Chapter 6 - Inside the Family
The word family followed me home.
It sat beside me in the truck.
It followed me up the stairs.
It waited while I unlocked the apartment where I had raised Renata.
Inside the family.
Elena could have meant my organization.
She could have meant our actual family.
Or she could have meant something worse.
Mateo came over after midnight.
He placed a bottle of whiskey on the kitchen table.
I pushed it away.
“I need my head clear.”
“You haven’t slept in two days.”
“I’ll sleep when Renata can.”
Mateo sat across from me.
“We need to talk about Victor.”
“You think he killed Elena.”
“I think he lies like breathing.”
“So did I.”
“That was different.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“It wasn’t.”
The Ghost had justified everything.
Every bribe.
Every threat.
Every disappearance from a boardroom.
Every family we ruined financially because someone had broken a promise.
Then Elena and Renata had shown me how easily power could become an excuse.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A distorted voice whispered.
“Stop looking into the accident.”
“Who is this?”
“You already buried one woman.”
My blood turned cold.
“Touch my daughter again and—”
The call disconnected.
Mateo was already tracing it through his contacts.
Thirty seconds later, he shook his head.
“Burner.”
Then someone knocked.
Three soft taps.
Mateo stood.
I opened the door.
A woman in her late sixties stood in the hallway.
She wore a simple coat and held a worn leather purse.
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Rosa Serrano.”
Victor’s sister.
I had not seen her since before Renata was born.
She stepped inside.
“I heard what happened to your daughter.”
“How?”
“Victor.”
Mateo closed the door.
Rosa looked at me.
“My brother did terrible things.”
“I know.”
“But he did not kill Elena.”
“How can you know?”
“Because the night Elena died, Victor was with me.”
“That proves nothing.”
“I was in labor.”
She reached into her purse.
“I almost died.”
She handed me an old hospital record.
Victor’s name appeared as her emergency contact.
Timestamped throughout the night.
If the records were genuine, he could not have been near Elena’s crash site.
Rosa sat down.
“Elena came to my apartment two weeks before she died.”
“What did she want?”
“She was frightened.”
“Of Victor?”
“No.”
Rosa looked toward Mateo.
Then back at me.
“She asked whether Mateo had ever betrayed you.”
The room became completely still.
I slowly turned.
Mateo stared at Rosa.
“What did you say?”
Rosa swallowed.
“I told her I didn’t know.”
Mateo looked at me.
“Daniel, this is ridiculous.”
Rosa continued.
“Elena said someone had been copying account records from your old office.”
Mateo stood.
“You think it was me?”
“I’m telling him what she told me.”
I remembered nineteen years earlier.
Victor had vanished.
Millions had disappeared.
Mateo had been the man who brought me the evidence proving Victor stole it.
Mateo had been the man who convinced me not to investigate further because Elena was pregnant.
Mateo had helped me disappear.
The realization felt like a knife turning slowly.
Mateo saw it in my face.
“Daniel.”
I said nothing.
Then my phone vibrated.
May you like
A message from the hospital.
Renata was gone.
