Chapter 7 - Ninety Days
Mr. Bell moved me into a hotel under a different reservation name that night.
I hated every second of it.
Now I couldn’t walk into my apartment because somebody had sent six words from a disposable number.
The police took a report.
The detective did not seem impressed.
Mr. Bell was.
“Do not underestimate people when control and money are involved.”
The next morning, Julian Montenegro returned from London.
He came straight to the law office.
Fifty-three. Expensive coat. Calm smile.
He looked like the kind of man who could fire three hundred people and call it discipline.
“Lucia.”
“Julian.”
He opened his hands. “This has gotten out of control.”
“Your email says you stopped Rafael from finding my mother.”
His smile barely moved.
“That email says I ended an investigation that had become intrusive.”
“Why?”
“Because my uncle was obsessed.”
“With finding his niece?”
“With rewriting the family because he felt guilty.”
Victoria entered behind him.
“Julian, stop.”
He ignored her.
“Take the trust,” he told me. “Take the cash. Sell the shares back to the family at a generous premium. You’ll never have to work again.”
“I like working.”
“That is not the point.”
“It is to me.”
His eyes cooled.
“You do not know how to run Montenegro Holdings.”
“Neither did Claudia when you put her on three committees.”
Claudia flinched from the corner.
Mr. Bell almost smiled.
Julian leaned forward.
“The company employs twelve thousand people. This is not a fairy tale where a waitress discovers a crown.”
“I’m not asking for a crown.”
“Then what are you asking for?”
I looked at the email in front of him.
“The truth.”
He laughed once.
“Truth is expensive.”
“So is hiding it.”
That afternoon, I formally filed notice that I intended to claim Rafael’s shares if the relationship and will survived probate review.
The ninety-day clock began.
By six o’clock, three financial reporters had my name.
By eight, an old photo of me carrying plates at the Montenegro estate was online.
By midnight, the headline was everywhere.
MAID CLAIMS BILLION-DOLLAR FAMILY EMPIRE.
Then a second story appeared.
It quoted an anonymous family source saying I had deliberately taken the estate job to get close to Rafael’s relatives.
May you like
Only four people knew that accusation had been made at dinner.
I knew exactly which one would enjoy seeing it in print.
