CHAPTER 1 – The Seventh Shot

“That’s it, that’s it…”

Gabriel Ortega watched the young woman open the rifle case.

She was about twenty-five years old, had a dark ponytail, and an expression that was too calm for someone being evaluated for the first time.

“Let’s see if she proves she’s worthy of being on this shooting line.”

The young woman did not respond.

He took out the bolt-action rifle and rested the butt against his shoulder.

Gabriel smiled arrogantly.

“Be careful. That rifle hits harder than it looks.”

She closed her left eye.

“Right in the center… if you can find it.”

The gunshot echoed across the desert.

Two aligned metal targets shook. The impact produced a shower of sparks.

Gabriel stopped smiling.

Did he hit both targets?

The young woman engaged the bolt.

“You gave me seven bullets.”

He fired six more times.

Each bullet found a different target. The last projectile struck a small plate almost hidden behind a cardboard cutout.

Three retired officers watched from the security line. General Esteban Rojas slowly removed his hat.

Gabriel approached the young woman.

“Who taught him that sequence?”

She lowered the rifle.

“My mother.”

“What’s it called?”

“Carmen Herrera.”

Gabriel did not recognize the name.

Then the young woman pulled out a small cloth bag. Inside were seven antique shell casings and a military dog ​​tag marked with the initials AHO.

Gabriel lost the color in his face.

The plaque had belonged to Ana Herrera Ortega, his first wife.

Ana had died during childbirth twenty-five years earlier. The doctor also informed her that her daughter had not survived.

“Where did he get this?”

“Carmen gave it to me before she died.”

The young woman took a deep breath.

“My name is Lucía Herrera. Carmen raised me, but she wasn’t the woman who gave birth to me.”

Gabriel looked into her eyes. They were identical to Ana’s.

Lucia held back her tears.

“My mother said you would recognize the seven shots because you are my father.”

CHAPTER 2 – The girl Carmen protected

Twenty-five years earlier, Gabriel was a young officer stationed abroad.

Ana was pregnant when he received a six-week mission. Before leaving, he showed her a sequence of seven shots.

“One for every day I think I’ll miss you,” she joked.

Gabriel promised to return before the birth.

He didn’t arrive on time.

Beatriz Salas, then the hospital administrator and a friend of the family, called him to tell him that Ana had suffered a fatal hemorrhage.

He also told her that the girl had died.

Gabriel returned to bury his wife and a daughter he never got to see. The small coffin remained closed.

Years later, Beatriz became his second wife.

a handed him a letter written by Carmen.

Carmen was Ana’s older sister. When she arrived at the hospital, she heard the newborn crying inside a secluded room.

Beatriz assured him that Gabriel blamed the girl for Ana’s death. She showed him a forged letter in which he relinquished all his rights.

Carmen could not allow herself to be sent to an orphanage.

He signed a temporary guardianship and took Lucia away.

When she tried to contact Gabriel, Beatriz threatened to accuse her of kidnapping. Carmen was a widow with few resources. She feared going to prison and losing her daughter.

That’s why he fled.

Raising Lucia wasn’t easy. Carmen worked as a seamstress, waitress, and caregiver. She never let her daughter feel abandoned.

She told him that her father had been a soldier and that Ana had loved sport shooting. The seven shell casings were all Carmen had left of that family.

“Why have you waited until now?” Gabriel asked.

“Carmen told me the truth when she found out she was sick. She made me promise that I wouldn’t come until she could no longer be punished.”

Gabriel closed his eyes.

“I spent twenty-five years visiting an empty grave.”

Lucia watched him.

“And I spent twenty-five years believing that you had never loved me.”

Gabriel opened the forged letter.

The signature looked like his.

But he had never written those words.

Someone had condemned a father and daughter to mourn each other while they were both still alive.

CHAPTER 3 – A daughter doesn’t recover in a day

Gabriel requested an independent DNA test.

Beatriz arrived at the shooting range before they could leave.

She was an elegant fifty-two-year-old woman, known for managing the academy’s accounts.

Upon seeing Lucia, his serenity vanished.

“What is she doing here?”

Gabriel lifted Ana’s military dog ​​tag.

“That’s what I want to ask you.”

Beatriz claimed that Carmen had stolen the girl. She asserted that Ana had requested a private adoption and that Gabriel was being victimized by a con artist.

Lucia took a step back.

“I don’t want your money.”

“So, what do you want?” Beatriz asked.

“To know why I grew up without my father.”

Gabriel took Lucía out to dinner while they waited for the result. The conversation was difficult.

He wanted to know everything: her first steps, her birthdays, school, and the woman who had raised her.

Lucía protected every memory of Carmen.

“Don’t talk about her as if she stole me,” she warned. “She was my mother during all the times you couldn’t be there.”

