Chapter 3 - The Conspiracy Widens
Marco left the monitoring room, his footsteps echoing down the private corridor, leaving Emiliano alone with the ghosts of the past year playing on a loop across the screens. He pressed his palms against the cold glass of the main monitor, as if he could reach through it and touch his daughters, pull them out of the past and into the safety of the present.
Patricia is going to jail, he promised them silently. I swear it. On everything I am. She will never hurt you again.
But the revelation from the phone call gnawed at him. “Just like we planned.”
We.
There was an accomplice. A partner in crime. Patricia hadn’t done this alone. Someone had helped her orchestrate the frame-up of Rosa. Someone had advised her on the legal loopholes regarding custody and the trust funds. Someone was waiting in the wings to split his empire.
Emiliano’s mind raced. Who could it be?
He thought of his inner circle. His CFO? No, Harold was loyal to a fault, had been with him since the garage days. His lawyer? Arthur was expensive, but he was also ethical, and he’d never liked Patricia.
A cold thought slithered into his mind. Someone on the security team?
He had twenty men on the household payroll, rotating shifts. Patricia was charming. She was good with people when she wanted something. She had spent the last year hosting lavish barbecues for the staff, handing out generous Christmas bonuses, remembering wives’ names and kids’ birthdays. It was all part of the act, of course—ingratiating herself. But what if one of them had actually bitten? What if one of the men whose sole job was to protect his family was actually the Judas?
That would explain how Patricia had been so confident the cameras wouldn’t be checked. If she had a man on the inside feeding her information, telling her which angles were blind, telling her when the servers were being maintained…
Emiliano’s blood ran cold. He couldn’t trust anyone except Marco. And Marco was currently walking straight into the lion’s den.
He grabbed the radio off the desk. “Marco, status?”
“Approaching the service corridor now, sir. Audio is live.”
Emiliano switched the main feed to the kitchen camera. He saw it all in real-time.
The kitchen was bathed in the soft, golden light of early morning. It smelled of fresh bread and brewing coffee, a smell that had always meant home to Emiliano, though he’d rarely been present enough to enjoy it.
Rosa stood at the island, her back to the door. She was packing lunches. The same red welt from yesterday’s slap was still faintly visible on her cheek, partially covered by a light dusting of makeup she’d probably found in the girls’ play vanity. She moved with a tired, practiced grace. She was humming a song under her breath, something soft and Mexican, trying to create a bubble of normalcy before the storm of Patricia’s waking.
Marco stepped into the room.
Rosa didn’t startle. She was used to the security team moving silently through the house. She turned, a polite, neutral smile on her face—the smile of an employee who knew her place.
“Good morning, Marco,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “Can I get you some coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”
Marco didn’t smile. He didn’t accept the coffee. He stood rigidly in the doorway, blocking the exit, his eyes flicking briefly to the mark on her cheek before returning to her face.
“Rosa,” he said, his voice low and serious. “I need you to remain calm. And I need you to listen to me very carefully.”
The smile faded from Rosa’s face. The blood drained from her cheeks. She knew that tone. It was the tone of bad news. Of firings. Of police raids. She instinctively stepped back, putting the kitchen island between herself and the large security guard.
“Is it the girls?” she asked immediately, her voice sharp with panic. “Are they okay? Did something—”
“The girls are fine. They are still asleep. They are safe.” Marco took a step forward, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace. “But you are not in trouble, Rosa. I need you to understand that. You are not in trouble. You are not being fired.”
Rosa blinked. Confusion warred with the fear in her eyes. “Then… what is this? Did Patricia find something else? Did she plant—”
“Mr. Duarte is home.”
The words hung in the air like a guillotine blade.
Rosa froze. For a full three seconds, she didn’t breathe. Her hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes widened until they were huge, black pools of shock.
“No,” she whispered. “He left. He went to Europe. I saw the car leave.”
“He never got on the plane.” Marco’s voice softened, just a fraction. He was a father too, and he had watched the same tapes Emiliano had. His respect for this young woman had grown exponentially in the last twelve hours. “He never left the property. He has been in the west wing monitoring suite since 8 a.m. yesterday.”
He let that sink in.
“He saw everything, Rosa. The slap. the threats. The way she treats the girls. He saw it all. And he has the tapes going back a year. He knows about the closet. He knows about the bracelet. He knows everything.”
