Chapter 6 - SOFIA’S LAST CALL
I did not go to the marina alone.
I did not tell Beatriz that.
Inspector Ortega wanted to arrest her immediately.
Marta wanted me nowhere near her.
Mateo wanted to send a tactical team.
Instead, we compromised.
I would go.
Police would be nearby.
I would wear a recording device.
And if Beatriz tried to move me anywhere else, the meeting ended.
At 11:58 p.m., Puerto Banús glittered like nothing bad had ever happened there.
Luxury yachts.
Restaurants.
Music.
People taking photographs beneath expensive lights.
The wealthy have always been skilled at building beautiful places where ugly things can hide.
I walked toward pier seven.
Beatriz stood beside a white yacht.
Black dress.
Hair pulled back.
No sunglasses now.
For once, she looked tired.
“You brought police,” she said.
I stopped.
“What makes you think that?”
“You’ve become predictable.”
“So have you.”
She smiled.
“Still insulting me.”
“You abused my daughter.”
“I disciplined her.”
“You starved her.”
“She never starved.”
“You locked her in a room.”
“For her safety.”
“You made her write that I abandoned her.”
Beatriz looked past me at the water.
“She believed it because part of her knew it was true.”
My fists tightened.
I forced them open.
“You mentioned Sofia.”
That got her attention.
“You still say her name like a prayer.”
“She was my wife.”
“And I was nothing.”
“You stole from her foundation.”
Her smile disappeared.
“So you found that.”
“You should have gone to prison.”
“Sofia made sure I didn’t.”
“She gave you mercy.”
“She gave me humiliation.”
The bitterness in Beatriz’s voice was old.
Older than our relationship.
Older than Isabella.
“What happened?”
“You really don’t remember me.”
“No.”
“That’s the funniest part.”
She stepped closer.
“I met you three times before Sofia got me fired.”
I searched my memory.
Nothing.
“You never looked at people like me.”
“People like you?”
“Assistants. Staff. Women carrying clipboards while people like Sofia wore diamonds and smiled for photographs.”
“Sofia worked harder than anyone at that foundation.”
“Of course you think that.”
“I know it.”
Beatriz laughed softly.
“You loved her because she made privilege look graceful.”
I was done with her resentment.
“What does this have to do with her death?”
Beatriz’s face changed.
“You should ask what Sofia was doing the week she died.”
“I know exactly what she was doing.”
“Do you?”
“She was driving back from Málaga.”
“Why?”
I opened my mouth.
Stopped.
Sofia had told me she was meeting an old friend.
I had never asked which friend.
We had spoken at 8:40 that evening.
She sounded distracted.
An hour later, her car went through a barrier on a mountain road.
Police concluded she lost control in rain.
Case closed.
Beatriz watched realization enter my face.
“She called me.”
Everything inside me froze.
“What?”
“Three days before she died.”
“Why?”
“She had learned I was back in Spain.”
“Doing what?”
“Consulting.”
“Stealing?”
Beatriz smiled.
“Always so moral when the money isn’t yours.”
“What did Sofia want?”
“She told me to stay away from your family.”
“Why would she say that if you had no contact with us?”
“Because I had contacted your father.”
My father had died two years after Sofia.
He had never mentioned it.
“About what?”
“I wanted money.”
“For?”
“Silence.”
My stomach turned.
“What did you know?”
“Your father had made certain financial arrangements at the foundation years earlier.”
I stared at her.
“Illegal?”
“Embarrassing.”
“Not murder.”
“No.”
“Then why mention Sofia’s death?”
Beatriz looked almost disappointed.
“Because you assume every secret leads where you want.”
My voice dropped.
“Did you have anything to do with Sofia’s accident?”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
Too instantly?
I could not tell.
“Did Sergio?”
“No.”
“Did you know it would happen?”
“No.”
“Then why use it to get me here?”
“Because I wanted one conversation where you actually listened to me.”
I almost laughed.
“You tortured my daughter for attention?”
Her eyes flashed.
“I loved you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted to own me.”
Her face hardened.
“There is no difference to people like you.”
“There is every difference.”
For the first time, I saw her mask break completely.
Not elegant.
Not controlled.
A woman consumed by years of resentment.
“You gave Sofia everything.”
“She was my wife.”
“You gave Isabella everything.”
“She is my child.”
“And me?”
“You had my trust.”
“Trust?”
She laughed.
“I was always third.”
“Third to my dead wife and my daughter?”
“Yes.”
The answer was so monstrous because she said it without shame.
“You were jealous of a child.”
“I was tired of living in Sofia’s shadow.”
“So you punished Isabella.”
“She looked at me exactly like Sofia did.”
“What does that mean?”
“Like she could see through me.”
The words came faster now.
“She would ask why invoices changed. Why staff left. Why I went into your office. She watched everything.”
Isabella had noticed.
My quiet child.
The one Beatriz called manipulative.
She had simply been observant.
“And when she threatened to tell you…”
Beatriz stopped.
