Mauro continues, smiling.
“He told me you’d try,” he says. “He told me you’d bring the little charity case into your castle.”
He leans back. “He likes watching rich men learn they’re not kings, just employees.”
You move before he can finish.
You slam the hidden panic button under your desk.
But Mauro isn’t surprised.
He stands smoothly and reaches inside his jacket.
Not for a gun.
For a phone.
He taps a screen and turns it to you.
It’s a live video feed.
A room you don’t recognize.
Three little blond heads.
The triplets.
Your heart stops.
Camila makes a broken sound.
Mauro smiles like he’s tasting your pain.
“Your safe house wasn’t safe,” he says. “Because your security chief works for Rivas.”
He tilts his head. “Now, let’s negotiate like adults.”
Your mother’s voice cuts through the room.
“You leave the children out of this,” she says, cold.
Mauro glances at her, amused.
“And you,” he says, “should’ve stayed a widow.”
The threat hangs, ancient and personal.
You feel something in you snap into clarity.
You can’t out-money this.
You can’t out-lawyer this.
You can only out-risk it.
You look at Camila and see the fear on her face, and beneath it, a stubborn fire.
You look at your mother and see regret she never learned to name.
And you realize the only leverage you have is the one thing monsters don’t expect.
Truth in public.
You step closer to Mauro and say, “Call Rivas. Put him on speaker.”
Mauro laughs. “Why?”
You smile, calm and terrifying in a way you didn’t know you could be.
“Because I’m going to give him what he wants,” you say. “A show.”
Mauro’s eyes narrow, suspicious.
But arrogance is a drug, and he’s addicted.
He calls.
The speaker crackles.
A voice comes through, smooth as velvet over steel.
“Leonardo,” Esteban Rivas says, like you’re old friends. “Congratulations on your new family.”
Your hands shake, but your voice stays steady.
“I want the girls returned,” you say.
Rivas chuckles. “You want many things.”
You glance at Camila.
She’s breathing shallow, but she nods slightly, as if telling you: do it.
You reach under your desk and pull out a folder.
“I have the records,” you say into the speaker. “The donor lists. The clinic transfers. The transplant manipulation.”
Rivas goes quiet, like the air itself paused.
You continue, “I’m sending them to Valdez. The press. Every board. Every hospital regulator.”
Mauro’s smile falters for the first time.
Rivas’s voice returns, calm.
“You wouldn’t,” he says, almost gently. “You’d destroy yourself.”
You swallow.
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