Chapter 6 - THE FLASH DRIVE
Alejandro wanted to send twenty armed guards to Lucía’s apartment.
Lucía refused.
“No Montero security.”
“They work for me.”
“You thought your office security worked for you too.”
The sentence stopped him.
She was right.
He had no idea which employees answered to him and which answered to his mother, Mateo, or whoever else had been quietly building power underneath his name.
Dr. Camila Marín entered the room fifteen minutes later.
Lucía visibly relaxed when she saw her.
Alejandro recognized the doctor immediately.
Her husband Sergio had been the man in the photographs Elena used to convince him Lucía was unfaithful.
Camila looked at Alejandro without warmth.
“So you finally found her.”
Alejandro deserved the tone.
He nodded.
“Yes.”
Camila checked Lucía’s chart.
“The bleeding appears related to cervical irritation and stress rather than placental separation.”
Alejandro exhaled.
“The baby?”
“Stable.”
“And Lucía?”
“Exhausted.”
Camila looked directly at him.
“Chronically stressed.”
Another look.
“Underweight for late pregnancy.”
Another.
“And she should not be working twelve-hour housekeeping shifts.”
Each sentence felt deserved.
Alejandro did not defend himself.
“I will pay for whatever she needs.”
Lucía answered before Camila could.
“No.”
“Lucía.”
“I will not owe you money.”
“You do not owe me anything.”
“That is easy to say when you can transfer more money than I make in a year before breakfast.”
“I am not trying to buy forgiveness.”
“Then stop reaching for money every time something hurts.”
Alejandro went silent.
Camila looked between them.
“I am going to pretend I did not hear the beginning of a marital argument in my exam room.”
Lucía almost smiled.
Camila continued.
“You are staying overnight.”
Lucía shook her head.
“I cannot afford—”
“You are staying overnight.”
“I have work tomorrow.”
“You do not have work tomorrow.”
Lucía frowned.
“Did Ernesto fire me?”
“No.”
Camila raised an eyebrow.
“I am medically forbidding you from returning for at least seventy-two hours.”
Lucía opened her mouth.
Camila pointed at her.
“Do not argue with the woman controlling whether you leave this room.”
Lucía closed her mouth.
Alejandro looked down to hide the first real smile he had felt all night.
Lucía saw it.
“Do not enjoy this.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
“A little.”
The softness lasted three seconds.
Then Lucía’s phone vibrated again.
Both of them tensed.
This time the message was not a threat.
It was from an unknown email address.
The subject line read: YOU HAVE 12 HOURS.
Lucía opened it.
One sentence appeared.
RETURN THE DRIVE OR THE NEXT PHOTO WILL BE TAKEN INSIDE YOUR HOSPITAL ROOM.
Alejandro took the phone.
“Give me the drive.”
Lucía looked at him.
“No.”
“If they are threatening you for it, I need to know where it is.”
“That is exactly why I am not telling you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you are still thinking like a man with power.”
“I have power.”
“No.”
She looked at the threatening message.
“You have a name people borrow when they want power.”
The words cut deeper than she probably intended.
Alejandro sat down.
“Fine.”
Lucía waited.
He continued.
“Do not tell me where it is.”
She looked surprised.
“Tell me what is on it.”
Lucía studied him for a long moment.
Then she looked at Camila.
The doctor quietly closed the door.
Lucía spoke.
“Seven months ago, I was helping your foundation review invoices for a housing project.”
Alejandro remembered.
The Santa Rosa Housing Initiative had been one of Lucía’s favorite projects.
She had insisted the foundation build apartments for families displaced by a flood.
“I found three invoices from different suppliers with identical formatting errors.”
Alejandro leaned forward.
“Duplicate vendors?”
“Different names.”
“Same owner?”
“I checked.”
Lucía nodded.
“All three were registered through nominee directors.”
“Mateo?”
“Eventually.”
“How much?”
“Those three invoices were only six million pesos.”
