“I trusted him,” he whispered. “He promised he could save her.”
What followed wasn’t shouting.
It was worse.
A quiet decision.
Richard used his contacts, opened old files, searched for histories. Julia dug through forums, forgotten news articles, buried testimonies. The pieces fit together with cruel precision.
Other children. Other families. Silenced stories.
Richard and Julia understood something that bound them together: staying silent would make them part of the same silence that had almost killed Luna.
They brought the case to the prosecutor.
A formal investigation began.
When the connections to pharmaceutical companies and unauthorized trials came to light, the story exploded. Media. Headlines. Cameras. And with attention came shadows—articles blaming Richard as an absent father, accusations painting Julia as an infiltrator, anonymous threats meant to break them.
Richard burned with anger.
Julia stayed steady.
“If they’re scared,” she said one night, “it’s because we’re touching the truth.”
While the world screamed outside, a small, real miracle happened inside the mansion.
Luna returned.
Not suddenly. Not magically. But step by step.
She asked to go into the garden. She laughed softly when Richard brought her favorite snacks. She drew more—and her drawings changed. No longer empty trees, but colors. Hands holding hands. Open windows.
When the trial began, the courtroom filled with families. It wasn’t just the story of a rich child and a brave maid. It was rows of exhausted parents, faces marked by sleepless nights.
Julia testified calmly, without tears for show. Richard spoke after her and admitted his failure without excuses.
Fear, he said, can turn even an intelligent man blind.