“What?”
My heart pounded.
“What did Isabella threaten to tell me?”
Silence.
Then Beatriz smiled.
“That is the part you don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
“She found something.”
“What?”
“A statement.”
“What statement?”
“From your father.”
I stared at her.
“Where?”
“Sofia’s files.”
The locked office.
Beatriz had not chosen Sofia’s office only to torment Isabella.
She had been searching it.
“What was in the statement?”
“I never read the whole thing.”
“Why not?”
“Isabella took it.”
My heart jumped.
“Where is it?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
All the punishments.
The isolation.
The pressure.
Suddenly another motive appeared.
Beatriz had been trying to force Isabella to reveal where she hid a document.
“What did you do to her?”
“I asked.”
“You injured her.”
“She fought me.”
“She is a child!”
My voice echoed across the marina.
Several people looked over.
Beatriz smiled.
“There. That temper.”
I realized what she was doing.
I lowered my voice.
“You won’t get it.”
“Get what?”
“The reaction you came for.”
Her smile faded.
I continued.
“You forged my signature.”
Nothing.
“You manipulated a psychologist.”
Nothing.
“You staged videos.”
Her jaw tightened.
“You stole millions.”
Silence.
“You tried to create a path to control Isabella’s trust.”
Her eyes hardened.
“And you forged a forty-million-euro insurance policy.”
That finally broke her.
“What?”
I watched carefully.
She looked genuinely confused.
“I didn’t forge a life insurance policy.”
I said nothing.
“That wasn’t me.”
“Your name is beneficiary.”
“Sergio.”
“He denied it.”
“Of course he did.”
For the first time, uncertainty entered the case.
If Beatriz was telling the truth about the policy, someone else had been operating inside her plan.
Someone who expected her to take the blame.
“Who knew about the guardianship scheme?”
“Sergio. Cordero. Varela.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“Who handled finances?”
“Sergio.”
“Who had access to my scanned signature?”
She hesitated.
“Sergio.”
I thought about the school authorization.
Sergio claimed Beatriz created it.
Beatriz now implied Sergio controlled documents.
Each blamed the other.
One of them was lying.
Possibly both.
A small movement reflected in the yacht window behind her.
Mateo had warned me to watch reflections.
Someone was on the upper deck.
A shadow.
Beatriz noticed my eyes shift.
Her face changed.
She turned.
A man moved.
Fast.
Police shouted.
Everything erupted at once.
Beatriz screamed.
The man ran toward the opposite side of the yacht.
Two officers boarded.
Another blocked the pier.
I stepped backward.
Beatriz looked genuinely terrified.
“I didn’t know he was here.”
The man jumped onto the neighboring dock.
Mateo’s people intercepted him.
Thirty seconds later, he was on the ground.
It was not Sergio.
It was Dr. Emilio Varela.
The psychologist.
Police searched him.
They found cash.
A second passport.
And a syringe.
Beatriz stared at it.
“What is that?”
Varela said nothing.
Inspector Ortega looked at me.
The meaning was obvious.
Someone had come to the marina prepared to inject someone.
Me.
Beatriz.
We did not yet know.
At the station, Varela demanded a lawyer.
Beatriz was taken into custody on fraud and child endangerment allegations.
Her dramatic public campaign ended the moment photographs of her police escort appeared online.
I did not celebrate.
I had learned better than to assume the worst was over.
At 3:20 a.m., I returned to Isabella.
She was awake.
Waiting.
“You came back.”
“I promised.”
She hugged me.
I sat beside her.
“Bella, Beatriz said you found a paper in Mommy’s office.”
Her body stiffened.
That was answer enough.
“Do you still have it?”
She nodded.
“Where?”
“You won’t be mad?”
“No.”
She climbed from the bed and opened her little suitcase.
From beneath a folded sweater, she removed the stuffed rabbit I thought Beatriz had thrown away.
“Bunny?”
“Rosa found him before she left.”
She opened a seam along the rabbit’s back.
Inside was a folded envelope.
My father’s handwriting covered the front.
FOR ADRIAN — IF SOFIA IS EVER PROVEN RIGHT
My hands began trembling.
I opened it.
The letter was dated six months before Sofia died.
The first paragraph referred to foundation fraud.
The second referred to Beatriz.
But the third changed everything.
My father wrote that Beatriz had not acted alone.
Someone inside the Serrano family office had helped her access financial systems years earlier.
Someone my father refused to expose publicly.
Because that person was family.
I read the final line twice.
Then a third time.
I believed I could control your brother. Sofia believes I am wrong.
My brother.
Lucas.
The brother I had trusted to run the European side of my company while I was in Dubai.
The man who had recommended Beatriz’s consulting firm eighteen months ago.
The man who had signed off on almost every invoice through which money disappeared.
And suddenly, the story rearranged itself one final time.
Beatriz may have entered my life carrying a grudge.
Sergio may have helped steal my money.
May you like
But someone else had opened the door.
My own brother.
