Chapter 6 - THE MAN AT THE GATE
Vicente arrived at the mansion ten minutes later, smiling as though he had been invited for coffee.
He had managed the Montenegro companies during Augusto’s final illness and still controlled several of their accounts. Dante had trusted him with business matters since he was seventeen.
“You broke into your mother’s room?” Vicente asked.
“It belongs to her.”
“And the letter?”
Dante did not answer.
Vicente sighed. “Your father had many faults. Firing that woman wasn’t one of them.”
“Why was she paid through the Santos Clinic?”
Vicente’s smile vanished for half a second. “Ask your accountant.”
“I intend to.”
Vicente turned to Isabela. “You look like Marisa.”
“And you look like someone who knew she didn’t steal.”
Rafael moved closer, but Vicente only straightened his cuffs.
“She filled your mother’s head with stories,” he said to Dante. “Now her daughter is doing the same.”
From the stairs, Helena said, “No.”
Everyone turned. She stood in her robe, one hand on the railing.
“Marisa told me something true,” she said. “I was the one who failed her.”
Vicente’s jaw tightened. “Helena, go back to bed.”
“Don’t give me orders in my son’s house.”
Dante crossed the hall to help her. Helena waved him off.
“I remember the clinic,” she said. “Augusto said the money paid for treatment. But the bills kept coming after the patient was gone.”
“What patient?” Dante asked.
Helena pressed a hand to her forehead. “I can’t see the name.”
Vicente took one step toward her. Isabela moved between them.
“Give her room,” Isabela said.
The doorbell rang.
At the front gate stood an older man with a battered briefcase. He introduced himself as Dr. Álvaro Santos, the former director of the clinic.
“I heard Marisa’s daughter was here,” he told Dante through the intercom. “She deserves to know what her mother did.”
Dante opened the gate.
Dr. Santos came inside and set the briefcase on the table. “Marisa kept records,” he said. “Augusto paid my clinic to hide a patient.”
May you like
“Who?” Isabela asked.
The doctor looked at Dante. “Your father’s first wife.”
