Chapter 3: Things About This Family
I didn't move.
Beatriz was still smiling, but it was the kind of smile that had nothing warm behind it.
She had positioned herself near the office door — not quite blocking it, but close enough that the choice was deliberate.
"Sit down," I said.
"I'd rather stand."
"Beatriz." I pulled out the chair across from my desk.
"Sit down."
She sat.
Slowly.
Like she was doing me a favour.
I turned the laptop screen so she could see it clearly.
The footage was timestamped.
Date, hour, minute.
Twelve cameras covering every corner of the property.
I had already spent forty minutes in the office while Isabella slept upstairs, watching ninety days of recordings compressed into a sequence that turned my stomach.
"I've seen enough to know this wasn't one afternoon," I said.
"I've seen enough to know it was systematic.
And I've seen enough to know you weren't alone in it."
Something moved behind her eyes.
"What does that mean?"
"There's a man on the footage I don't recognise.
He came to the villa four times while I was in Dubai.
Always when Isabella was home.
Always when the housekeeper had the day off."
Her jaw tightened.
Just slightly.
"He's a contractor."
"He came into the house, Beatriz.
He sat at my kitchen table.
He stayed for two hours each visit."
"I told you.
Contractor."
"Then you won't mind telling me his name."
She said nothing.
I leaned forward.
"His name.
Right now."
"You're being paranoid."
"His name."
She looked at the window.
Then back at me.
"Marcos."
"Marcos what?"
A pause that lasted one beat too long.
"Marcos Reyes."
I wrote it down on the notepad beside my keyboard.
She watched my hand move across the paper like the act of writing it made something real that she had wanted to keep invisible.
"Is he the person you were talking to on the phone?" I asked.
"On the terrace.
While Isabella was in the garden."
"That's none of your business."
"You were laughing," I said.
"You told him her father had no idea.
You told him she was terrified of you.
You told him you had made sure she stayed that way."
Beatriz stood up.
"You're taking a conversation completely out of context—"
"Sit down."
She stopped.
"I haven't finished," I said.
She sat again.
This time without the performance of doing me a favour.
Her hands went to her lap.
She pressed them flat against her thighs.
"You said there are things about this family I don't know," I said.
"I want to hear them.
All of them.
Right now.
Because whatever you think you're holding over me, I promise you it is not as powerful as ninety days of footage and a daughter who has blisters on both hands."
Beatriz looked at me for a long moment.
Then she said, "Isabella isn't your biological daughter."
The room went very quiet.
I heard the air conditioning.
The faint sound of the garden through the closed window.
My own breathing.
"Say that again," I said.
"You heard me." Her voice had steadied.
She had found her footing.
"I've known since before she was born.
I had a relationship before you and I were married.
It was brief.
It ended.
But Isabella—" She stopped.
"She isn't yours."
I looked at her.
She held my gaze, and I could see she believed this was the thing that would save her.
The grenade she had been saving.
The reason I would go quiet and back away and let her rewrite the story.
"I want you to listen to me very carefully," I said.
She waited.
"Isabella has been my daughter since the day she was born.
I was in that hospital room.
I held her before you did.
I have raised her for eight years." I kept my voice completely level.
"Whatever you think that information changes — it changes nothing about what I saw in that garden today.
And it changes nothing about what happens next."
Beatriz blinked.
She had expected something different.
Shock.
Collapse.
Rage she could use.
"You're bluffing," she said.
"I'm not."
"Every man reacts when he finds out—"
"I'm not every man."
She stood again.
This time I didn't stop her.
She walked to the window and stood with her back to me, and I watched her try to find the next move.
"Marcos," she said quietly.
"He has documents.
Things related to your company.
Financial things.
If you push this, he'll use them."
I picked up my pen again.
"What kind of documents?"
She turned around.
And for the first time, she looked genuinely uncertain.
"Things that could complicate your position.
With investors.
With the bank."
"Documents he obtained how?"
She didn't answer.
I set the pen down.
"Beatriz.
Did you give him access to my financial records?"
Her silence was the answer.
I stood up, walked to the office door, and opened it.
"You should find somewhere else to sleep tonight," I said.
"My lawyer will be in contact tomorrow morning."
"You can't just—"
"I already have."
She walked past me into the hallway.
At the bottom of the stairs she stopped and turned back.
"You'll regret this," she said.
"When the truth about Isabella comes out publicly — when people start asking questions about your company — you'll wish you had let me handle this quietly."
I looked at her standing there in the white silk robe, cocktail long gone, the performance finally over.
"The cameras were recording the whole time we were in this office," I said.
"Including everything you just told me."
May you like
Her face went the colour of the white wall behind her.
I closed the office door.
