Chapter 9 - SEVEN LETTERS
Her name was Teresa Álvarez.
She had worked as Isabel Villaseñor’s personal secretary for twenty-three years.
She entered the mansion carrying an old leather bag.
Her hands trembled.
“I should have come sooner.”
Diego stared at the bag.
“What’s inside?”
Teresa opened it.
Seven envelopes.
Marisol gasped.
She recognized them immediately.
“My letters.”
Diego picked up the first.
His name was written across the front in Marisol’s handwriting.
Unopened.
The second.
Unopened.
The third.
Opened and resealed.
His hands shook.
“Why did you keep these?”
“Your mother ordered me to burn them.”
Diego looked up.
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Teresa’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because the seventh letter contained a photograph.”
She handed it to him.
Diego opened the envelope.
Inside was an ultrasound image.
On the back, Marisol had written:
She is your daughter, Diego.
I don’t want your money.
I just want you to know she exists.
Diego sat down.
Marisol covered her face.
Teresa continued.
“Your mother cried when she read that.”
Diego looked up.
“But she still kept it from me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She was terrified of Esteban.”
The room went silent.
Teresa explained everything.
Esteban had discovered Marisol’s pregnancy.
He threatened Isabel.
If Diego acknowledged the child before the trust restriction expired, Esteban would challenge control of the company.
“So my mother obeyed him.”
“For a while.”
Teresa nodded.
“Then she began collecting evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“Proof Esteban had been stealing from Villaseñor Holdings for years.”
Diego froze.
“How much?”
“Hundreds of millions of pesos.”
“Where is the evidence?”
Teresa looked toward the old study.
“Your mother hid it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Marisol remembered something.
“The gold button.”
Everyone turned.
Valentina still carried it everywhere.
Marisol looked at Diego.
“Your mother gave Valentina a coat once.”
Diego stared.
“What?”
“About six months before she died.”
“She knew Valentina?”
“Yes.”
Marisol’s voice softened.
“She would sometimes watch her from the hallway.”
Diego felt another wound open.
“My mother knew her granddaughter.”
Marisol nodded.
“She never told me who she was.”
“But once she gave Valentina an old red coat.”
“Why does that matter?”
Marisol looked toward the little gold button.
“Because that button came from the coat.”
Diego took it.
On the back was a tiny engraving.
Not decoration.
Numbers.
3-17-42.
Teresa gasped.
“The archive room.”
Diego turned.
“What?”
“Cabinet three.”
“Drawer seventeen.”
“File forty-two.”
They ran.
Inside the basement archive, Diego found the cabinet.
Drawer seventeen.
File forty-two.
Inside was a black ledger.
Bank transfers.
Shell corporations.
Signatures.
Esteban Villaseñor’s name appeared again and again.
Diego stared at the final figure.
The theft wasn’t millions.
It was nearly two billion pesos.
And on the last page was something even worse.
May you like
A transfer made three days before Isabel’s death.
To an account controlled by Paulina Robles.
