Chapter 6 - The Weight of Thirteen Years
The dim overhead light of the foyer caught the sharp, unforgiving lines of Sergio Mendoza’s face as he stood on the landing. He didn't look like the gracious, grateful guest who had praised the roast beef hours earlier. The warmth was entirely gone, replaced by the steely, calculated focus of a regional director who had just discovered a rat gnawing at the foundation of his empire.
I kept my hand on the edge of the door, feeling the cool draft of the hallway brushing against my knuckles. Behind me, I could hear the faint, ragged breathing of Alejandro as he dragged himself up from the den floor, his footsteps shuffling unevenly toward the front.
“Sergio,” I said, my voice steady, cutting through the heavy silence of the night. “You’re out late.”
“Not as late as the people running audits on my regional accounts,” Sergio replied, his dark eyes shifting past my shoulder to land squarely on Alejandro, who had just stepped into the foyer.
Alejandro looked like a ghost. His face was colorless, his collar askew, and his hands trembled helplessly at his sides. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out—only a pathetic, shallow gasp of air as he stared at the man he had spent six months manipulating.
“Sergio... I can explain,” Alejandro finally choked out, his voice cracking miserably. “It’s a misunderstanding. A clerical error with the marketing budget—”
“A clerical error?” Sergio stepped across the threshold uninvited, pushing the door open further as he walked into the condo. He didn't even look at Alejandro; instead, he held up the manila envelope he carried. “My son Daniel didn't spend three years in law school before switching to medicine just to miss a paper trail, Alejandro. He knows how to cross-reference corporate routing numbers. And he found twenty-four separate wire transfers funneled from my regional development grants into an offshore shell corporation managed by a twenty-five-year-old marketing assistant named Chloe Vance.”
The blood drained completely from Alejandro’s face. He stumbled backward, his hip catching the corner of the entryway console table and sending a decorative bowl clattering to the floor.
“You... you looked at the shell corp?” Alejandro whispered, his eyes wide with absolute terror.
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“I didn't just look at it,” Sergio said, his voice dropping into a cold, lethal register. “I froze it forty minutes ago. And then I called the corporate compliance board.”
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