Rosa’s legs gave out.
She collapsed onto the nearest kitchen chair, her chest heaving as the adrenaline and the fear of the last year finally broke loose. She started shaking. Tremors wracked her small frame. She put her head in her hands and began to cry—not the quiet, controlled sobs of the night before, but great, heaving gasps of relief.
“Oh, thank God,” she choked out. “Thank God. I thought… I thought I was going to have to do this forever. I thought they’d be trapped with her and I couldn’t tell anyone because she’d make sure no one believed me and then I’d be gone and who would—”
She couldn’t finish. She just wept.
Marco stood there awkwardly, letting her cry. He glanced up at the camera in the corner of the ceiling, right into the lens, giving Emiliano a tiny, grim nod.
She’s loyal, sir. She’s the real deal.
After a minute, Rosa pulled herself together. She wiped her face roughly with the back of her hand, squared her shoulders, and looked up at Marco. The vulnerability was gone, replaced by the same steel Emiliano had seen in the living room.
“Where is he?” she asked. “What does he want me to do?”
“He wants you to act normal,” Marco said, stepping closer and lowering his voice to a whisper. “He doesn’t want Patricia to know the game is up yet. Not until we have the accomplice. Patricia mentioned a partner on a phone call last night. Someone she’s been working with from the beginning.”
Rosa paled. “A partner?”
“Yes. And we think it might be someone on the inside. Someone on staff. Until we know who, we can’t make a move. If we arrest Patricia now, the partner runs, or destroys evidence, or… worse… decides to take matters into their own hands regarding the girls.”
Rosa’s eyes hardened. She stood up. “Tell me what you need me to do.”
“Just keep doing exactly what you’ve been doing. Protect the girls. Be there. And if Patricia says anything, anything at all, about a meeting, or a transfer, or a name… you get word to me immediately. Can you do that?”
Rosa nodded. She didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Whatever it takes.”
“Good. Mr. Duarte will be in contact. He’s… he’s very sorry, Rosa. For doubting you. For putting you in this position.”
Rosa looked away, toward the stairs where the girls slept. Her expression softened.
“He was busy,” she said simply. “She was good. It’s not his fault. Not really. The only thing that matters is the girls. As long as they are okay, nothing else matters.”
She turned back to the lunch boxes on the counter and picked up a butter knife, her hands now steady. “Now go. Before she comes down and sees us talking. It’s better if she thinks I’m still alone in this.”
Marco nodded and slipped back out the way he came.
Emiliano watched the exchange from the monitor, his heart swelling with a complicated mix of emotions. Guilt. Admiration. A fierce, protective urge he hadn’t felt since his wife died.
She didn’t ask for money. She didn’t ask for a reward. She just asked to protect my daughters.
He didn’t have time to dwell on it. The radio in his hand crackled to life. It was the IT specialist he’d called in at 4 a.m., a forensic hacker named Jax who worked off the books for cases like this.
“Mr. Duarte?” Jax’s voice was nasal, fast, excited. “You told me to dig into Patricia’s communications? Her iCloud, her burner phones, her socials?”
“Did you find the accomplice?” Emiliano demanded.
“Better. I found everything. She wasn’t just talking to one person, sir. She was running a whole ring. This is her third marriage. Or… her third attempted marriage. She has three aliases. Records in Florida, Nevada, and Texas. Every time, the pattern is the same: target a wealthy widower or divorcé with kids, ingratiate herself, isolate the family from the help, and then either divorce with a massive settlement or… well… in the case of the guy in Houston… he died in a ‘boating accident’ six weeks before the wedding.”
Emiliano’s blood turned to ice. “Dead?”
“Coroner ruled it accidental drowning. But looking at the bank records? Patricia walked away with a two-million-dollar life insurance payout she’d pressured him into signing. And get this… the beneficiary on your new life insurance policy? The one you took out three months ago ‘for the girls’ future’?”
Emiliano knew the answer before Jax said it.
“Patricia Voss. 100% beneficiary. And the policy amount? Five hundred million dollars.”
The room spun.
May you like
It wasn’t just about the custody and the trust funds. It was about him. She was planning to kill him.
“Jax,” Emiliano said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “Who was she talking to last night? The accomplice. Find me a name. Find me a face. And do it now. Because if she’s willing to kill for money… she’s already decided I’m not coming back from that ‘business trip’ alive.”
