Chapter 4 - The Wrong Woman Took the Wrong Child
Marisol screamed Valentina’s name even though the SUV was already gone.
Diego caught her before she reached the driveway barefoot.
“Let me go!”
“I’m getting her back.”
“She took my daughter!”
“Our daughter.”
The words stopped both of them.
It was the first time Diego had said it aloud.
Our daughter.
Marisol stared at him, tears streaming down her face.
For one second, he saw all three missing years in her expression.
Every fever.
Every birthday.
Every night she had held Valentina alone.
Then Mateo appeared.
“Vehicle tracker is active.”
Diego turned immediately.
“Where?”
“Heading west on Reforma.”
“Call the police.”
Mateo hesitated.
“Paulina is legally known to the household. If she claims she took the child with permission—”
“She kidnapped a three-year-old.”
“Yes, but we need to move carefully.”
“Move quickly.”
“I am.”
Diego grabbed his keys.
Mateo stepped in front of him.
“You are not driving.”
“Get out of my way.”
“You are angry, and if you crash at one hundred fifty kilometers an hour, you help nobody.”
Diego’s jaw tightened.
Mateo was the only employee who could say that and remain employed.
“Car. Now.”
They left in two SUVs.
Marisol sat beside Diego in the rear seat.
Her hands would not stop shaking.
She called Paulina repeatedly.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Again.
Finally, on the seventh call, someone answered.
No one spoke.
Marisol stopped breathing.
“Valentina?”
A tiny sob came through the speaker.
“Mommy?”
Marisol broke.
“Baby! Are you okay?”
“I want my rabbit.”
Diego closed his eyes.
“Where are you?”
“The car.”
“I know, sweetheart. Who’s with you?”
Another voice cut in.
“Don’t do that.”
Paulina.
Marisol’s face changed.
“Bring her back.”
“Tell Diego to stop following us.”
Diego took the phone.
“You have thirty seconds to turn the car around.”
Paulina laughed nervously.
“You don’t order me anymore.”
“You took my child.”
“Your alleged child.”
“Do you really want to play that game?”
“Tell Mateo to stop tracking the vehicle.”
“No.”
“Then I keep driving.”
“Where?”
“That depends on you.”
Diego’s voice became colder than Marisol had ever heard it.
“If she is frightened, if she is hurt, if she has so much as a bruise when I see her—”
“You think I’m going to hurt a child?”
“You threatened to throw her out of my house this morning.”
Paulina said nothing.
Diego continued.
“You already made one catastrophic mistake today. Don’t make another.”
A small voice interrupted.
“Sir?”
Diego froze.
Valentina was speaking to him.
“Yes?”
“Mommy says don’t go with strangers.”
His throat tightened.
“She’s right.”
“But Paulina’s not stranger.”
Diego looked at Marisol.
“No.”
“So is it bad?”
Diego forced his voice to remain gentle.
“Yes, sweetheart. She should have asked Mommy before taking you.”
A pause.
“I told her no.”
Marisol covered her mouth.
Diego’s eyes hardened.
“You told Paulina you didn’t want to go?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She picked me up.”
Paulina snapped, “Enough.”
The line went dead.
Diego stared at the phone.
Mateo, seated in front, spoke into his radio.
“Vehicle just turned toward Toluca highway.”
“Where could she be going?” Marisol asked.
Diego knew.
“Private airfield.”
Mateo nodded.
“Likely.”
Marisol grabbed Diego’s arm.
“She’s leaving the country?”
“She had a Madrid ticket.”
“That was commercial.”
“Maybe it was a decoy.”
Mateo contacted airport security, police, and Villaseñor Aviation.
Minutes later, another call arrived.
The family jet had been requested for immediate departure from a private hangar near Toluca.
Requested by Alejandro Villaseñor.
Diego stared.
“My father.”
Marisol’s face went cold.
“He’s helping her.”
Mateo corrected him.
“Or Paulina is taking Valentina to him.”
The possibility was worse.
Diego called his father.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
A text arrived instead.
Stop escalating. Bring the child to Madrid. We will resolve this privately.
Diego showed Mateo.
Marisol read it.
Her face transformed from fear to fury.
“He thinks he can take her.”
“He can’t.”
“He tried before.”
“He won’t succeed twice.”
Traffic thickened near the highway.
