—I wanted to spoil you —he said with a strange smile—. I saw a new coffee and bought it.
I sat down without saying anything. Arturo placed my cup in front of me and stood there watching me. Not like someone waiting for a “thank you,” but like someone waiting for a result.
I took the cup in my hands. It was hot. The steam hit my face. I brought it closer to my nose… and something inside me tightened. It wasn’t just coffee. There was a metallic, bitter undertone, like crushed medicine or something worse. Just a hint. But enough.
I looked up.
Arturo looked away too quickly.
At another time, I would have laughed at myself for being suspicious. But in the last few months, he had not been the same. He came home late. He slept with his cell phone under his pillow. He answered calls out on the patio. And when I asked questions, he smiled with that fake patience men use when they think a woman no longer notices anything.
—You don’t like it? —he asked.
—It’s just very strong.
—Drink it before it gets cold.
His voice was calm, but his fingers were drumming on the table.
At that moment, a notification sounded on his phone. He turned toward the counter for barely a second. That was all I needed. I switched the cups.
I didn’t think. I just did it.
When he turned back around, I pushed the cup toward him with a smile I didn’t even feel myself.
—Go on, try it. If it’s good, we’ll buy more tomorrow.
Arturo froze.
—I already had some earlier.
—Just a little sip.
—Marina…
—What? Are you afraid of your own coffee now?
I said it playfully, but the air in the kitchen became so tense that I felt a chill on my arms.
Arturo swallowed. I saw the exact movement in his throat. His hands trembled slightly when he took the cup. He held my gaze for one long, unbearable second. Then he took a sip.
A small one.
Nothing more.
One second passed.
Then another.
And suddenly all the color drained from his face.
The cup fell to the floor and shattered into pieces. Arturo brought his hands to his throat, opened his mouth as if the air had turned to glass, and slammed into the table with a dull blow that made the plates tremble.
—Arturo!
I ran toward him. His body began convulsing on the floor. His eyes were wide open, filled with a terror that was not surprise, but recognition. As if he knew exactly what was happening to him.
Then I understood.
That coffee wasn’t for him.
It was for me.
I pulled out my phone to call emergency services, but before dialing, I saw that his screen was still lit up on the counter. A new message had come in.
“Don’t fail again. My mother isn’t going to lose that house because of your wife.”
Under the message was the name that made me feel as if the floor had disappeared beneath my feet.
Daniela.
And in that instant, while Arturo choked on the poison he had prepared for me, I understood that what had just happened in my kitchen was only the first piece of something monstrous.
I couldn’t believe what was about to happen.
PART 2
The ambulance took Arturo away with a thread of life still in him, and I stayed alone in the kitchen, watching the spilled coffee dry between the tiles as if it were oil. Everything smelled of poison, broken cup, old lie.
I didn’t cry.
