Chapter 4 - THE SECOND ATTEMPT
Lucía reached the suite before anyone else. She slammed into the door with her shoulder and found Mateo exactly where she had left him, eyes closed, oxygen mask in place, monitor steady. For one irrational second relief flooded her. Then she saw the IV bag.
A tiny puncture marked the clear plastic near the lower seam.
“Doctor!” she screamed.
Sofía arrived behind her, followed by Álvaro and hotel security. A nurse shut off the line immediately. The emergency physician drew blood, removed the bag, and sealed it for police analysis. Within minutes, the room filled with controlled panic. Mateo’s pulse rose slightly, but the doctor assured them that only a small quantity of contaminated fluid could have entered his bloodstream. They had caught it in time.
On a chair near the wall sat another unmarked envelope.
Inside was a single note.
LET HIM DIE OR BOTH FAMILIES FALL WITH HIM.
Police locked down the floor. Every guest, employee, relative, driver, and security officer still inside the hotel was identified. The detective in charge, Inspector Elena Ruiz, arrived with two uniformed teams and took control from the private security staff. “No one leaves,” she said. “No one moves between floors without escort. And from this moment on, nobody touches anything in this room unless medical staff authorize it.”
Álvaro protested that the Montenegro family had its own protection team. Ruiz cut him off. “Someone with security access entered a garage and someone with medical access reached an IV. Your protection team is part of the problem until proven otherwise.”
The words silenced him.
Lucía stood beside Mateo, the torn edge of her wedding gown gray with dust. She had been awake nearly twenty hours. She had discovered financial crimes linked to her father, watched her mother admit to entering Mateo’s garage, learned that Gabriel was connected to a buried family secret, and now someone had tried to poison her husband in the same building where they had exchanged vows. Exhaustion should have made her collapse. Instead, she felt terrifyingly clear.
She took Mateo’s hand.
“Listen to me,” she said softly. “I know you’re in there. I know because your heart changed when I told you about the brakes.”
The monitor remained steady.
Sofía came to the other side of the bed. “Mateo, if you can hear us, squeeze Lucía’s hand.”
Nothing.
Lucía leaned closer. “We think Gabriel tampered with the car.”
Mateo’s fingers moved.
Lucía froze.
It was not a reflexive twitch. His fingers closed around hers once, weakly but unmistakably.
“Oh my God,” Sofía whispered.
The nurse called the doctor, but Lucía did not release Mateo’s hand. “One squeeze for no,” she said. “Two for yes. Do you understand?”
Two slow pressures answered.
The room changed instantly. Mateo was no longer merely unconscious. He was a witness trapped inside his own body.
“Did Gabriel cut your brakes?” Lucía asked.
One squeeze.
No.
Sofía inhaled sharply.
“Did Álvaro?”
One squeeze.
Álvaro looked as if he had been struck.
“My father?”
One squeeze.
“My mother?”
One squeeze.
Lucía glanced around the room. Every obvious suspect had been eliminated by the man who had nearly died.
“Was it someone at the wedding?”
Two squeezes.
Sofía moved closer. “Someone from the Montenegro family?”
One.
“The Valera family?”
One.
Lucía frowned. “Someone who works for one of us?”
Mateo’s hand hesitated, then squeezed twice.
“Foundation?”
One.
“Company?”
One.
“Church?”
His fingers tightened twice.
Everyone turned toward Father Esteban’s empty chair near the corner.
Lucía’s throat constricted. “Esteban?”
Two squeezes.
The doctor entered just as Mateo’s lips began to move beneath the oxygen mask. The sound was little more than air.
“E… ste…”
Lucía leaned closer. “I heard you.”
Inspector Ruiz immediately sent officers to find Father Esteban.
He was gone.
The search moved through kitchens, service corridors, laundry rooms, private lounges, and underground parking. Forty minutes later, a police officer radioed that a man matching Esteban’s description had been stopped near a staff exit leading to the rear loading area. He carried no luggage. His clerical collar was tucked inside his coat pocket. In his car, police found a wrench set, latex gloves, a receipt from the workshop that serviced Mateo’s car, and photocopies of the same documents Victoria had removed from the trunk.
Father Esteban did not resist arrest.
When Ruiz brought him to a private meeting room for preliminary questioning, Lucía insisted on being present until the detective ordered her to remain behind a marked line. Esteban looked smaller without his vestments. He had known Lucía since she was nine. He had blessed her grandmother’s grave, baptized Sofía’s youngest cousin, and sat with Mateo’s father during his final illness.
“I touched the brakes,” he said.
Lucía stared at him. “You tried to kill the man I love.”
Esteban lowered his head. “I believed I was preventing something worse.”
“There is nothing worse than murder disguised as mercy.”
His face tightened. “Mateo had discovered a secret capable of tearing apart two families, a company, a foundation, and hundreds of employees who had nothing to do with the sins of their parents.”
“So you decided he should die?”
“I tried to frighten him off the road.”
Lucía’s laugh was sharp and empty. “You cut a brake line on a mountain route.”
Esteban looked at the floor.
Inspector Ruiz placed one of the recovered documents before him. “What secret?”
Esteban glanced toward Antonio, who stood beyond the glass partition. “The truth about Gabriel.”
Antonio’s face turned gray.
Lucía crossed her arms. “I already know Gabriel was hidden.”
“No,” Esteban said. “You know the lie used to hide him.”
The room went still.
“Gabriel is not Antonio Valera’s biological son.”
Victoria covered her mouth.
Esteban’s eyes moved toward Álvaro.
“He is the son of Ramón Montenegro, the former president of Montenegro Holdings.”
Álvaro stepped backward.
Ramón had been Mateo’s father.
Lucía felt the truth rearrange every relationship in the building.
“Then Gabriel is Mateo’s half brother.”
“Yes.”
“And the inheritance?”
“If Gabriel proves paternity,” Esteban said, “he may have legal claims the family believed impossible.”
Lucía looked at Antonio. “You knew?”
Antonio’s eyes filled with shame.
Esteban spoke before he could answer. “I forged the original records thirty years ago. I created the false trail. I helped bury Gabriel’s birth. And when Mateo found evidence that could expose what I had done, I panicked.”
Lucía thought of the second attempt on Mateo’s life. “Did you puncture the IV?”
Esteban looked up.
“No.”
Inspector Ruiz leaned forward. “Did you order someone else to do it?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
Esteban’s expression changed.
May you like
For the first time, Lucía saw fear on the priest’s face.
“I cut the brakes,” he whispered. “But I was not the person who wanted Mateo dead.”
