Chapter 6 - The Paper Trail
By sunrise, Alejandro’s study had transformed into a war room.
Three men sat across from his desk: Marcos Vance, the head of Alejandro’s private security firm and a former commander in the Mexican Special Forces; Dr. Morales; and Mateo, Alejandro’s chief legal counsel.
On the desk lay the police reports, the DNA results, and a thick dossier that Marcos had compiled over the last three hours.
“Captain Rivas didn't retire peacefully,” Marcos said, throwing a photograph onto the desk. “He retired to a three-million-dollar villa in Puerto Vallarta six months after the plane crash. His official salary as a state police captain was forty thousand pesos a month.”
Alejandro picked up the photograph. It showed an overweight man in a silk shirt sitting beside a swimming pool overlooking the Pacific.
“Who bought the villa?” Alejandro asked, his voice icy.
“An offshore shell company registered in Panama,” Mateo, the lawyer, answered. “It took me two hours to pierce the corporate veil through our Swiss banking channels. The beneficial owner of that Panama entity is a holding firm called Inversiones Golden Peak.”
Mateo pushed another document across the mahogany wood.
“And who owns Golden Peak?” Alejandro demanded.
“Your brother,” Mateo said quietly. “Gabriel de la Vega.”
The room was dead silent except for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
Alejandro closed his eyes for five long seconds.
When he opened them, there was no grief left in his expression. There was only dark, terrifying clarity.
“Explain the mechanics,” Alejandro ordered.
Marcos leaned forward. “Ten years ago, Gabriel was heavily indebted to several offshore syndicates after a series of failed real estate gambles in Miami. You refused to bail him out. The only way Gabriel could inherit control of De la Vega Enterprises was if you died without heirs—or if you became incapacitated by grief.”
Marcos pointed to a diagram on the board.
“Gabriel bribed the pilot of your private jet to fake an engine failure near Guadalajara. But the crash wasn't meant to kill Elena and Lucía—it was meant to disappear them. The pilot survived and fled to Colombia. Gabriel’s men were the first on the crash site before the local fire department arrived.”
Alejandro’s fist clenched so hard his knuckles turned white. “And Elena?”
Marcos lowered his eyes. “Your wife died in the impact, Alejandro. I’m sorry. But the child... two-year-old Lucía survived. Gabriel’s men didn't have the heart to kill a baby in cold blood, so they paid Captain Rivas to take her to a rural clinic in Tapalpa, pay off the local nurse, and tell her to disappear with the child.”
“They gave me three urns filled with fake ashes,” Alejandro whispered, his voice trembling with a rage so profound it threatened to burst his heart. “He watched me weep over those urns for ten years. He sat at my dinner table every Christmas. He watched me turn this house into a tomb!”
“What are your orders, Boss?” Marcos asked, his hand resting casually near his jacket where his sidearm was holstered. “We can pick Gabriel up at his penthouse right now.”
“No,” Alejandro said, standing up slowly.
He looked out the window toward the skyline of Mexico City, where the morning sun was breaking through the smog, painting the glass towers of Santa Fe in brilliant gold.
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“Gabriel wants a board meeting today to discuss taking over my executive authority while I ‘recover’ from my heart attack,” Alejandro said, a dark, terrifying smile spreading across his face.
“Let him have his meeting.”