“Only.”
Lucía ignored the irony.
“But then I searched older projects.”
“How far back?”
“Five years.”
Alejandro’s stomach tightened.
“I found hundreds of payments.”
“To the same companies?”
“To dozens of companies using the same patterns.”
“How much total?”
Lucía looked at him.
“I stopped calculating at four hundred and sixty million pesos.”
Alejandro stood.
Camila inhaled softly.
“That is impossible.”
“I thought so too.”
Lucía continued.
“So I copied everything I could.”
“Onto the flash drive.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you not come to me?”
“I tried.”
Alejandro closed his eyes.
Of course she had.
“I sent you a message asking you to come home early.”
He remembered receiving a message from her that week.
He had not gone home.
Mateo had arranged an emergency dinner with investors.
Alejandro stayed out until almost midnight.
“When I got home, you were asleep,” he said.
“No.”
Lucía’s eyes hardened.
“I was pretending to be asleep because your mother was downstairs.”
“My mother?”
“She had already been through my desk.”
Alejandro’s chest tightened.
“How do you know?”
“She left one drawer open.”
“That could have been—”
Lucía stared at him.
He stopped.
“Sorry.”
“Yes.”
She continued.
“The next morning, Mateo called me.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me I had misunderstood the transfers.”
“How did he know you found them?”
“That was the question that scared me.”
Alejandro nodded slowly.
“So you copied everything.”
“Yes.”
“And hid the drive.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“No.”
He accepted it.
“What happened after Mateo called?”
Lucía’s face changed.
“He sent me a photograph.”
“Of what?”
“You.”
Alejandro frowned.
“Me?”
“You were leaving a restaurant with a woman.”
Alejandro searched his memory.
“There were hundreds of dinners.”
“This woman kissed your cheek.”
He remembered.
“Isabel Torres.”
“Who is she?”
“The daughter of an investor.”
Lucía nodded.
“That is what you told me later.”
“Later?”
“I confronted you that night.”
Alejandro remembered the argument.
He had been exhausted.
Lucía accused him of hiding something.
He had accused her of jealousy.
He had slept in the guest room.
The next morning he left before she woke.
“That photograph was bait,” Lucía said.
“To distract you?”
“To make us fight.”
Alejandro understood.
While Lucía was worried about another woman, Mateo and Elena prepared the next move.
“What happened next?”
“Your mother invited me to lunch.”
“Where?”
“At her house.”
“What did she say?”
Lucía’s face became expressionless.
“She told me she knew I was pregnant.”
Alejandro’s hands went cold.
“How?”
“I never found out.”
“And then?”
“She offered me twenty million pesos.”
“For what?”
“To leave Mexico.”
Alejandro stared at her.
“With the baby?”
Lucía swallowed.
“No.”
He already knew the answer before she spoke.
“She told me the money was mine if I ended the pregnancy first.”
Alejandro turned away.
The room seemed too small for his anger.
Camila looked disgusted.
Lucía continued.
“When I refused, she smiled.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Then do not expect my son to recognize it.’”
Alejandro’s eyes burned.
“I am sorry.”
Lucía looked at him.
“You did not say it.”
“No.”
“But I made it believable.”
That silenced her.
Alejandro sat down again.
“What happened after the lunch?”
“Two days later, your mother and Mateo came to our house while you were at work.”
“Our house?”
“Yes.”
“My staff let them in?”
“They did not need permission.”
Of course they did not.
It was Elena’s family property before Alejandro bought out the trust.
Half the staff had worked for her first.
Lucía continued.
“Mateo put the legal documents on the table.”
“The fake separation agreement.”
“Yes.”
“He said you had seen the photographs with Sergio.”
Alejandro looked sick.
“He said you believed the baby was not yours.”
Lucía’s voice became thinner.
“He said you did not want to speak to me because you were afraid I would manipulate you.”
Alejandro covered his mouth with his hand.
“He gave me forty-eight hours to leave.”
