Chapter 3 - WHAT LUCA SAW
Leonor stared at the child.
“I am not your grandmother.”
Luca stepped closer to Don Esteban.
“That is what the servants call you.”
“This boy should leave.”
“No one leaves,” Nicolás said.
Leonor turned toward her son.
“You cannot seriously allow a seven-year-old child to accuse me.”
“He asked a question.”
“A rehearsed question.”
Don Esteban’s face hardened.
“My grandson does not lie.”
Luca looked at Sofía.
“The bottle in the nursery was clear.”
He pointed toward the empty shelf.
“But the other bottle was blue.”
“What other bottle?” Sofía asked.
“The one the tall man had.”
Leonor’s face lost its color.
Nicolás noticed.
“What tall man?”
Luca looked around the room.
“He wore a gray suit.”
Mauricio cleared his throat.
“Many people in this house wear gray suits.”
“He had a gold ring shaped like a snake.”
The service door opened behind them.
A man stepped into the laundry room.
He was in his early forties, elegant, composed, and perfectly dressed.
A gold snake curled around the ring finger of his right hand.
Adrián Velasco smiled at the group.
“What exactly is happening?”
Luca pointed at him.
“That man.”
Adrián’s smile remained in place.
Leonor looked away.
Nicolás’s voice became quiet.
“My cousin was not invited.”
Adrián adjusted his cuff.
“Beatriz called me.”
“Why?”
“She said there was a medical emergency.”
Sofía watched him.
He looked at Mateo’s empty product cabinet.
He looked at the syringe.
He did not ask whether the baby was alive.
Nicolás noticed that too.
Luca stepped from behind his grandfather.
“I saw you put the blue bottle into the clear one.”
Adrián tilted his head.
“You must be mistaken.”
“You told Grandma Leonor it would make the baby stop crying.”
The room became silent.
Leonor snapped toward the child.
“That is enough.”
Luca flinched.
Nicolás moved between them.
“Do not raise your voice at him.”
Adrián sighed.
“This is absurd.”
He crouched several feet from Luca.
“You saw someone in a dark hallway.”
“I saw you.”
“I was not here that night.”
“You gave me a chocolate coin.”
Adrián’s expression flickered.
Luca reached into his blue backpack.
He removed a gold foil wrapper.
A black crest was printed across the front.
Velasco International.
Adrián stood again.
“Those chocolates are available throughout the mansion.”
Don Esteban shook his head.
“No.”
He took the wrapper.
“This crest was used for the private board dinner.”
Nicolás looked at Adrián.
“That dinner was held three weeks ago.”
Adrián shrugged.
“Then the child found old trash.”
Luca reached into his backpack again.
This time, he removed a small silver cap.
“I found this after he left.”
Sofía accepted it carefully.
The cap fit the glass syringe inside the cabinet.
Adrián’s jaw tightened.
Leonor moved toward him.
“Say something.”
He looked at her.
That single look told Sofía more than any confession could have.
They shared a secret.
Perhaps not the same secret.
But enough of one to frighten them both.
Nicolás pressed the call button on his watch.
“Lock every gate.”
Adrián laughed.
“You are locking down your own cousin because of a child’s imagination.”
“I am locking down everyone.”
“You have no legal authority to hold me.”
Nicolás stepped close enough that the men were almost touching.
“You entered my home during an attempt on my son’s life.”
“That sentence sounds unstable.”
“So does a baby screaming for seven weeks.”
Adrián looked toward Leonor.
“Tell him.”
Leonor remained silent.
For the first time, Adrián appeared genuinely concerned.
Nicolás turned to Mauricio.
“Search him.”
Mauricio did not move.
Nicolás’s eyes narrowed.
“Search him.”
Mauricio finally approached Adrián.
He barely touched the man’s jacket before Adrián pushed him away.
Then every light in the laundry room went out.
Teresa screamed.
A metal door slammed.
Sofía grabbed Luca and pulled him against the wall.
Nicolás lunged toward the last place Adrián had been standing.
Emergency lights flickered on six seconds later.
Adrián was gone.
The service door stood open.
Mauricio was gone too.
A guard ran into the corridor.
Nicolás looked at the security monitor.
Every camera in the west wing displayed the same frozen image.
Then the screen changed.
A document appeared.
It was a succession agreement bearing Nicolás’s signature.
May you like
At the bottom, a single clause had been highlighted.
If Mateo Velasco died before his first birthday, control of the Velasco family trust would pass to Adrián Velasco.
