Chapter 4 - The Man Beside Me
The explosion knocked dust from the ceiling.
Sofia screamed.
I threw myself over her.
Gabriel’s men fired toward the entrance while shadows moved through the smoke.
“Back exit!” Gabriel shouted.
Isabella grabbed Sofia.
We ran.
I had spent fifteen years trusting Victor Salazar with my life.
Now I was running from men he had sent to kill me.
That betrayal hurt more than the bullets.
We escaped through the sacristy and reached the cemetery behind the church.
Gabriel had a vehicle waiting.
“You planned this,” I said.
“I planned for everything except you being this stubborn.”
“Drive.”
We piled inside.
Gabriel’s driver accelerated.
Sofia sat between Isabella and me, shaking.
I held her hand.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
The honesty nearly broke something in me.
“I’m sorry.”
“You said you’d keep us safe.”
Isabella whispered, “Sofia.”
“No. He promised.”
She looked up at me.
“You promised.”
I met her eyes.
“I did.”
“Then do it.”
I nodded.
“I will.”
Gabriel watched from the front seat.
For once, he said nothing.
We drove to an old farmhouse twenty miles away.
No guards.
No visible cameras.
Gabriel unlocked the door.
Inside, everything was clean.
Prepared.
“Whose house?” I asked.
“Mine.”
“You have a farmhouse?”
“I contain multitudes.”
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.
Sofia fell asleep beside Isabella on an old couch.
Gabriel poured coffee.
I did not touch mine.
“Tell me everything.”
He leaned against the kitchen counter.
“Tomas Salazar worked for your father.”
“I know.”
“He also worked for another man.”
“Who?”
“Senator Adrian Vale.”
I stared.
Vale was not just powerful.
He was almost untouchable.
Governor twice.
Senator for twelve years.
Now preparing to announce a presidential exploratory committee.
“Vale knew my family?”
“Vale built half his fortune laundering money through businesses your grandfather controlled.”
“What does that have to do with my mother?”
“Your mother discovered it.”
I sat slowly.
Gabriel continued.
“Mariana was smarter than all of us. Your father thought keeping business away from her protected her. Instead, she found everything.”
“My mother was a teacher.”
“She had an economics degree.”
I remembered.
“She left university.”
“She finished later.”
I hadn’t known.
Gabriel looked toward the window.
“She found hidden accounts linked to Vale. Payments to judges. Police. Contractors. Your grandfather’s people.”
“And she threatened to expose them.”
“She asked your father to go to federal authorities.”
“What did he say?”
“No.”
That sounded like him.
“Then?”
“She went without him.”
My chest tightened.
“She was going to testify?”
“Yes.”
“And Tomas stopped her.”
Gabriel nodded.
“The accident happened two days before she was scheduled to meet investigators.”
I closed my eyes.
I remembered the funeral.
My father standing beside the grave, expressionless.
Gabriel placing a hand on my shoulder.
Victor, a boy my age, standing near the back beside his father.
My entire childhood rearranged itself.
“Why didn’t my father expose Vale afterward?”
“Because Vale threatened you.”
I looked up.
Gabriel’s voice softened.
“You were twelve.”
“So he protected me.”
“Yes.”
“By letting my mother’s killers walk.”
“He never forgave himself.”
“Neither do I.”
“That’s why he made copies.”
“The list.”
Gabriel nodded.
“He gathered everything your mother had found and more. But he couldn’t keep it himself.”
“So he gave it to Elena Marquez.”
“Yes.”
“Why her?”
“Because nobody knew she mattered.”
Except someone eventually did.
I looked toward Isabella.
“How did Victor find her?”
Gabriel opened a drawer and removed a photograph.
Isabella.
Younger.
Standing beside a man.
Victor.
My heart stopped.
“What is this?”
“Six years ago.”
“Why were they together?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“You should ask her.”
I walked into the living room.
Isabella was awake.
She saw the photograph in my hand.
Her face went still.
“You knew Victor.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He found me.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
“What did he want?”
“The same thing everyone wants.”
“The list?”
She nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know if he was still loyal to you.”
“He lived in my house. Ate at my table.”
“I know.”
“You let me walk into this blind.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You think I wasn’t blind?”
She stood, careful not to wake Sofia.
“Victor told me he was trying to protect you from his father’s legacy. He said Tomas had been forced to work for Vale.”
“And you believed him?”
“For a while.”
“What changed?”
“He asked me for the documents.”
“And?”
“I refused.”
“What did he do?”
“He disappeared.”
“Until now.”
Isabella nodded.
“Two months ago, someone broke into our apartment.”
“The case?”
“No. They didn’t find it.”
“Where is it?”
She hesitated.
“You still don’t trust me.”
“I watched men try to kill you tonight. Trust isn’t my biggest concern anymore.”
“Then tell me.”
She looked at Sofia.
“My mother didn’t hide the evidence in one place.”
“Where?”
“She hid it inside Sofia’s favorite book.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“When Sofia was born, I used one of my mother’s old books to decorate the nursery. I didn’t know until last month that the spine had been rebuilt.”
“What was inside?”
“A microdrive.”
“Where is it now?”
Isabella looked sick.
“In our apartment.”
I swore.
Gabriel walked in.
“We can’t go there.”
“We have to.”
“No,” Isabella said. “I do.”
“Absolutely not.”
“It’s my apartment.”
“And Victor knows that.”
“You think he hasn’t already searched it?”
“Then the drive may be gone.”
She shook her head.
“He won’t find it.”
“Why?”
“Because it isn’t in the book anymore.”
I waited.
“I moved it.”
“To where?”
She looked at Sofia.
“My daughter’s stuffed rabbit.”
For a full five seconds, nobody spoke.
Gabriel finally said, “That may be the most irresponsible brilliant thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Where’s the rabbit?” I asked.
“At the apartment.”
I grabbed my coat.
Gabriel blocked the door.
“You walk in there, Victor owns the building.”
“Then we don’t walk in.”
“What do you suggest?”
I looked at him.
“For once, Uncle Gabriel, follow my plan.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“You believe me now?”
“No.”
“Good. You’re learning.”
Three hours later, we watched Isabella’s apartment from a van across the street.
No visible movement.
Gabriel studied thermal imaging.
“Two men inside.”
“Victor’s?”
“Probably.”
I checked my watch.
“Wait.”
“For what?”
A fire alarm suddenly began screaming inside the building.
Residents poured onto the street.
Gabriel stared at me.
“You triggered the fire alarm?”
“Building manager owes me money.”
“You are becoming disturbingly creative.”
Two men exited Isabella’s building.
Diego’s voice came through my earpiece.
“Visual.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“You brought Diego?”
“I trust him.”
“Famous last words.”
We waited until the building emptied.
Then Isabella and I entered through the basement.
Her apartment door had been destroyed.
Everything inside was overturned.
Sofia’s room was the worst.
Mattress cut open.
Books ripped apart.
Toys scattered.
Isabella froze.
“They searched everything.”
I moved toward the bed.
“Rabbit?”
She picked up a stuffed animal from beneath a chair.
Its stomach had been sliced open.
Empty.
Her face went white.
“No.”
“What?”
“It was inside.”
The microdrive was gone.
My phone vibrated.
A message.
From Victor.
A photograph appeared.
Sofia asleep at the farmhouse.
Taken through the window.
Then a text.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT HER OUT OF THIS.
I stared at it.
Isabella whispered, “What?”
I turned the phone toward her.
She stopped breathing.
Then another message appeared.
COME HOME, RAMON.
May you like
A third.
OR THE GIRL FINISHES WHAT HER GRANDMOTHER STARTED.
