Chapter 4 - ELENA'S DEAD MOTHER
Isabella Vargas did not deny it.
That frightened Alejandro more than any denial could have.
“Elena,” Isabella whispered.
“Come out of there.”
“No.”
“I can explain.”
“You had twelve years.”
Footsteps echoed from farther down the tunnel.
Isabella looked behind her.
“If Vivian finds us together, none of us gets another chance.”
Elena laughed bitterly.
“You taught her everything.”
“No.”
“You gave her access to my medical records.
My trust.
My family.”
“I made mistakes.”
“Mistakes?”
Elena crawled completely out of the passage.
Alejandro reached for her.
She pulled away.
Not from him.
From everyone.
Marco remained hidden.
Isabella’s eyes filled when she saw him.
“My grandson.”
“Don’t call him that.”
The words were ice.
Isabella stopped.
Alejandro stepped between them.
“Start talking.”
Isabella looked at him.
“You were never supposed to find Elena tonight.”
“That’s obvious.”
“No.
I mean tonight specifically.”
Alejandro frowned.
Isabella removed a small drive from inside her coat.
“Elena was supposed to escape tomorrow.”
Elena stared.
“What?”
“I’ve been preparing it for six months.”
“You knew I was imprisoned.”
“Yes.”
“And you waited six months?”
“I needed evidence.”
Elena slapped her.
The sound cracked through the cellar.
Isabella did not move.
Elena’s voice shook.
“I needed a mother.”
Isabella closed her eyes.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Alejandro felt Elena’s pain like a physical thing.
But approaching voices were getting louder.
“What’s on the drive?”
Isabella looked at him.
“Everything Vivian thought she destroyed.”
“Be specific.”
“Bank transfers.
Medical payments.
Court bribes.
Security footage.
Your forged signatures.”
“Hale?”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
Isabella hesitated.
Alejandro saw it.
“Who else?”
“Members of your board.”
He felt something cold settle in his stomach.
“How many?”
“Enough to remove you from Castillo Global if this becomes public incorrectly.”
Alejandro laughed in disbelief.
“My company financed my wife’s kidnapping?”
“Parts of it.”
Elena whispered.
“Why?”
Isabella looked at Marco.
“Because of him.”
Alejandro’s jaw tightened.
“We already know about the trust.”
“No.
You know part of it.”
Isabella stepped closer.
“When Alejandro’s father created the Castillo Legacy Trust, he included a succession clause.”
Alejandro frowned.
“I’ve read the trust.”
“You read the version your attorneys gave you.”
“What clause?”
“If Alejandro died without a recognized biological heir, controlling shares passed to the Castillo Foundation.”
“So?”
“Three members of that foundation’s executive committee were quietly replaced seven years ago.”
Alejandro understood before she finished.
“With Vivian’s people.”
“Yes.”
Elena looked sick.
“If Marco never legally existed…”
“They eventually gained control.”
Alejandro shook his head.
“But I’m alive.”
“For now.”
Silence.
A gunshot thundered somewhere behind them.
Isabella grabbed Elena.
“We have to move.”
Alejandro pulled her hand away.
“Where?”
“The greenhouse exit.
There’s a car.”
“Your car?”
“Unregistered.”
Daniel muttered.
“Convenient.”
Isabella looked at him.
“I’ve been hiding for twelve years.
Convenience became necessary.”
They reached the greenhouse.
Rain blasted the glass roof.
Isabella led them toward a maintenance door.
Outside sat an old gray station wagon.
Alejandro stared.
“You expect us to get into that?”
“It’s not connected to any of us.”
“That’s why I like it,” Daniel said.
They climbed in.
Marco pressed close to Elena.
Isabella drove.
They left through an abandoned service gate moments before police vehicles blocked the main road.
Nobody spoke for several miles.
Then Alejandro turned toward Isabella.
“Why did everyone believe you were dead?”
Isabella stared ahead.
“Because Vivian tried to kill me.”
Elena’s face changed.
“What?”
“Twelve years ago, I discovered money disappearing from the Vargas family trust.
Vivian was twenty-six.
Brilliant.
Patient.
And already dangerous.”
“How did you know her?”
Isabella swallowed.
“Because she was your father’s daughter.”
Elena stared.
“My father had another child?”
“Before we married.”
“Vivian is my half sister?”
“Yes.”
Marco looked between the adults, confused.
Elena leaned back as if physically struck.
Isabella continued.
“Your father provided for her privately.
When he died, she discovered the legitimate family inherited almost everything.”
“So she wanted revenge?”
“At first, I thought so.”
“And later?”
“I realized revenge wasn’t enough.
Vivian wanted replacement.”
Elena looked toward the rain.
“She wanted my life.”
“Yes.”
“My house.”
“Yes.”
“My husband.”
Isabella said nothing.
Alejandro looked sharply toward her.
Elena turned.
“What does that mean?”
Isabella’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“There’s something else.”
Alejandro felt dread.
“What?”
“Vivian didn’t choose the Castillo family simply because of money.”
Isabella looked at him through the rearview mirror.
“She knew you long before you ever met Elena.”
Alejandro frowned.
“That’s impossible.”
“She was at university with you.”
“I don’t remember her.”
“That was the problem.”
Isabella pulled into an abandoned roadside motel.
She parked behind the building.
Then she turned around.
“Elena met you at a charity dinner when she was twenty-five.”
“Yes.”
“Vivian met you six years earlier.”
Alejandro searched his memory.
Nothing.
Isabella said softly.
“She became obsessed with you.”
Elena stared at him.
“You knew her?”
“No.”
Isabella shook her head.
“He didn’t.
But Vivian knew everything about him.”
She looked at Elena.
“When you introduced Alejandro to the family, Vivian believed you had stolen the life she had already planned for herself.”
The motel room was cramped and smelled like dust.
But Marco fell asleep almost immediately.
Elena sat beside him.
Alejandro stood near the window.
Isabella inserted the drive into an old laptop.
Folders appeared.
Hundreds.
Then one file caught Alejandro’s attention.
PROJECT E.
He opened it.
Photographs filled the screen.
Elena entering stores.
Elena visiting doctors.
Elena asleep.
Elena and Alejandro at dinner.
Marco as a newborn.
Marco at two.
Three.
Four.
Every year of his son’s life documented.
Alejandro’s hands trembled.
Then Elena noticed another folder.
PROJECT A.
Alejandro clicked.
The first photograph showed him at nineteen years old.
Outside a university library.
Another showed him at twenty-one.
Another at twenty-four.
Hundreds of photographs.
Years before he had met either woman.
A note appeared in one scanned journal.
HE WILL LOVE ME EVENTUALLY.
Alejandro stared.
Then Isabella whispered.
“Keep scrolling.”
The next image showed Vivian standing beside a man.
A man Alejandro recognized immediately.
Detective Raymond Hale.
The photograph was dated seventeen years earlier.
Long before Elena disappeared.
And beneath it was a handwritten sentence.
May you like
RAYMOND AGREED.
WHEN THE TIME COMES, HE WILL HANDLE THE HUSBAND.