Mateo ordered the lead driver onto the shoulder.
Sirens sounded somewhere behind them.
Diego stared at the tracker.
The dot representing Paulina’s vehicle continued moving.
Twenty kilometers.
Fourteen.
Nine.
Then it stopped.
“Why did they stop?” Marisol asked.
Mateo called security dispatch.
No answer yet.
Then another signal appeared.
“They transferred vehicles.”
Diego cursed.
Paulina’s SUV remained beside the road.
Another vehicle was now moving toward the airfield.
A gray Mercedes van.
“How?”
“Someone was waiting.”
Diego did not need to ask who arranged it.
Alejandro.
The man was operating from another continent as though his granddaughter were a corporate file that could be moved between offices.
Diego felt something inside him break permanently.
“Mateo.”
“Yes?”
“When we get Valentina back, freeze my father’s access to every Villaseñor company system.”
Mateo glanced back.
“That requires board authorization for some—”
“I am chairman.”
“Your father still controls twenty-six percent.”
“Then call an emergency meeting.”
Mateo nodded.
Marisol looked at Diego.
“You’ll go against him publicly?”
“Yes.”
“He’s your father.”
Diego looked at her.
“So am I.”
Marisol fell silent.
At the airfield, Paulina dragged a small suitcase with one hand while holding Valentina with the other.
Valentina was crying now.
Not screaming.
That frightened Paulina more.
The little girl simply repeated the same question.
“Where’s Mommy?”
“She’s coming later.”
“You said that before.”
“She is.”
“Where’s my rabbit?”
Paulina tightened her grip.
“I don’t know.”
Valentina tried to pull away.
Paulina crouched.
“Listen to me. We’re taking an airplane.”
“I don’t want airplane.”
“You’ll like it.”
“No.”
“Valentina.”
“No!”
Paulina looked toward the jet.
The crew was preparing the stairs.
A man approached.
Carlos Méndez.
Alejandro Villaseñor’s longtime private attorney.
He looked uneasy.
“This was not what I agreed to.”
Paulina glared at him.
“Get us on the plane.”
“You said the mother consented.”
“I don’t care what I said.”
“I do.”
Paulina lowered her voice.
“Alejandro ordered this.”
“He ordered me to facilitate your departure.”
“With the child.”
“He did not mention kidnapping.”
Paulina’s eyes narrowed.
“You think he’s going to protect you when Diego arrives?”
Carlos glanced at Valentina.
The child was crying silently.
“No.”
“Then move.”
Carlos stepped back.
“I won’t.”
Paulina’s expression hardened.
“You coward.”
“Maybe.”
He removed his phone.
“But I’m not going to prison for your marriage.”
Paulina slapped the phone from his hand.
Valentina gasped.
At that exact moment, two black SUVs burst through the security gate.
Paulina looked up.
Diego.
Marisol was out of the vehicle before it fully stopped.
“Valentina!”
“Mommy!”
The child ripped her hand from Paulina’s grip and ran.
Marisol dropped to her knees.
Valentina crashed into her arms.
Both began crying.
Diego stopped several feet away.
His knees nearly gave out.
She was safe.
That was all he could think.
Safe.
Valentina buried her face against Marisol.
“I said no.”
“I know, baby.”
“She didn’t listen.”
“I know.”
“I want rabbit.”
“We have him.”
Diego walked closer and held up the battered stuffed rabbit.
Valentina reached.
He gave it to her.
Then, unexpectedly, she threw one arm around his neck.
Diego froze.
“Thank you.”
He closed his eyes.
His hand hovered over her back before gently settling there.
“You’re welcome.”
Marisol watched.
Something inside her expression softened.
Then police vehicles entered the airfield.
Paulina stepped backward.
“This is unnecessary.”
Diego stood.
The softness disappeared.
“You kidnapped my daughter.”
“She came willingly.”
Valentina spoke from Marisol’s arms.
“No, I didn’t.”
Every adult went silent.
Paulina stared at her.
The little girl tightened her arms around Marisol’s neck.
“I said no.”
Carlos Méndez slowly raised both hands.
“I can confirm that she wanted her mother.”
Paulina looked at him with hatred.
“You pathetic—”
“Enough,” Diego said.
Police approached.
One officer spoke quietly with Mateo.
Another approached Paulina.
“Señora Robles, we need you to come with us.”
