Chapter 6 - THE MONASTERY WITHOUT BELLS
Santa Lucia sat above the clouds.
The road leading there twisted through mountains so steep that one mistake would send a car hundreds of feet into darkness.
Rain began before dawn.
Vargas brought only six people.
A large convoy would be detected.
Salazar stayed behind because of his wound.
Marco drove.
Tomas sat beside him.
I rode with Vargas.
“You still angry with me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I stared at him.
“Good?”
“Anger means you’re thinking.”
“You killed my grandfather.”
“Yes.”
“Grandma forgave you?”
“Eventually.”
“Why?”
He looked through the window.
“Because forgiveness was stronger than revenge.”
“That doesn’t sound like something mafia bosses say.”
“I wasn’t always good at listening to her.”
The monastery appeared through fog.
Stone walls.
No lights.
No bells.
The entrance looked abandoned.
It wasn’t.
Two armed men emerged.
Marco’s team handled them quietly.
We entered through a drainage tunnel Tomas remembered.
Inside, the building felt like a prison pretending to be holy.
Doors with electronic locks lined the lower floor.
Some rooms were empty.
Others were not.
We found an elderly accountant who had disappeared six years earlier.
A journalist listed as dead.
A former judge.
Cortez had kept people alive because dead witnesses could not be questioned.
Then we found Elena.
She was alone.
Bound to a bed.
“Aurelio!”
I ran to her.
Vargas cut the ropes.
“Where’s Teresa?”
“I don’t know.”
“Grandma?”
Elena began crying.
“She’s here.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
“Lower level.”
We rushed downstairs.
I reached the final corridor first.
At the end stood a steel door.
I pulled it open.
A small room.
One bed.
One chair.
One window with bars.
A woman sat facing the sunrise.
Her hair was almost completely silver.
Her shoulders were thinner than I remembered.
“Grandma?”
She froze.
Slowly, she turned.
I forgot how to breathe.
“Aurelio?”
I crossed the room.
She stood.
We collided halfway.
Her arms wrapped around me.
I buried my face against her.
She smelled different.
Medicine and soap.
But beneath it was the faint scent of lavender she always used.
“You died.”
“I know.”
“I buried you.”
“I know, mi niño.”
“You left me.”
She pulled back.
Her face broke.
“I am so sorry.”
I hit her chest with both fists.
“You left me!”
“I know.”
“I slept outside!”
“I know.”
“I thought you were dead!”
She held me while I cried harder than I had at the funeral.
“I tried to get back,” she whispered. “I tried every day.”
Behind me, nobody spoke.
Finally, Grandma saw Mateo.
Her expression changed.
“You.”
He gave a faint smile.
“Still angry?”
“Always.”
Then she hugged him.
The mafia boss who made grown men tremble closed his eyes like a child.
“You kept your promise,” she whispered.
“Not very well.”
“You kept him alive.”
“We need to leave,” Marco said.
Grandma nodded.
“Cortez?”
“Gone.”
“He will return.”
“Then we should be gone first.”
As we helped her toward the corridor, Grandma grabbed my wrist.
“The key.”
“I have it.”
Her face tightened.
“Never show it to Cortez.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t understand.”
She leaned close.
“The key does not open a bank box.”
I stared.
“What?”
“The number is not a box number.”
“742?”
“It is a date.”
July 4, 2002.
Mateo frowned.
“What happened then?”
“The night La Corona was created.”
Grandma looked at me.
“The Black Ledger isn’t paper.”
“What is it?”
“A recording.”
She had secretly recorded the founding meeting.
Cortez.
Judges.
Police.
Businessmen.
Everyone naming themselves.
Everything they planned.
“Where is it?”
Grandma smiled sadly.
“I hid it where nobody powerful would ever look.”
“Where?”
“With someone poor.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
“Who?”
“You.”
My smile disappeared.
“What?”
“When you were little, I gave you something.”
The yellow bird.
Memory flashed.
A small wooden toy.
Grandma had carved it.
I carried it everywhere until age eight.
Then we moved.
“I lost it.”
“No.”
“What?”
“You buried it.”
I closed my eyes.
A courtyard.
Rain.
Grandma telling me we were playing treasure hunt.
I buried the bird beneath—
“The blue house.”
Grandma’s eyes brightened.
“You remember.”
The child’s drawing.
Yellow bird.
Blue house.
Seven stars.
“Where is the blue house?”
“You tell me.”
The lullaby.
Fly north, little bird.
Sleep where the sun falls west.
I pictured our old village.
San Marcos.
A blue abandoned house near the western cemetery.
“I know.”
Then the monastery alarm screamed.
