Chapter 10 - The Dead Man’s File
Cruz met them at a secure operations center outside the city.
Lucía didn’t sit.
She stood over the table while Cruz opened the old case file.
Photographs.
Reports.
Names.
A faded picture of her father.
Colonel Javier Navarro.
Dead at forty-eight.
Lucía touched the edge of the photograph.
“My mother spent six years believing it was an accident.”
Cruz nodded.
“That was the point.”
Marcos asked, “What really happened?”
Cruz pulled up a report.
“Javier discovered the same network you found. Illegal weapons were being moved using security contracts.”
Lucía whispered, “Serrano.”
“And Vidal.”
Lucía looked up.
“Vidal worked for him?”
“He recruited him.”
Cruz changed the screen.
A bank record appeared.
Payments.
Dates.
Offshore accounts.
“Your father collected evidence. He planned to testify.”
Marcos understood.
“So they killed him.”
“Yes.”
Lucía’s voice was flat.
“And Iván?”
Cruz hesitated.
“He was there too.”
Lucía stepped back.
“No.”
“He was a junior officer.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
Lucía remembered all the years Iván had worked beside her.
Meals.
Missions.
Funerals.
He had known.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Cruz gestured.
“Speaker.”
Lucía answered.
“Hello?”
Sofia screamed in the background.
Lucía’s face changed instantly.
“Sofia!”
Then a man spoke.
Colonel Vidal.
“Good evening, Lucía.”
“You hurt her and I will find you.”
Vidal chuckled.
“You already found me six years too late.”
Lucía gripped the phone.
“What do you want?”
“The original drive.”
“You know I copied it.”
“I want the original.”
“Why?”
“Because your father hid something on it.”
Lucía frowned.
“My father?”
“The encryption signature you used came from him.”
Cruz looked at Lucía.
Vidal continued.
“Your father left a final file. One even Serrano has never seen.”
Lucía’s pulse jumped.
“What file?”
“You bring me the drive, I return your sister.”
“And if I don’t?”
Sofia cried out.
Vidal’s voice turned cold.
“Then the Navarro family finally ends.”
The call disconnected.
Marcos looked at Lucía.
“You don’t have the original drive.”
Lucía reached inside her boot.
Then placed a small black device on the table.
May you like
“Yes.”
She did.
