Chapter 8: The Missing Child
Alejandro woke on the chapel floor.
Sirens screamed outside.
Mateo was kneeling beside him.
“Sir, can you hear me?”
Alejandro forced himself upright.
“Elena.”
“She’s alive.”
Elena sat against a column, coughing through the dust.
Vivian lay nearby in handcuffs, guarded by two officers.
Alejandro looked around.
“Sofia?”
Mateo’s expression changed.
“She was here when the explosion happened.”
Alejandro stood too quickly.
The room tilted.
“Where is she?”
“We found blood near the side entrance.”
Alejandro crossed the chapel.
A thin trail led through the broken doorway.
Outside, tire marks cut across the wet ground.
Someone had taken Sofia during the explosion.
Mateo handed Alejandro a phone found near the gate.
A video had been recorded moments earlier.
Sofia appeared on-screen inside a moving vehicle.
Her face was bruised but conscious.
A masked man sat beside her.
Then he removed the mask.
Dr. Adrian Keller.
The Castillo family physician.
The same doctor who had certified Rafael’s death as a heart attack.
The same doctor who had treated Elena for “exhaustion” shortly before she disappeared.
Keller looked into the camera.
“Victor prepared for the possibility that the chapel would fail.”
He turned the phone toward Sofia.
“She is now the final guarantee.”
Alejandro’s hands shook.
Keller continued.
“Deliver the original drives to Dock Seventeen before midnight.”
The video ended.
Elena approached slowly.
“I remember him.”
Alejandro turned.
“Keller?”
“He came to the nursery whenever Vivian increased the medication.”
Vivian looked away.
Elena walked toward her.
“You told me the drugs were necessary.”
Vivian remained silent.
“You said I was unstable.”
“Keller said prolonged isolation would make you easier to control.”
Alejandro nearly crossed the distance between them, but Elena lifted a hand.
“No.”
He stopped.
Elena looked down at Vivian.
“Did Keller work for Victor?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
Vivian hesitated.
“Later, he began selling information to someone else.”
“Who?”
“I never knew.”
Mateo approached with a tablet.
“We recovered a partial transmission from Keller’s phone. The payment route leads to a company called Northstar Maritime.”
Alejandro recognized the name.
Northstar had tried to acquire Castillo Shipping two years earlier.
Its owner was Damian Cross.
A ruthless American investor who had publicly blamed Alejandro for destroying his company.
But Damian Cross had died in a plane crash eighteen months ago.
Mateo looked at the screen.
“Northstar is still active.”
Alejandro frowned.
“Under whose control?”
Mateo turned the tablet around.
The current director’s name appeared.
SOFIA CASTILLO.
Alejandro stared at it.
“That’s impossible.”
Vivian laughed softly.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“It means your sister was never just a hostage.”
At that moment, Alejandro’s phone rang.
Sofia’s name appeared on the screen.
He answered.
Her voice was calm.
“Bring Elena to Dock Seventeen.”
Alejandro felt the world shift beneath him.
“Sofia?”
“I’m sorry.”
The line went silent for a moment.
May you like
Then Sofia whispered:
“But I was the one who gave Vivian the original key to the west wing.”
