Chapter 13 - The Last Trap
Emergency lights flickered red.
I stood beside my father’s bed.
Lucio appeared in the doorway wearing a police uniform stained with blood. His wounded hand was wrapped against his chest.
He held a pistol in the other.
Gabriel tried to rise.
Lucio aimed at him.
“Stay down.”
I moved in front of my father.
“You keep hiding behind uniforms.”
“And you keep surviving things that should kill you.”
Footsteps and shouting echoed through the corridor.
Lucio closed the door and locked it.
“Esteban wants the memory card.”
“It has already been copied.”
“He does not care about copies. He cares about the original because the recording contains something you have not heard.”
“What?”
Lucio smiled.
“Your mother’s final message.”
My father’s face changed.
“You found it?”
“You knew?” I asked him.
Gabriel looked away.
“Elena recorded a message the night of the fire. I believed it was destroyed.”
Lucio reached into his coat and removed the sun medal.
He had taken it during the struggle on the ship.
“The files are encrypted,” he said. “The final recording opens only with Aurelio’s voice.”
I stared at the medal.
“What do I have to say?”
“Your full name.”
My father shook his head.
“Do not do it.”
Lucio pressed the gun against his chest.
“Speak.”
I had no choice.
“My name is Aurelio Elena Mendoza.”
The medal flashed.
A tiny speaker activated.
My mother’s voice entered the room.
“Aurelio, if you ever hear this, I pray you have grown beyond the reach of these men.”
I forgot Lucio.
I forgot the gun.
Her voice was warm and tired.
“Your father and grandmother will teach you to survive. But survival alone is not enough. You must decide what kind of man you will become after fear no longer controls you.”
Lucio grabbed the medal.
The recording continued.
“The final account is under the name Sol de Esperanza. The password is not a number. It is the promise I made the day you were born.”
Lucio looked at me.
“What promise?”
I did not know.
My father did.
He whispered, “No child forgotten.”
Lucio repeated the words into the medal.
A file opened.
Account numbers filled the tiny screen.
Hundreds of millions of dollars.
Money Esteban had stolen through trafficking, extortion, and government contracts.
Lucio laughed.
“With this, I do not need Esteban.”
The room’s ventilation panel opened behind him.
Valeria dropped from the ceiling.
She struck Lucio’s wrist.
The gun fired into the wall.
I grabbed the medal.
Gabriel pulled the emergency cord from his bed and wrapped it around Lucio’s injured arm. Valeria drove him against the door.
Lucio threw her off.
He opened the window and climbed onto the exterior maintenance ledge.
We were six floors above the ground.
I followed.
“Aurelio!” my father shouted.
Lucio moved along the narrow ledge toward the roof access ladder.
Rain made the concrete slick.
He reached the ladder.
I caught his coat.
He turned and struck me.
My heel slipped over the edge.
Lucio grabbed my wrist.
For one strange moment, the man who had destroyed my family was the only thing keeping me alive.
“Give me the medal,” he said, “or I let go.”
I held it over the street.
“If I drop it, you lose everything.”
His grip tightened.
“You die too.”
A window opened below us.
Valeria climbed onto the ledge.
Lucio looked toward her.
I bit his hand.
He shouted and released me.
Valeria caught my other arm.
Lucio lost his balance.
He fell backward, grabbed the ladder with one hand, and hung above the street.
“Help me!” he screamed.
I could have watched him fall.
Instead, I reached down.
Valeria stared at me.
“What are you doing?”
“What Grandmother would do.”
We pulled Lucio onto the ledge.
The moment he was safe, he attacked again.
Valeria struck him with the metal window frame.
He fell unconscious.
This time, honest federal officers took custody of him.
The final account allowed investigators to trace every payment. Judges were suspended. Police commanders were arrested. The governor attempted to flee by private plane.
But Esteban remained missing.
Three days later, Mateo was released from custody when forensic experts proved the pages bearing his name were forged.
He returned to the estate under heavy guard.
We believed the final battle had ended.
Then Mateo entered the main hall and found every guard unconscious.
Esteban stood at the top of the staircase.
He held my father by the throat.
A detonator rested in his other hand.
May you like
Explosives had been placed throughout the mansion.
“Bring me Aurelio,” he said, “or this house becomes his family’s second grave.”
