at Alejandro’s pant leg.

“Are you mad?” the boy asked.

Alejandro dropped to his knees.

He stared at them—all four of them now standing before him, hands linked, faces open and hopeful.

“I’m your papa,” he breathed, the word foreign and sacred on his tongue.

Mateo smiled. Another boy—Lucas—stepped forward and placed a sticky rice-covered hand on Alejandro’s cheek.

“You look sad,” Lucas said. “Mama said you were sad.”

Alejandro broke.

For the first time since Lucía’s death, he wept without restraint—great, shuddering sobs that shook his entire body. The boys hesitated only a moment before wrapping their small arms around him, clumsy and warm and real.

Elena watched, crying openly.

“I colored the rice yellow,” she whispered, “because they asked why princes eat so little.”

Alejandro laughed through tears. “Golden rice,” he repeated. “Of course.”

He looked around the vast dining room—the chandeliers, the polished table, the wealth that had meant nothing without voices like these.

“Pack their things,” he said suddenly, standing up. His voice had changed—steel threaded with fire. “They’re moving upstairs. Today.”

Elena’s eyes widened. “Señor, the board—”

“Can burn,” Alejandro snapped. “This house has heirs.”

That night, the forbidden table was used again.

Not for pretending.