Paulina laughed in disbelief.
“You cannot arrest me.”
“We need to question you regarding the removal of a minor without parental consent.”
“She has no father listed on her birth certificate!”
Diego stepped toward her.
“But she has a mother.”
Paulina pointed at Marisol.
“She works for him! She is manipulating all of you!”
Marisol turned Valentina’s face toward her shoulder.
Diego saw it.
Even now, she was protecting the child from adult ugliness.
Paulina’s voice rose.
“Diego, if I go with them, I will tell them everything.”
“Please do.”
“Everything.”
He stared.
She smiled through tears.
“You think your father is the worst person in this story?”
Mateo’s attention sharpened.
“What does that mean?” Diego asked.
Paulina glanced toward Carlos.
The attorney looked suddenly nervous.
“Ask him.”
Carlos stiffened.
Paulina laughed.
“Oh, now you’re quiet?”
Diego looked at the attorney.
“What is she talking about?”
Carlos swallowed.
“Alejandro instructed me to come here.”
“We know.”
“No.”
Carlos shook his head.
“He instructed me to bring documents.”
“What documents?”
Carlos looked at Paulina.
Then at Diego.
“Custody documents.”
Marisol’s grip tightened around Valentina.
“What?”
“They were drafted years ago.”
Diego stepped closer.
“Explain.”
Carlos opened the leather briefcase he had carried from the terminal.
Inside was a thick folder.
He handed it to Diego.
The first document was dated three years earlier.
Only weeks after Valentina’s birth.
A legal petition prepared but never filed.
It alleged Marisol Hernández was financially unstable and psychologically unfit to raise a child.
Attached were statements.
Photographs.
Medical records.
Diego’s face turned white.
“These are fake.”
Carlos nodded.
“Most of them.”
Marisol looked over his shoulder.
She saw photographs of herself leaving a clinic.
A statement claiming she used drugs.
Another claiming she had abandoned Valentina overnight.
None were true.
“They were going to take her.”
Diego closed the file.
Carlos looked ashamed.
“If Marisol ever tried to establish paternity publicly, Alejandro planned to argue that Diego should receive sole custody.”
Marisol stopped breathing.
Everything she had feared four years ago had been real.
Diego’s voice shook.
“You prepared this?”
“I was instructed to.”
“By my father?”
“Yes.”
“Why was Paulina taking these to Madrid?”
Carlos looked at her.
“She said Alejandro wanted them destroyed.”
Paulina laughed bitterly.
“Finally, someone tells the truth.”
Diego looked at the folder.
“Why destroy them now?”
No one answered.
Then Mateo’s phone rang.
He listened for less than twenty seconds.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Mateo looked at Diego.
“Dr. Salazar received an alert from the laboratory.”
“The DNA?”
“No. Someone tried to cancel the test.”
Diego’s face hardened.
“Who?”
“They used your authorization code.”
“That’s impossible.”
Mateo looked at Paulina.
“Not impossible if someone had access to your private office.”
Paulina stared at the ground.
Diego understood.
“You tried to cancel it.”
She said nothing.
“Why?”
No answer.
Then Valentina raised her head from Marisol’s shoulder.
She looked at Paulina.
And she said something no one expected.
“She talked to Grandpa.”
The airfield went silent.
Marisol frowned.
“What?”
Valentina pointed toward Paulina.
“In the car.”
Diego crouched in front of her.
“Sweetheart, what did you hear?”
Valentina thought.
“She said… Grandpa, he knows.”
Diego’s heart slowed.
“What else?”
The child hugged her rabbit.
“She said the test can’t happen.”
Paulina closed her eyes.
Diego stood.
“Why can’t the test happen?”
Paulina remained silent.
Police moved closer.
“Paulina.”
She looked at him.
And for the first time, her anger vanished completely.
There was only fear.
“Because your father knows what the result will say.”
Diego’s eyes narrowed.
“So do I.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand?”
Paulina whispered the answer.
“If Valentina is confirmed as your daughter, she doesn’t just become your child.”
Diego waited.
“She becomes the largest individual beneficiary of your mother’s trust.”
Diego stopped breathing.
Paulina continued.
“And when she turns twenty-one…”
May you like
Her voice cracked.
“…she controls the voting shares Alejandro has spent twenty years trying to keep.”
