Chapter 4 - The Second Family
The fire department contained the blaze before it reached the main house.
The records room was destroyed.
The servers were not.
Javier had apparently forgotten that I had moved our core backups to an off-site data center two years earlier.
That mistake saved my company.
But it did not explain why he had been inside my home.
Police arrived.
Beatriz transformed again.
She cried.
She trembled.
She told officers I had returned from Dubai in a jealous rage.
She said I was paranoid.
She claimed I had turned my security team against her.
Then she said Isabella was emotionally unstable because of her mother’s death.
I almost hit the wall.
Isabella’s mother, Lucia, had died when Isabella was three.
Beatriz knew that grief was sacred.
She used it anyway.
The lead detective, Carmen Ortega, listened without expression.
Then she asked to see Isabella’s hands.
Beatriz stopped crying.
Carmen noticed.
So did I.
A pediatric doctor examined Isabella that evening.
The report documented blisters, bruising, dehydration, weight loss, and an old burn on her forearm.
I had never seen the burn.
When I asked about it, Isabella whispered that she had dropped a hot pan.
“She made you cook?”
“Sometimes.”
“How often?”
“When she went out.”
“With who?”
Isabella shrugged.
“Aunt Sofia.”
Beatriz did not have a sister named Sofia.
I asked Rosa.
She went pale.
“Sofia is not a woman.”
“Who is he?”
Rosa whispered.
“Sofía is the name señora used for a second apartment.”
The apartment was in Puerto Banús.
My company owned it.
I had believed it was vacant during renovation.
Mateo checked access records.
Beatriz had entered it thirty-one times in three months.
Javier had entered twenty-eight.
Always within minutes of each other.
Elena obtained emergency authorization from the company to inspect the property.
We went at midnight.
The apartment looked nothing like a construction site.
There were clothes in the closets.
Wine in the refrigerator.
Two toothbrushes in the bathroom.
And a framed photograph on the bedroom dresser.
Beatriz and Javier stood together on a yacht.
His arm was around her waist.
Her head rested against his shoulder.
The date printed on the photograph was four years old.
My marriage was five years old.
I felt no heartbreak.
Not yet.
There was too much anger for heartbreak to enter.
Mateo opened a desk drawer.
Inside were passports.
Cash.
A second phone.
And a folder labeled PROJECT I.
Elena put on gloves.
“Do not touch anything.”
The folder contained a copy of Isabella’s birth certificate.
A valuation of my company.
A draft petition seeking emergency guardianship over me on the grounds of mental incapacity.
And a life insurance policy.
Mine.
Twenty-five million euros.
The beneficiary had been changed six weeks earlier.
Not to Beatriz.
To a holding company registered in Malta.
The company director was Javier Montes.
I sat down.
Mateo looked sick.
Elena kept reading.
Then she stopped.
“What?”
She handed me one page.
It was a psychological evaluation.
My name was at the top.
The doctor claimed I suffered from paranoia, violent impulses, and episodes of confusion.
I had never met him.
At the bottom was a plan for involuntary psychiatric commitment.
The proposed date was three weeks away.
I understood.
They were stealing from my company.
They were building evidence that I was unstable.
If I discovered the theft, they would say my accusations were delusions.
If I resisted, they would call me violent.
Then Javier and Beatriz would control my assets.
But there was still one question.
“Why Isabella?”
Elena turned another page.
Her face changed.
“Gabriel.”
I took it.
It was a draft guardianship petition for Isabella.
Beatriz intended to become her legal guardian if I was declared incompetent.
Beside Isabella’s name was a handwritten note.
Trust unlocks at age nine.
I looked at Elena.
“What trust?”
She did not answer immediately.
That frightened me.
“Elena.”
“Lucia’s father created a trust before he died.”
“I know.”
“No.”
She swallowed.
Elena explained that the trust's protective language was unusually strict.
Lucia's father had anticipated greed even if he had not anticipated Beatriz.
Any guardian seeking extraordinary distributions would face independent review.
But a compromised doctor, attorney, and financial officer could manufacture the appearance of legitimate need.
Javier had spent years placing people where signatures mattered.
The conspiracy was not improvised.
It had infrastructure.
“You know about the small education trust.”
“There’s another?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Depending on the current valuation?”
She looked at Isabella’s name again.
“About eighty-six million euros.”
May you like
And suddenly I understood why my wife had spent three months teaching my daughter to obey.
