Chapter 4 - THE RECORDING THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Three days after Camila woke, Alejandro's attorney arrived with a laptop and a thick folder of documents.
Her name was Elena Vargas, a sharp-eyed woman in her early forties who had spent fifteen years representing families in complicated financial disputes.
"Mrs. Camila," she began, "I need to ask you some difficult questions."
Camila nodded.
Elena opened the folder.
"Your husband has initiated transfers totaling several million dollars from accounts connected to your family trust. Some transactions were completed. Others were blocked."
"Can he do that?"
"Not without authorization from the trust's administrators. The documents submitted include a digital signature attributed to you."
Camila stared at the screen.
The signature looked like hers.
Almost.
The curve of the C was slightly different, and the final stroke was too long.
"I never signed this."
"That's important. We've requested the original electronic records."
Elena opened another document.
"There's also a proposed amendment to the trust. If approved, it would give Mateo greater control over assets intended to benefit your child."
Camila felt sick.
"Why would he need control over my son's inheritance?"
"That is exactly the question we're asking."
Alejandro stood near the window, listening.
Camila turned toward him.
"How did you discover all this?"
"Mateo's company filed a request to restructure its debt. My firm was asked to review a proposed acquisition involving several of its assets."
"You were going to buy his company?"
"I was considering it. I didn't know about your situation when the documents first arrived."
"Would you have bought it?"
"Only if the deal made sense. But after your call, I asked my lawyers to investigate the transfers connected to your trust."
Camila looked down.
"I don't want revenge to become another reason people control my life."
Alejandro nodded.
"Then we won't make decisions for revenge. We'll make them because they're right."
Elena closed the folder.
"There's one more issue. The police recovered security footage from a camera overlooking the staircase. The recording was deleted from the household system, but the backup server retained a partial copy."
She turned the laptop toward them.
The video showed the staircase at 10:41 p.m.
Camila appeared at the top, holding the railing with one hand.
She took a step.
Then another.
A shadow moved near the landing.
The image was grainy, but the figure appeared to be a man.
Camila leaned forward.
"Can you make it clearer?"
Elena adjusted the brightness.
The figure turned toward the camera.
Camila gasped.
"That's Bruno."
Alejandro frowned.
"Who is Bruno?"
"Mateo's security manager. He has worked for him for almost six years."
The recording continued.
Bruno disappeared behind a column.
Seconds later, Camila's foot slipped, and she fell.
The video ended.
Nobody spoke.
"Was he standing near the railing?" Alejandro asked.
"Yes."
"Could he have touched it?"
Camila shook her head.
"I can't tell."
Elena closed the laptop.
"The police are interviewing him. We must be careful not to draw conclusions from an incomplete recording."
Camila nodded, but her hands were trembling.
She remembered something else.
Earlier that evening, Bruno had approached her in the hallway and asked whether she had signed the new trust documents.
She had told him she knew nothing about them.
He had smiled strangely.
Then he had said, "You should talk to your husband before it's too late."
At the time, she had assumed he was referring to their marriage.
Now the words sounded like a warning.
Elena wrote the statement down.
"We'll give this information to the investigators."
After the attorneys left, Camila asked Alejandro to help her visit her son.
The neonatal intensive care unit was quiet, filled with the soft sounds of monitors and nurses moving between incubators.
Her baby was impossibly small.
A tiny hand rested beside his face.
Camila placed her fingers against the incubator's opening.
"Hello, my love."
The nurse smiled.
"He recognizes your voice."
Camila cried silently.
She named him Gabriel.
Not because Mateo had approved the name, but because she wanted her son to grow up believing that courage could exist even in the smallest bodies.
Alejandro stood a respectful distance away.
"You should hold him when the doctors say it's safe," he told her.
"I will."
She looked at Gabriel again.
"I won't let anyone use you as a weapon."
That evening, Alejandro received a call from his investigator.
"We found something in Bruno's employment records," the investigator said. "He received a large payment from a company registered under Valeria's name."
Alejandro sat upright.
"Valeria? Mateo's girlfriend?"
"That's what the records suggest. The company was established six months ago. It received two payments shortly before Camila's fall."
"Do we know what the money was for?"
"Not yet. But there's another problem."
"What?"
"Bruno disappeared from his apartment this afternoon. His car was found at the airport."
Alejandro stared at the hospital window.
"Has he left the country?"
"We don't know."
A message arrived moments later.
It contained a photograph of a handwritten note found inside Bruno's apartment.
Alejandro read it twice.
Then he called Elena.
May you like
The note contained only one sentence.
"IF CAMILA REMEMBERS WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE THE FALL, WE'RE ALL FINISHED."
