## CHAPTER 14 — THE TRIAL WAS A DISTRACTION
The authorities called it an escape.
Daniel called it an extraction.
The transport route had been changed twelve minutes before departure.
The replacement officers used real identification numbers belonging to men who had died years earlier.
Traffic cameras along the highway stopped recording for exactly seven minutes.
This was not something Santiago or Beatriz could have organized from prison.
Someone powerful had removed them.
By morning, every news channel was replaying footage from the crash.
My photograph appeared beside Santiago’s.
Reporters gathered outside the foundation.
Some claimed I had helped arrange his escape.
Others suggested my father had used his influence to silence two people who knew too much.
The same public that had applauded me days earlier was beginning to turn.
My father wanted the foundation to release a statement.
Daniel refused.
“Anything you say will be used to locate her.”
I sat beside Mateo’s crib in the safe house, watching him sleep.
His life had begun with someone attempting to exchange him.
Mine might have begun the same way.
Daniel entered carrying a folder.
“We found the judge who authorized the transfer.”
“Is he talking?”
“He’s dead.”
I looked at him.
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
“Then who signed the order?”
“Someone using his digital credentials.”
The folder contained payment records from several shell companies.
One had funded Santiago’s defense.
Another had donated money to the shelter.
I recognized the amount immediately.
Five million dollars.
It had been the largest anonymous donation to the Salazar Foundation.
“Who accepted this?”
“Your father’s legal adviser.”
“Esteban?”
Daniel nodded.
Esteban Rojas had worked for my father for fifteen years.
He had handled the foundation’s accounts, the lawsuits against Santiago, and the construction contracts for the shelter.
He had stood in the front row during the opening ceremony.
“Find him.”
“He hasn’t answered his phone since the prison crash.”
My father entered carrying an old leather case.
Inside were documents he had taken from Santa Aurelia twenty-eight years earlier.
“I should have shown you these sooner.”
One page contained a list of coded payments.
A repeated symbol appeared beside every transaction.
A circle divided into seven sections.
Daniel photographed it.
“I’ve seen this symbol.”
“Where?”
“On sealed evidence from Santiago’s trial.”
My father looked surprised.
“Those files were never entered into court.”
“Why?”
“The prosecutor said they were unrelated.”
Daniel placed two documents side by side.
The symbols matched.
The trial had not merely failed to expose Santa Aurelia.
It had deliberately avoided it.
Santiago and Beatriz had been convicted of financial fraud, unlawful imprisonment, coercion, and falsification.
But the charges connected to hospital records and attempted custody fraud had quietly disappeared before trial.
Someone had narrowed the case.
Someone had made certain the deeper investigation ended.
My father looked at me.
“They sacrificed Santiago and Beatriz to protect the others.”
The safe house alarm suddenly sounded.
Daniel checked the cameras.
A black vehicle had stopped at the gate.
A woman stepped out.
She raised both hands and faced the camera.
Her hair was gray.
Her face was thinner than in the hospital photograph.
But I recognized her eyes.
Sofia Mendez was alive.
Daniel spoke through the gate intercom.
“State your name.”
“Sofia Mendez.”
“You were declared dead eight years ago.”
“I had to be.”
“Why are you here?”
She looked directly into the camera.
“Because Beatriz has escaped.”
“We know.”
“No,” Sofia said. “You don’t understand.”
She slowly removed her coat.
A fresh wound crossed her shoulder.
“They didn’t rescue Beatriz.”
“They took her because she failed.”
“Failed at what?”
Sofia looked toward the window where I stood holding Mateo.
May you like
“At bringing them Subject B’s firstborn child.”
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