Chapter 11 - THE MAN ABOVE ALEJANDRO
Isabella remembered only three things.
Gray hair.
A silver watch.
And a scar beneath his left ear.
Mateo ran through every visitor recorded at the villa.
One face matched.
Héctor Salazar.
Chairman of one of my largest investment partners.
A man I had trusted for eighteen years.
I refused to believe it at first.
Then Mateo showed me the dates.
Every time Héctor visited my home while I was away, large internal transfers followed within forty-eight hours.
I called Sofia.
“Freeze everything connected to Salazar.”
“Gabriel, we need evidence.”
“I have patterns.”
“That’s not evidence.”
“Then find me evidence.”
We found it in my Dubai hotel contract.
A hidden clause had been inserted into the final financing package.
If I became incapacitated within thirty days after closing, operational control shifted temporarily to a special committee.
Chairman of that committee?
Héctor Salazar.
He didn’t want my house.
Or my marriage.
He wanted my company.
Beatriz wanted money.
Alejandro wanted a cut.
Héctor wanted an empire.
I felt almost impressed by the architecture of it.
Almost.
Inspector Márquez obtained a warrant for Salazar’s offices.
But before police arrived, he disappeared.
His assistant said he had left for Switzerland.
His plane never filed a flight plan.
He was gone.
Then I received an email.
No sender name.
Just one sentence.
You should have stayed in Dubai.
Attached was a photograph.
Me leaving Isabella’s hospital room that morning.
He was watching us.
Mateo doubled security immediately.
For the first time, Isabella saw armed guards around her.
She hated it.
“Are we in danger?”
I wanted to say no.
Instead, I said, “We’re being careful.”
“That means yes.”
She was too smart.
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged.
“You say sorry a lot now.”
That hurt because she was right.
I sat beside her.
“I should have noticed.”
“What?”
“That something was wrong.”
“You were far away.”
“I could have called more.”
“She didn’t let me answer.”
“I could have insisted.”
Isabella looked down.
Then she said quietly, “You always looked busy.”
There it was.
No accusation.
Just truth.
I had given her everything expensive.
Private school.
Horses.
Vacations.
A beautiful home.
But a child does not measure love in square meters.
She measures it in whether you answer when she calls.
“I can’t change before,” I said.
She looked at me.
“But?”
“I can change what happens next.”
She studied me.
“Are you going back to Dubai?”
“No.”
“What about work?”
“Work can survive me being a father.”
For the first time in days, she smiled.
My phone buzzed.
Mateo.
He had located Salazar.
Not Switzerland.
Not Morocco.
Marbella.
May you like
He had never left.
And according to a traffic camera, he was driving toward the hospital.
