The Mafia Boss Watched His Maid for Eight Days. On the Ninth, His Mother Finally Ate.

Isabela drove her heel into the person behind her. The grip loosened. She twisted free and ran toward Dante’s voice.

A woman in a nurse’s uniform stumbled out of the passage and bolted through the laundry room. Rafael followed her. Dante caught Isabela before she fell over a tipped cart.

“Are you hurt?”

“No. Go after her.”

Carla knew the house. She ducked through a side door and reached the garage before Rafael caught up. By then she had locked herself inside a car.

Dante stepped in front of it. “Get out.”

The engine started.

“Dante,” Isabela called. “Move.”

The car rolled forward. Dante jumped aside as Carla drove through the half-open garage door, scraping paint and metal. Rafael called the gate guards, but she took the gravel access road to the back fence. A moment later, she was gone.

Rafael found Helena’s notebook under the driver’s seat of another car in the garage.

Most pages were filled with ordinary reminders: phone numbers, appointments, the names of nurses. Then came a page dated the night of Helena’s fall.

Vicente said the transfer must happen before Dante sees the old accounts. Carla wants more money. She says Santos has kept copies.

Below that, written in a shakier hand:

Tell Dante. Do not let Vicente speak for me.

Dante stared at the words. “She wrote this before she fell.”

Isabela touched the last line. “And someone spent weeks making her doubt she had.”

Rafael received a call from a guard at the gate. Dr. Santos was there again. He had returned with his daughter, a lawyer, and the missing records.

“I left because I saw Carla at the window,” Santos told them. “She used to collect payments for Vicente. When the lights went out, I thought she’d come for the file. I took it where she couldn’t reach it.”

Dante wanted to know why the doctor had told Isabela to leave.

Santos looked at her. “Because the records include a signed statement from Marisa. She named the person who told Augusto where you were living.”