Chapter 3 - What Valentina Knew
Elena spun toward the doorway.
Mauricio heard something crash in the corridor.
“Stay here,” Rafael said.
Mauricio looked at him.
“You don't give orders in my house.”
Elena moved toward the hall.
Mauricio followed in his wheelchair.
A young housekeeper stood beside a shattered vase.
She was shaking.
“I'm sorry.”
“Elena!” she said. “There was someone upstairs.”
Augusto appeared from the opposite corridor.
“Who?”
“I don't know. I thought everyone was downstairs.”
“Where?”
“Near Miss Valentina's room.”
Mauricio's eyes narrowed.
Valentina still had belongings in the mansion.
“Lock the gates,” he told Augusto.
“Immediately.”
Rafael stepped into the hall.
“This is getting absurd.”
Mauricio looked at him.
“You're not leaving either.”
“What?”
“Not until you tell me what you promised Valentina.”
Rafael glanced at the cracked phone.
“I promised her nothing.”
“Then why are you in the photograph?”
“She asked to speak to me.”
“About?”
Rafael's jaw tightened.
“Your company.”
Mauricio felt the pieces shifting.
“What about it?”
“She was worried about what would happen if your recovery prevented you from returning full-time.”
Mauricio laughed without humor.
“So my fiancée and my cousin were discussing succession twenty minutes before my wedding?”
“It wasn't like that.”
“What was it like?”
Rafael looked at Elena, Augusto, and the housekeeper.
“Privately.”
“No. You wanted an audience yesterday. You were seated in the first row while she left me. You can speak now.”
Rafael's face flushed.
“She wanted financial security.”
Mauricio became very still.
“What kind?”
“A settlement.”
“She wasn't my wife.”
“She was going to be.”
“And?”
“She wanted guarantees.”
Mauricio understood.
“How much?”
Rafael looked away.
“How much?”
“Twenty million.”
Elena inhaled softly.
Mauricio felt something inside him collapse.
Valentina had asked his cousin for twenty million dollars before promising to spend her life with him.
“Why?”
“In case the marriage failed.”
“It failed before it started.”
“I know.”
“And what did you promise her?”
“Nothing.”
Mauricio rolled closer.
“Rafael.”
His cousin finally met his eyes.
“I told her that if she married you, I could make sure the board approved a protective agreement.”
“A protective agreement for whom?”
“For her.”
Mauricio stared.
Rafael continued quickly.
“I thought it would give her reassurance. You were vulnerable. She was uncertain. I was trying to keep everything stable.”
“You were negotiating with my bride behind my back.”
“I was protecting you.”
“No.”
Mauricio's voice was quiet.
“You were managing me.”
Rafael looked wounded.
“After the accident, somebody had to.”
There it was.
The sentence nobody else had dared say.
Mauricio had been reduced from a man to a problem.
A problem requiring management.
He looked at Elena.
Her words returned.
You don't need anyone to stay with you because they feel sorry for you.
He turned back to Rafael.
“Leave.”
“You said the gates—”
“Augusto.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Let him out.”
Rafael stared at Mauricio.
“You'll regret treating family like enemies.”
“Then stop behaving like one.”
Rafael walked away.
But the questions remained.
The cracked phone belonged to a temporary catering worker named Lucas. Security footage showed him entering through the service gate the previous morning.
By noon, Augusto located him.
Lucas agreed to return.
He arrived terrified.
Mauricio questioned him in the library.
“Why did you photograph them?”
Lucas twisted his cap in his hands.
“Because the lady paid me.”
“What lady?”
“The bride.”
Mauricio frowned.
“Valentina paid you to photograph herself?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She said if she left the wedding, I should make sure you got the phone.”
Mauricio stared at him.
“So she wanted me to know she met Rafael.”
“Yes.”
“Why not tell me herself?”
“I don't know.”
“Who wrote the note in my office?”
Lucas shook his head.
“Not me.”
“Did Valentina?”
“I don't know.”
Mauricio dismissed him.
Nothing made sense.
Valentina had abandoned him.
Yet she had deliberately left evidence behind.
Evidence pointing toward Rafael.
Why?
That afternoon, Mauricio called Valentina seventeen times.
No answer.
At four, she finally sent a message.
STOP LOOKING FOR ME.
Mauricio called immediately.
Declined.
He typed:
Why did you photograph Rafael?
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Then:
BECAUSE I WANTED YOU TO KNOW WHO YOU WERE TRUSTING.
Mauricio typed:
Then tell me everything.
Her reply took three minutes.
I CAN'T.
Why?
No response.
He tried again.
Did Rafael threaten you?
Nothing.
Did he pay you?
Nothing.
Mauricio put the phone down.
Elena entered with coffee.
“You haven't eaten.”
“Has everyone in this house decided to supervise me?”
“No. But your lunch is still untouched.”
He looked at her.
“You're remarkably comfortable arguing with your employer.”
