“Rodrigo,” Alejandro growled, his fists clenching. “You and your sister are finished. I have the digital trail. I have the bank records. The federal authorities are already deploying to your properties.”
Rodrigo stopped walking, about ten feet away. He let out a loud, booming laugh that echoed chillingly against the concrete walls.
“The federal authorities? Do you really think we’re that stupid, Alejandro?” Rodrigo sneered. “You think we didn’t monitor your private investigator’s server? The moment Commander Silva compiled that file, our people within the department flagged it. Why do you think it took him so long to send it to you? He was already compromised.”
Alejandro’s heart dropped into his stomach. He reached into his pocket for his phone, but Rodrigo raised a hand, shaking his head.
“Go ahead, look at your phone. No signal. We brought a military-grade jammer in the truck,” Rodrigo said smoothly. “No calls. No GPS. No rescue.”
The two thugs stepped forward, drawing silenced pistols from beneath their jackets.
“You see, Alejandro, Valeria and my father realized something the moment you looked out that SUV window today,” Rodrigo whispered, his eyes narrowing into cold, reptilian slits. “They realized you would never let this go. If you live, the Villarreal wealth goes to these two little street rats. But if you and your tragic ex-wife happen to perish in a tragic, accidental fire in this lawless squatter settlement… well, the inheritance laws are very clear.”
Rodrigo pointed the crowbar directly at the blanket where the twins lay sleeping.
“Valeria becomes the grieving widow. She inherits everything. And these bastards disappear from the face of the earth, just like the trash they are.”
Alejandro felt the blood drain from his face as the two armed men raised their weapons, aiming directly at his chest and the fragile mosquito net behind him. He was completely unarmed, trapped in a dead zone, with the people he had wronged and the children he had just discovered standing right in the line of fire.
“Wait,” Carmen’s voice suddenly rang out from behind him, terrifyingly calm.
Both Alejandro and Rodrigo shifted their eyes to her. Carmen wasn’t looking at the guns. She was looking down at her battered raffia sack of garbage, her hand reaching deep into the tangled mess of crushed aluminum cans.
“You think I’ve been picking up trash for a year just to survive, Rodrigo?” Carmen said, a low, chilling tone entering her voice that Alejandro had never heard before.
As her hand emerged from the bag, she didn’t pull out a bottle or a can. Her fingers were wrapped around a heavy, military-grade remote detonator switch, its digital display glowing with a vibrant, ominous red light.
“I knew you’d come for us eventually,” Carmen whispered, looking directly into Rodrigo’s eyes. “Look under your truck.”
