Chapter 4: The Chapel Beneath the City
Saint Gabriel’s Chapel stood on a hill overlooking the old district.
The building had belonged to the Castillo family for nearly a century.
Alejandro had been baptized there.
His parents had married there.
His father had been buried behind it.
Now Victor had chosen it as the meeting place.
Alejandro drove with Elena beside him.
Mateo’s team followed at a distance in unmarked vehicles.
The real ledger remained hidden inside Rosa’s quarters.
The drives Alejandro carried were decoys.
Elena stared through the window.
“You shouldn’t have brought me.”
“You refused to stay.”
“I meant you shouldn’t have agreed to Victor’s terms.”
“Sofia is my sister.”
“And he knows you will sacrifice anything for family.”
Alejandro glanced at her.
“That includes you.”
Elena lowered her eyes.
“I’m not the woman you remember.”
“I know.”
The answer hurt her.
Alejandro continued.
“The woman I remember trusted rooms with unlocked doors. She slept through thunderstorms. She argued with waiters when they forgot lemon.”
A faint smile touched Elena’s mouth.
“You hated when I did that.”
“I pretended to.”
Her smile disappeared.
Alejandro slowed the car near the chapel gates.
“I don’t need you to become who you were.”
Elena looked at him.
“I need you alive.”
They entered the chapel.
Victor stood near the altar.
He was sixty-three, silver-haired, elegant, and composed.
Sofia sat in the front pew with her hands bound.
She was awake but weak.
A man in medical scrubs stood behind her.
Two armed guards waited near the side doors.
Victor looked at Elena.
“So the dead return.”
Alejandro placed the bag containing the decoy evidence on the floor.
“Release Sofia.”
Victor smiled.
“First, the password.”
Elena stepped forward.
“The password is not a word.”
Victor’s expression sharpened.
“It’s a sequence based on the foundation’s first six grant recipients.”
Victor looked toward Vivian’s place beside him.
She was not there.
“A clever safeguard,” he said.
Elena stared at him.
“You killed Rafael because he found the sequence.”
Victor’s smile faded.
“I did not kill your father, Alejandro.”
Alejandro’s hand curled into a fist.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Rafael died because he tried to confront someone without understanding how deeply this went.”
“Who?”
Victor looked toward the chapel floor.
“The answer is beneath us.”
Alejandro remembered the brass key.
He removed it from his pocket.
Victor’s eyes changed.
“So Rafael left you that.”
“You knew about the archive.”
“I helped him build it.”
Alejandro pointed toward Sofia.
“Let her go.”
Victor nodded to the man behind her.
The restraints were cut.
Sofia stumbled toward Alejandro.
Halfway across the aisle, a gunshot exploded.
The man in scrubs collapsed.
Blood spread across his chest.
Everyone turned.
Vivian stood in the chapel entrance holding a pistol.
Her wrists were still marked from the restraints.
Alejandro stared at her.
“How did you escape?”
Vivian stepped inside.
“You still believe this is Victor’s operation.”
She pointed the gun toward him.
“It was mine long before he understood it.”
Victor looked genuinely alarmed.
“Vivian, lower the weapon.”
She laughed.
“You should have listened when I told you Elena had become a liability.”
Victor’s guards turned their weapons toward Vivian.
She pressed a small remote.
A red light appeared beneath the altar.
“Everyone drops their guns,” she said, “or this chapel becomes a grave.”
Alejandro looked down.
Explosive charges had been planted beneath the pews.
May you like
Vivian smiled.
“Now give me the key.”