“Why did you believe him?”
Lucía looked at him for a long time.
Then she said the truth he had earned.
“Because you had not come home for three nights.”
Alejandro remembered.
Mateo had taken him to Monterrey for negotiations.
Elena told him Lucía wanted space.
He had believed her.
“I called you from the airport,” he whispered.
“No call came.”
“I sent you messages.”
“I received none.”
They both understood now.
Their phones had been filtered, forwarded, blocked, or replaced at the network level by someone with access to company-controlled accounts.
It was not impossible.
Montero Global paid both of their phone plans.
Mateo controlled the corporate communications contracts.
A quiet conspiracy had been built using ordinary administrative access.
No dramatic kidnapping.
No locked room.
Just signatures, security lists, phone settings, contracts, and trusted people repeating lies.
It was more frightening because of how simple it was.
Alejandro looked at Lucía.
“Why did they keep hunting the drive after you left?”
“Because they never found it.”
“Did you copy it?”
Lucía hesitated.
Then she said.
“Yes.”
Alejandro leaned forward.
“How many copies?”
“Three.”
For the first time that night, hope appeared.
“Where are they?”
Lucía looked at him.
“One was stolen from my apartment two months ago.”
His hope dimmed.
“The second was mailed to someone I trust.”
“Who?”
“I will not tell you.”
“And the third?”
Alejandro stood in Lucía's damaged apartment and saw exactly how carefully terror had been arranged.
Nothing expensive had been taken.
The small television remained on the shelf.
Her emergency cash was still taped beneath a drawer.
Even the thin gold chain she had once worn every day lay untouched beside the bed.
Whoever entered had wanted information, not money.
Lucía crouched beside a broken wooden box.
"They opened this."
Alejandro recognized it.
He had given it to her on their second anniversary.
"What was inside?"
"Letters."
"From me?"
"Some."
She lifted a torn envelope.
"And copies of bank statements."
Alejandro looked toward the black words on the wall.
WHERE IS IT?
"The flash drive?"
Lucía nodded.
"One of them."
He frowned.
"One of them?"
Lucía rose slowly.
"I made three copies."
Alejandro stared at her.
For the first time that night, something almost like admiration cut through his fear.
"You expected this."
"I expected worse."
"Where are the copies?"
"Separated."
"Who has them?"
"No one has all of them."
That answer was deliberate.
Alejandro understood why.
Seven months earlier, Lucía would have trusted him with everything.
Now she trusted systems more than people.
He had helped create that change even if he had not caused the conspiracy.
"I need to know enough to protect you."
"No."
"Lucía—"
"You need to know enough to stop pretending you can protect everyone by controlling them."
The words landed hard.
She pointed toward the destroyed apartment.
"I survived because nobody knew everything."
Alejandro looked around again.
The mattress had been sliced open.
Kitchen containers had been dumped onto the floor.
A cheap framed sonogram image had been broken under someone's shoe.
He picked it up.
The glass was cracked across the tiny gray outline.
His hand trembled.
"Is this our baby?"
Lucía's expression softened despite herself.
"At fourteen weeks."
Alejandro stared at the image.
He had missed fourteen weeks.
He had missed twenty weeks.
He had missed every appointment, every fear, every moment because someone had built a wall of lies around him and because he had been too willing to live inside it.
"What's her name?"
Lucía looked at him sharply.
"Her?"
"You said the technician told you."
Lucía's eyes filled before she looked away.
"I haven't chosen one."
Alejandro carefully slid the broken sonogram into his jacket pocket.
"Then don't choose it for me."
Her face hardened again.
"I wasn't planning to."
He accepted the punishment.
He had earned at least that much.
Then a floorboard creaked in the hallway outside.
Alejandro turned.
Someone had been listening.
Lucía stared toward the window.
“The third is somewhere your mother has looked at every week for seven months.”
Alejandro frowned.
“Where?”
Lucía looked back at him.
May you like
“Inside your house.”
