Chapter 9 - The House of Silent Heirs
I had no intention of bringing Isabella to Santa Aurelia.
Sebastián expected me to choose between my daughter and the six patients held inside the clinic. He believed guilt would force me into a mistake.
Instead, Isabella gave us the first advantage.
She watched the hostage video once, despite my attempt to shield her from it.
Then she pointed toward the corner of the treatment room.
“I know that wall.”
I looked at the screen.
The wall was pale green with a painted border of white clouds.
“You’ve never been inside that clinic.”
“Dr. Salcedo showed me pictures. He said that would be my room if I didn’t behave.”
She remembered a metal door near the painted clouds.
“He said bad children went through it and came back quiet.”
Inspector Herrera obtained the clinic’s original construction plans. The treatment room on the video did not exist in the public documents, but older architectural records showed a Cold War shelter beneath the western wing.
The ventilation system was independent.
If Sebastián released a chemical there, it might never reach the rest of the building.
The hostages were likely being held underground.
Gabriel discovered something else.
The clinic’s chemical supplier delivered only standard anesthetic gases and cleaning products. Sebastián might be bluffing about a lethal agent.
We could not assume that.
A specialized police unit prepared to enter through an abandoned drainage route while I drove to the front gate carrying a copy of the ledger.
Isabella remained at the secure residence with Marta and four officers.
Before I left, she handed me Luna.
“For luck.”
I kissed her forehead.
“I will bring her back.”
“You always do.”
The words gave me strength and broke my heart at the same time.
At sunrise, the gates of Santa Aurelia opened.
I walked alone across the courtyard.
The clinic looked peaceful from the outside. White walls. Orange trees. Wide windows overlooking the mountains.
A place designed to make imprisonment look like healing.
Mateo met me at the entrance.
He searched me and took the ledger case.
“Where is the girl?”
“Safe.”
“Sebastián was clear.”
“I came to negotiate.”
“You are in no position to negotiate.”
“Then shoot me and discover whether the ledger is real.”
He hesitated.
I had brought a case containing only selected pages. The originals were already with police.
Mateo led me downstairs.
The underground corridor smelled of disinfectant and stale air. Doors lined both sides. Through small windows, I saw empty beds with leather restraints attached to the frames.
At the end of the corridor, Sebastián waited beside the six hostages.
They ranged in age from twelve to twenty-three. All appeared sedated.
“You disappoint me,” he said. “I asked for Isabella.”
“You are not getting her.”
“Then these children die.”
“They are not children to you. They are accounts.”
His smile thinned.
“Money is the only reliable form of family.”
“That is why no one will mourn you.”
Mateo placed the control device in Sebastián’s hand.
Sebastián held it up.
“One press.”
I set the case on the floor.
“You said Elena made a mistake. What was it?”
He studied me.
“Trusting me.”
“She recorded you.”
That was a lie.
But his reaction told me there was something to record.
“When?”
“The night before she died.”
“She could not have.”
“Why not?”
“Because I searched the library after Sofia left.”
There.
A confession.
My jacket button contained a live transmitter sending every word to Lucía.
“You knew Sofia visited Elena.”
Sebastián realized too late.
He lunged toward me.
The underground lights went out.
Police entered through the drainage tunnel.
Gunfire erupted.
I dropped behind a metal cabinet as Mateo fired toward the darkness. Officers shouted commands. One of the hostages screamed.
Sebastián ran for a side door carrying the control device.
I chased him.
The door led into a mechanical room filled with pipes and ventilation equipment. He struck me with the ledger case, splitting the skin above my eyebrow.
“You should have let your father’s crimes remain buried,” he hissed.
“And let you continue?”
“The system existed before me. Wealthy families have always hidden inconvenient people.”
“Not anymore.”
He raised the control device.
I grabbed his wrist.
We fell against the machinery.
The device slipped from his hand and skidded beneath a pipe.
Sebastián reached for it.
I pulled him back.
He struck my injured head, and white light flashed across my vision.
Then another figure entered the room.
Rafael.
He wore hospital clothing beneath a stolen coat.
He had escaped police custody to reach the clinic.
Sebastián laughed.
“The brothers together again.”
Rafael stepped between us.
“Leave him.”
“You think he will forgive you?”
“No.”
Rafael looked at me.
“I’m not here for forgiveness.”
Sebastián drew a small pistol from his ankle holster.
The shot struck Rafael in the abdomen.
He collapsed.
I tackled Sebastián before he could fire again.
We hit the concrete floor. The pistol slid away. Sebastián clawed toward the control device, but Lucía entered and kicked it beyond his reach.
“Do not move,” she ordered.
Sebastián looked at the officers surrounding him.
Then he began to laugh.
“You think you have won?”
Lucía handcuffed him.
“The chemical cylinders are empty,” an officer reported through the radio. “There was no lethal agent.”
A bluff.
The hostages were alive.
Mateo had been arrested in the corridor.
Paramedics rushed toward Rafael.
I knelt beside him.
Blood soaked through his hands.
“Why did you come?” I asked.
He struggled to breathe.
“Sebastián had another plan.”
“What plan?”
“The clinic was a distraction.”
My phone began ringing.
Marta’s name appeared on the screen.
I answered.
She was crying.
“They took Isabella.”
The secure residence had been attacked while police attention focused on Santa Aurelia.
Two officers were injured.
Marta had been locked inside a pantry.
On the floor of Isabella’s bedroom, they found an old photograph of Elena.
Written across it were the words:
A MOTHER FOR A DAUGHTER.
Sofia was in custody.
Sebastián and Mateo were at the clinic.
Rafael lay wounded beside me.
There was only one person left who hated Elena enough to use her memory.
Beatriz.
May you like
But when police checked the hospital, her bed was empty.
And the officer guarding her had been found unconscious beneath it.
