## CHAPTER 17 — THE FIRE BENEATH THE FOUNDATION
The recording ended before my father made his choice.
The rest of the tape had been erased.
I turned toward him.
“What did she mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“She said one child belonged to you.”
“I believed you were that child.”
“But the DNA test proved I wasn’t.”
“Yes.”
“Then Luciana may be your biological daughter.”
My father’s face collapsed under the possibility.
Sofia leaned against the wall.
“Your mother never told me who fathered which child.”
“Twins cannot have different fathers,” my father said.
Sofia looked at him.
“They can, in rare cases.”
The room fell silent.
Two daughters.
Born minutes apart.
Possibly fathered by different men.
One taken by my father.
One taken by Beatriz.
My father had spent twenty-eight years believing he had rescued his child.
He may have unknowingly left his biological daughter behind.
Beatriz sat on the floor, watching us.
“You understand now,” she said. “The organization did not create the secret. Your mother did.”
“My mother was trying to expose you.”
“She was also trying to decide which man would control her daughters.”
“What man?”
Beatriz smiled faintly.
“The one who built Santa Aurelia.”
Daniel’s radio interrupted us.
A fire had broken out at the Salazar Foundation headquarters.
By the time we arrived, flames had spread through the lower records department.
Firefighters filled the street.
Employees stood behind barricades.
The shelter was safe, but the foundation’s central archive was being destroyed.
Daniel ran inside with the emergency team.
My father tried to follow.
Police officers stopped him.
A detective approached carrying an evidence bag.
Inside was a gasoline-soaked cloth.
“Mr. Salazar, we need you to come with us.”
“Why?”
“Your security badge was used to enter the archive ten minutes before the fire.”
“I was across the city.”
“We have video showing you inside the building.”
“That is impossible.”
The detective turned a tablet toward us.
The footage clearly showed my father entering the archive.
Same face.
Same suit.
Same walk.
The timestamp placed him there while he was standing beside me in Room 317.
Someone had created a convincing duplicate.
Or someone who looked exactly like him had entered the building.
My father was taken into custody.
Daniel emerged from the smoke with burns along one arm.
“They stole one file,” he told me.
“Which file?”
“Your original birth registry.”
Beatriz had disappeared during the confusion.
So had Sofia.
I called the safe house.
Daniel’s wife answered.
Her voice was shaking.
The guards had been drugged.
The cameras had been erased.
Mateo was gone.
A white card had been left inside his crib.
On the front was the seven-section circle.
On the back were six words.
May you like
BRING SUBJECT B TO CAMINO VERDE. ALONE.
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