Gabriel accepted the truth.

“I will not try to take his place.”

“So what place do you want?”

“Whatever you decide to give me.”

The answer softened something inside Lucia.

The result came the next day.

The probability of paternity was greater than 99.99 percent.

Gabriel held the document with trembling hands.

“Hello, daughter.”

Lucía wanted to answer, but the words wouldn’t come out.

Gabriel didn’t hug her until she took the first step.

They both cried silently.

That same afternoon, Beatriz filed a complaint. She accused Carmen of falsifying Lucía’s birth certificate and claimed that the young woman was trying to take over the academy.

He also requested to block any legal recognition of paternity.

But General Rojas had begun his own investigation.

Hospital records showed that Beatriz had authorized the transfer of a healthy newborn just hours after Ana’s death.

Furthermore, he had received a large sum of money from the lawyer responsible for Gabriel’s estate.

Lucía was not just his daughter.

She was the rightful heir to half of the academy.

Beatriz had not distanced herself from her solely out of jealousy: she had built her marriage on the disappearance of an heiress.

CHAPTER 4 – Lucia’s Two Mothers

The academy board met a week later.

Beatriz stated that Lucía was a stranger manipulated by Carmen.

“This young woman reappeared after twenty-five years and now intends to become part of our family.”

Lucía placed a wooden box on the table.

Inside were the letters Carmen had sent to Gabriel over the years. All of them had been returned unopened.

The return address belonged to an office controlled by Beatriz.

General Rojas presented the hospital records. A retired nurse testified that Ana had given birth to a healthy baby girl.

Beatriz had ordered a false death certificate to be prepared before Gabriel returned.

“Why?” Gabriel asked.

Beatriz stopped pretending.

“Ana was always with us. Even in death, her daughter would have been the most important thing to you.”

“She was my daughter.”

“I gave you a stable life.”

“You gave me twenty-five years of mourning.”

Beatriz also feared losing control of the academy. Gabriel’s father’s will bequeathed half the shares to his firstborn son.

With Lucía declared dead, Beatriz had managed those assets for years.

Gabriel ended the marriage and turned the documents over to the authorities. Beatriz faced charges of fraud, forgery, and identity theft.

The board offered Lucia the shares that legally belonged to her.

She did not accept them immediately.

“First, I want Carmen’s name to be cleared.”

Gabriel agreed.

Carmen was publicly recognized as the woman who protected Lucia when all the documents stated that nobody wanted her.

Lucía decided to keep both surnames.

It would be Lucía Herrera Ortega.

Herrera because of the woman who raised her.

Ortega because of the father who never knew he should look for her.

Upon leaving the meeting, Gabriel showed her a room full of photographs of Ana.

“You don’t have to choose between us,” she told him. “You have the right to love both mothers who gave you life.”

Lucía took a photograph of Ana and placed one of Carmen next to it.

She had not recovered a family by replacing her mother, but by expanding the place where both could be remembered.

CHAPTER 5 – The First Father’s Day

Gabriel did not try to recover twenty-five years in a few weeks.

It started with small things.

He would call Lucía on Sundays. He would invite her to breakfast. He would ask her questions before offering advice and he learned to listen when she talked about Carmen.

Lucía started working at the academy as an assistant instructor. She didn’t get the job because she was the owner’s daughter. She passed every evaluation required of the other candidates.

Gabriel stopped making fun of her stance.

Now he boasted about her to anyone who would listen.

Together they created the Carmen Herrera Program, aimed at young people raised in adoptive homes and foster families. It also provided legal support to parents separated from their children through falsified documents.

A year later, Lucia led her first graduation ceremony.

There were two reserved seats in the first row.

Gabriel occupied one.

On the other one rested Carmen’s photograph.

After the ceremony, Lucía handed her father a small box. Inside were the seven antique cartridge cases, carefully restored.

“I thought you’d want to keep them.”

Gabriel shook his head.

“They belong to your story.”

“They belong to yours too.”

Inside the lid, Lucía had engraved a phrase:

For the father who never stopped looking for me, even when they made him believe I didn’t exist.

Gabriel covered his eyes.

It was the first Father’s Day they were spending together.

“Forgive me for not having found you.”

Lucia hugged him.

“I couldn’t find a daughter that everyone claimed was dead.”

Gabriel held her as he had imagined doing for twenty-five years.

Then they walked together towards the shooting line.

Lucia loaded seven bullets.

This time, Gabriel gave no instructions and made no arrogant remarks. He simply stood beside her.

“Ready, daughter?”

Lucia smiled.

“Now we’re talking, Dad.”

Seven shots echoed across the desert.

They were not a demonstration or a challenge.

They were the farewell to twenty-five years of silence.

Gabriel recognized his daughter from the last gunshot, but it was his first hug that finally brought her home.