Marco swore.
“Vehicles approaching!”
Vargas looked through the window.
Headlights filled the mountain road.
Dozens.
Cortez.
Grandma grabbed my hands.
“He cannot get the recording.”
Vargas ordered his men to move the freed prisoners.
The rear escape route descended through the forest.
We reached the courtyard.
Gunfire erupted at the front entrance.
“We’re surrounded!” a guard shouted.
Tomas pointed toward an old chapel.
“Bell tower tunnel.”
“There’s no bell,” I said.
“Not anymore.”
We ran.
Inside the chapel, Tomas moved the altar rug.
A trapdoor.
One by one, people descended.
Grandma went ahead of me.
Elena followed.
I was about to enter when a voice echoed behind us.
“Esperanza.”
Grandma froze.
Rafael Cortez stood at the chapel entrance.
No gun.
He didn’t need one.
Ten men stood behind him.
Vargas pushed me toward the trapdoor.
“Go.”
Cortez smiled.
“You always were sentimental, Mateo.”
Vargas drew his gun.
“So were you.”
“What?”
“You keep souvenirs.”
He pointed toward the prisoners escaping below.
Cortez’s smile disappeared.
Grandma stepped forward.
“This ends today, Rafael.”
“You said that twenty years ago.”
“I was younger.”
“And weaker.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“I had more to lose.”
Cortez followed her gaze.
His eyes landed on me.
“There he is.”
Every hair on my body rose.
“The famous Aurelio.”
“Stay away from him,” Elena said.
Cortez smiled.
“Three generations of Mendoza women giving me problems, and now a boy.”
“I’m not a woman.”
Grandma almost smiled.
“Your observational skills remain excellent.”
Even Cortez blinked.
Then he laughed.
“You always did have a mouth, Esperanza.”
He extended his hand.
“The key.”
“No.”
“The boy.”
“No.”
“Then everyone dies.”
A gunshot rang out.
Not from Vargas.
One of Cortez’s men fell.
Then another.
Confusion erupted.
Gunfire came from outside.
Salazar appeared on the upper balcony with Vargas’s reinforcements.
“I hate being left behind!” he shouted.
Marco opened fire.
Vargas shoved me through the trapdoor.
I fell.
Elena caught me.
Above us, the chapel became chaos.
Grandma came down next.
Then Tomas.
“Mateo!” I shouted.
“He’s coming.”
The trapdoor slammed.
We ran through darkness.
After what felt like forever, we emerged on the forested side of the mountain.
Marco’s second team had vehicles waiting.
Vargas appeared minutes later with Salazar.
Blood stained his sleeve.
“Are you hit?”
“Not mine.”
We drove.
At the bottom of the mountain, Grandma finally relaxed.
Then she looked around.
“Where’s Teresa?”
Nobody answered.
Elena’s face changed.
“She was at the monastery.”
Vargas called Marco’s team.
No Teresa.
Salazar checked intercepted communications.
His expression darkened.
“Cortez took her.”
Grandma closed her eyes.
“Why Teresa?”
Mateo looked at her.
“You know why.”
I glanced between them.
“What?”
Grandma whispered, “Teresa isn’t a servant.”
“What is she?”
“My sister.”
I stared.
Grandma had never told me she had a sister.
“She changed her identity twenty years ago,” Grandma said.
“Why?”
“Because she was inside La Corona’s financial office.”
My head spun.
Another secret.
“What does she know?”
“Everything.”
Vargas’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Cortez.
“You stole my prisoners,” the old man said calmly.
“You’ll survive.”
“You took Esperanza.”
“She was never yours.”
Cortez laughed.
“True.”
Then his voice hardened.
“But Teresa is.”
Grandma grabbed the phone.
“Rafael!”
“Ah, the dead woman.”
“If you hurt her—”
“You know what I want.”
“We don’t have the recording.”
“Your grandson knows where it is.”
Grandma looked at me.
Cortez continued.
“Bring the Black Ledger to the Founders’ Gala tomorrow night.”
Vargas frowned.
“The mayor’s gala?”
“Yes.”
“There will be a thousand people.”
“That is the point.”
“What are you planning?”
Cortez paused.
Then said:
“By midnight tomorrow, Ciudad de Esperanza will have no witnesses left.”
The call ended.
Grandma stared at us.
“What does that mean?”
Salazar looked at the gala invitation on his phone.
Politicians.
Judges.
Police commanders.
International journalists.
Business leaders.
A thousand guests.
My skin went cold.
Cortez wasn’t planning to kill only us.
May you like
He was preparing to destroy everyone who could expose him.
And he intended to do it in one room.