“I'm terrified.”
He almost smiled.
“You don't look terrified.”
“That's because I'm good at cleaning up messes.”
This time he did smile.
Elena placed the tray down.
Mauricio studied her.
“Why did you come back early?”
Her hands paused.
“The phone.”
“You could have given it to Augusto.”
“I thought you should see it first.”
“Why?”
She considered the question.
“Because too many people decide what you're allowed to know.”
Mauricio looked away.
That sentence hurt because it was true.
He had spent eleven months allowing everyone to filter his life.
Doctors spoke to Valentina.
Executives spoke to Rafael.
Staff spoke to Augusto.
People assumed protecting Mauricio meant controlling information around him.
Elena hadn't.
“Sit down.”
She blinked.
“I'm working.”
“Five minutes.”
She reluctantly sat across from him.
Mauricio looked at her uniform.
“You were here the night of my accident, weren't you?”
“Yes.”
“What do you remember?”
Elena's expression changed.
“Why?”
“Because apparently everyone knows something I don't.”
She hesitated.
“You left around seven.”
“With Rafael?”
“No.”
Mauricio frowned.
“I met Rafael at the restaurant.”
“I know. But you left here alone.”
“What else?”
“Valentina came back around midnight.”
Mauricio froze.
“She told me she went directly to the hospital.”
Elena shook her head.
“She came here first.”
“How long?”
“Maybe fifteen minutes.”
“What did she do?”
“I don't know.”
“Elena.”
“I saw her go upstairs.”
“To our bedroom?”
“No.”
Elena looked toward the corridor.
“Your office.”
Mauricio felt the room narrow.
“Was Augusto here?”
“Yes.”
“Rafael?”
“No.”
“What happened when she came downstairs?”
“She was crying.”
“Did she say anything?”
Elena's gaze dropped.
“One thing.”
“What?”
“She asked me whether I believed accidents happened for a reason.”
Mauricio stared at her.
“What did you say?”
“I told her accidents happen because something goes wrong.”
He remembered why he liked Elena's answers.
They didn't bend themselves around his feelings.
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Sometimes somebody makes sure something goes wrong.’”
Mauricio stopped breathing for a moment.
His accident had been investigated.
A tire had failed on a wet highway.
Nothing criminal had been found.
“What exactly did she say?”
Elena repeated it.
Mauricio reached for his phone.
He called the private investigator his company had used for years.
“Reopen my accident investigation.”
The investigator hesitated.
“Mr. Ferreira, the police—”
“I didn't ask what the police concluded.”
“Understood.”
“I want the car records, maintenance reports, photographs, everything.”
He ended the call.
Elena looked worried.
“Maybe it wasn't about your accident.”
“Maybe.”
But Mauricio no longer believed in convenient maybes.
That evening, he asked Augusto for the mansion's archived security footage from the night of the crash.
Augusto returned twenty minutes later.
“It isn't available.”
“Why?”
“The system automatically deletes footage after ninety days.”
Mauricio stared at him.
“No, it doesn't.”
Augusto stopped.
Mauricio continued.
“I paid for twelve-month cloud retention after the burglary two years ago.”
Silence.
“Where is the footage?”
“I'll investigate.”
“No.”
Mauricio rolled toward him.
“You've used that answer enough.”
Augusto looked genuinely shaken.
“I did not delete anything.”
“Then who did?”
“I don't know.”
Mauricio pointed toward the door.
“Find out.”
At ten that night, his investigator called.
“I found something.”
Mauricio put the phone on speaker.
Elena was still nearby, sorting documents at his request.
“What?”
“The tire failure was real.”
Mauricio's shoulders relaxed slightly.
“But there's another issue.”
“What issue?”
“The maintenance report.”
Mauricio waited.
“The vehicle was serviced forty-eight hours before the accident.”
“I know.”
“The original mechanic reported that the rear tire assembly showed signs of deliberate interference.”
Mauricio's blood turned cold.
“That wasn't in the police report.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because a revised maintenance report was submitted the following morning.”
“By whom?”
“I'm trying to establish that.”
Mauricio looked at Elena.
Her face had gone pale.
His investigator continued.
“There's more. Someone from your household contacted the repair shop at 6:13 a.m. after the accident.”
“Who?”
“The shop logged only a first name.”
Mauricio tightened his grip on the phone.
“Tell me.”
The investigator hesitated.
“Valentina.”
The call ended ten minutes later.
Mauricio remained silent.
Elena didn't speak.
Finally, his phone vibrated.
A message.
Unknown number.
He opened it.
One photograph.
Valentina stood outside what appeared to be a small hotel.
Below it:
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY SHE CALLED THE MECHANIC, COME ALONE.
An address followed.
Then another message arrived.
DON'T TRUST THE PERSON WHO PUSHES YOUR CHAIR.
Mauricio slowly raised his eyes.
May you like
Elena was standing behind him.
Her hands rested on the wheelchair handles.
