Chapter 5 - VALENTINA MISSING
Then he became a father.
Not a CEO.
Not a Reyes.
A father.
Security locked the estate.
Police searched every vehicle.
"Where was she?"
"With the nanny."
"The nanny is unconscious," Brooks said. "Drugged."
"This is why we should have handled this privately."
"If you say one more sentence about privacy while my daughter is missing, I will forget you are my mother."
Carmen went silent.
The house cameras showed a service van leaving at 12:17 a.m.
Driver wore a cap.
Passenger in the back.
Small.
Valentina.
The van belonged to Reyes Catering.
Beatriz managed the division.
Police found her room empty.
Phone gone.
Passport gone.
"Where would Beatriz take her?"
Carmen's composure finally cracked.
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do."
A small private house near Lake Travis.
Carmen called it "the recovery home."
Marco had never known.
By dawn, police surrounded the property.
Beatriz was inside.
So was Valentina.
Marco wanted to enter.
Brooks refused.
"You created this."
"Let her go."
"You let a maid destroy the family."
"Rosa didn't destroy anything."
"Still noble. Just like your father."
"My father?"
His father, Javier Reyes, died when Marco was twenty-three.
Heart attack.
"Ask Carmen what Javier wanted to do when he found out about Rosa."
Carmen went pale.
"What did Dad know?"
"Not now."
"Answer me."
Carmen whispered, "He found the clinic records before he died."
"What was he going to do?"
"Tell you."
A crash sounded from inside the house.
Then Valentina screamed.
"Rosa!"
Knew the kitchen door never latched correctly.
She slipped inside.
Minutes later, she appeared on the back porch carrying Valentina.
Beatriz chased them with a metal fireplace tool.
Police tackled her.
Valentina reached for Rosa first.
That hurt.
And taught him something.
Safety was not the same as title.
When officers searched Beatriz, they found a flash drive taped inside her coat.
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Label:
JAVIER - IF CARMEN REFUSES.
