Chapter 2 - The Woman My Father Tried to Hide
I had spent twenty-six years believing my mother died in a car accident.
Isabella Marquez told me she had been murdered.
We brought Sofia and Isabella to a private medical facility hidden behind one of my legitimate properties outside San Valle. The building looked like a wealthy man’s retreat from the road, but downstairs were two treatment rooms, emergency supplies, and three physicians who knew better than to ask unnecessary questions.
Dr. Mercer examined Isabella while Sofia refused to leave the doorway.
I crouched beside the child.
“She needs rest.”
“I’m staying.”
“Okay.”
“You’re not going to send me away?”
“No.”
She studied my face as if adults had trained her to expect betrayal.
“Promise?”
I looked at her.
“I promise.”
She finally sat in a chair.
Victor waited until we were outside.
“You shouldn’t promise children things.”
“I intend to keep it.”
“You don’t even know what this is.”
“That’s exactly why I’m keeping them close.”
He held up the leather case.
“We’ve got a problem.”
“Only one?”
“One especially ugly one.”
We entered my office.
Diego had spread the contents of the case across a table.
Photographs.
Maps.
Notes.
Vehicle records.
Phone numbers.
My weekly schedule.
Victor pointed toward one page.
“Your route today changed yesterday.”
“I know.”
“Only six people knew.”
I looked at him.
“You. Me. Diego. Matteo. Luis. And my assistant.”
Victor nodded.
“So we have a leak.”
“Or someone listening.”
“Either way, they knew where you would be.”
I looked at a photograph of Isabella.
“Why use her?”
“To make sure you got out of the car.”
“They could’ve killed me on the road.”
“Maybe killing you wasn’t the point.”
That bothered me.
An hour later, Dr. Mercer appeared.
“She’s conscious.”
“How bad?”
“Dehydration. Trauma around the neck, bruising, exhaustion. Nothing appears permanently damaged, but she needs rest.”
“I need five minutes.”
“You get three.”
I entered Isabella’s room.
Sofia was asleep in a chair beside the bed.
Isabella watched me approach.
“Your daughter finally fell asleep.”
“She hasn’t slept properly in days.”
“How long were you running?”
“Four days.”
“From who?”
She looked toward Sofia.
I lowered my voice.
“You said Elena Marquez was your mother.”
“Yes.”
“She worked for my father.”
“She did more than work for him.”
I stiffened.
“What does that mean?”
“Not what you’re thinking.”
Isabella almost smiled.
“My mother was an accountant.”
“I know.”
“She discovered money moving through companies that didn’t belong to your father.”
“Whose companies?”
“That’s where the list comes in.”
I pulled a chair closer.
“Start at the beginning.”
Isabella closed her eyes briefly.
“When I was a child, my mother used to move us constantly. Different apartments. Different names. She told me we were hiding from a dangerous man.”
“Who?”
“She never told me.”
“And my father?”
“She said your father helped us disappear.”
That did not fit the man I remembered.
Alejandro Ortega had been many things.
Gentle was rarely one of them.
“She died nine years ago,” Isabella continued. “Cancer. Two days before she died, she gave me a key and an envelope.”
“What was inside?”
“A letter from your father.”
My pulse changed.
“You have it?”
“They took it.”
“Who?”
“The men who kidnapped us.”
“What did the letter say?”
“That if anything ever happened to him, the information my mother protected belonged to you.”
I sat back.
“My father died five years ago.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
Isabella looked directly at me.
“Because your father told my mother never to trust an Ortega until she was absolutely certain he wasn’t like the others.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
“The others?”
“Your family is bigger than you think.”
I almost laughed.
“I know every Ortega.”
“No. You know the official ones.”
She shifted painfully.
“Your grandfather had another son.”
I stopped breathing.
“My father was an only child.”
“That’s what you were told.”
“Name.”
“Gabriel Ortega.”
I stood.
“No.”
“You know him.”
“Gabriel Navarro.”
Her expression told me I was right.
Gabriel Navarro was my father’s oldest friend.
My godfather.
The man who had attended every birthday until I turned nineteen.
The man who had stood beside me at both my parents’ funerals.
“He isn’t my uncle.”
“He is.”
“How do you know?”
“My mother kept copies.”
“Copies of what?”
“Birth records. Financial records. Letters.”
My mind moved through twenty years of memories.
Gabriel’s voice.
Gabriel’s hand on my shoulder at my father’s funeral.
Gabriel saying, Your father trusted too easily.
“Why would he kill my mother?”
“I don’t know that he did.”
“You said the list contained her killers.”
“I said the list contained the names of the men involved.”
“That includes Gabriel?”
Isabella nodded.
“Yes.”
I turned away.
Behind me, Sofia stirred.
“Mom?”
Isabella instantly softened.
“I’m here, baby.”
Sofia climbed carefully onto the bed.
I watched Isabella pull her close despite her injuries.
For reasons I didn’t understand, the sight made my anger sharper.
Someone had put rope around Isabella’s neck.
Someone had tied a seven-year-old girl’s wrists.
All to reach me.
My phone buzzed.
Victor.
I stepped into the hall.
“What?”
“You need to see something.”
“What now?”
“We checked the surveillance footage from our own property.”
“And?”
“You arrived here forty-three minutes ago.”
“Yes.”
“A black sedan passed the front gate eleven minutes later.”
“So?”
“It passed again six minutes after that.”
I looked through the glass at Sofia.
“We were followed.”
“Maybe.”
“Victor.”
“Ramon, there’s something worse.”
“What?”
“We ran the license plate.”
“And?”
“The vehicle is registered to Gabriel Navarro.”
I said nothing.
Victor lowered his voice.
“I know what he meant to your father.”
“Find him.”
“We already called his office.”
“Where is he?”
“He claims he’s in Chicago.”
“Claims?”
“His jet hasn’t left California.”
I walked toward my office.
“Lock the property down.”
“Already happening.”
“And Victor?”
“Yes?”
“Nobody gets near Isabella or Sofia unless I approve it.”
“You think Gabriel will come here?”
“No.”
I looked toward the gate cameras.
“I think he already knows they are here.”
That night, I slept for exactly forty minutes.
At 2:13 a.m., an alarm sounded.
Not the main perimeter.
The lower level.
I grabbed my weapon and ran.
Victor met me outside Isabella’s room.
The door stood open.
The bed was empty.
“Sofia!” I shouted.
No answer.
Isabella was gone too.
Then Diego called from the security room.
“Boss, get down here.”
We ran.
On one monitor, a hallway camera showed Isabella leaving her room with Sofia.
Alone.
No one forcing them.
No visible threat.
At 2:06 a.m., she had walked directly toward the service exit.
Victor stared at the screen.
“She left voluntarily.”
“No.”
“Ramon, look.”
“She knew the camera was there.”
“Meaning?”
“She wanted us to think that.”
I rewound the footage.
Then I saw it.
As Isabella passed the camera, she lifted her right hand.
Three fingers.
Then two.
Then one.
Victor frowned.
“What is that?”
I knew.
My father had taught me the signal when I was a child.
Three.
Two.
One.
It meant only one thing.
Someone is watching me.
The next camera showed Isabella and Sofia entering the garage.
A black sedan waited with its rear door open.
Gabriel Navarro stepped out.
May you like
He smiled.
And Isabella got inside.
