Chapter 4 - The Seventeenth Drawer
The gun was lowered before I could scream. The man stepped into the weak emergency light. It was Marcus. But he wasn't alone. Behind him stood the missing notary.
He looked terrified.
“Don't shoot,” he said.
Marcus closed the cellar door.
“Someone followed him here.”
The notary's hands were shaking.
“I didn't forge your signature.”
“I know.”
“But I know who did.”
That sentence changed everything.
He explained that the forged transfer document had been prepared by a legal firm working for a company called Sierra Azul Holdings.
Sierra Azul was controlled through layers of shell corporations.
At the end of the chain was Arista Capital.
But there was another connection.
Teresa.
She had received payments disguised as consulting fees.
The notary had been instructed to authenticate documents without reviewing the underlying agreements.
When he refused, someone threatened his family.
He had disappeared to protect them.
“Why come here now?” I asked.
“Because they know I kept copies.”
He reached inside his jacket.
Before he could hand them to me, a car door slammed outside.
Marcus moved toward the window.
“Lights.”
Headlights appeared through the trees.
Three vehicles.
My heart began racing.
“Back entrance,” Marcus said.
We moved quickly.
The cellar had an old passage leading into the garden.
My grandmother had once told me it was built during renovations.
We escaped through it.
Outside, Marcus called the police.
The notary handed me a flash drive.
“Your grandmother gave me this years ago.”
I stared at it.
“Why didn't you give it to me before?”
“She told me not to unless someone tried to force the sale.”
I inserted it into my laptop.
There were recordings.
My grandmother's voice filled the screen.
“If you're watching this, Valeria, the people surrounding you are no longer pretending.”
I covered my mouth.
She had recorded the message years earlier.
“I discovered that Teresa borrowed money from people she couldn't repay. They offered to erase the debt if she convinced you to sell the house.”
I closed my eyes.
My mother hadn't started this because she hated me.
She had become trapped.
Then my grandmother said something that made my blood run cold.
“Julián isn't the person you need to fear most.”
The recording ended.
I replayed it.
Nothing.
Marcus leaned closer.
“There might be metadata.”
He examined the file.
“It was edited.”
“What?”
“Someone removed part of the recording.”
The missing section lasted forty-three seconds.
We needed the original.
The next morning, the story exploded again.
Someone leaked the video of the coffee incident to national media.
People criticized my family.
Some defended Teresa.
Others accused me of staging the scene for publicity.
I ignored all of it.
I had more important problems.
The police contacted me about the incident.
I gave them the medical report and security footage request.
But before I left the station, an officer stopped me.
“Ms. Montalvo?”
“Yes?”
“We found something unusual.”
He handed me a photograph.
It showed a black SUV parked near Casa del Fresno.
The photograph had been taken the night before.
“That's not ours,” I said.
“We know.”
The officer pointed to the windshield.
There was a sticker.
A small white symbol.
A circle divided by a diagonal line.
I had seen it before.
On one of the folders in my grandmother's box.
I returned home.
The seventeenth drawer was still on my mind.
That evening, Marcus and I returned to the cellar.
He examined the lock.
“Mechanical.”
“Can you open it?”
“Yes.”
The drawer finally opened.
Inside was a single envelope.
My name was written on it.
I opened it.
There was only one sentence.
If they come for the house, don't trust the person who claims to protect you.
I looked at Marcus.
He looked back at me.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“Valeria…”
“What?”
“The police just arrested your mother.”
I stood completely still.
“For what?”
Marcus listened.
Then he lowered the phone.
“They say she confessed to ordering something.”
I felt the blood leave my face.
“What did she order?”
He looked at the envelope in my hand.
May you like
Then toward the cellar door.
And before he could answer, someone outside shouted my name...
