Chapter 4 - The House From My Childhood Hid the Evidence Everyone Had Been Killing For
My grandmother's house stood outside the city.
Abandoned for years.
The paint had faded.
The porch was collapsing.
But when I stepped inside, memories came flooding back.
My father's laugh.
My mother's cooking.
Christmas mornings.
My little sister running through the hallway.
For a moment, I forgot about Gabriel.
Then I saw the old fireplace.
My father used to sit there every evening.
I remembered something.
He always kept a wooden box beneath the third floorboard.
I knelt.
Gabriel looked at me.
“You remember?”
“Yes.”
I pulled up the board.
The box was still there.
Inside was a notebook.
My father's handwriting.
Every page was filled with numbers.
Gabriel scanned them.
“Financial records.”
I flipped through.
Names.
Dates.
Transactions.
Then I found one repeated phrase.
The serpent eats its own tail.
“What does that mean?”
Gabriel stared.
“My family crest.”
“The silver serpent?”
“Yes.”
The numbers led us to another location.
A storage facility downtown.
Inside was another box.
And another recording.
This time, my father appeared with Gabriel's father.
They sat together.
Working.
Laughing.
Like old friends.
My father's voice played.
“We have to trust someone.”
Gabriel's father answered.
“The children.”
I frowned.
Gabriel did too.
My father continued.
“If we fail, our children must find each other.”
I looked at Gabriel.
Our fathers had planned for this.
Decades before we met.
They had intended for us to work together.
But one more thing changed everything.
Victor Reyes entered the recording.
He wasn't supposed to know they were being filmed.
He said:
“They'll never find the ledger.”
My father's expression changed.
The recording ended.
We looked at one another.
Victor had known.
He had been there.
He had betrayed both fathers.
But the ledger still wasn't found.
We discovered another clue.
A restaurant.
Laurel Corner Café.
I stared at Gabriel.
“Why here?”
“Your father invested in it.”
“What?”
“Twenty-two years ago.”
I couldn't believe it.
“The restaurant belongs to the old financial network.”
“That explains why I was hired.”
“I applied.”
“Maybe.”
He looked at me.
“Or maybe someone guided you there.”
I stared at him.
“Who?”
We returned to the café.
The owner was terrified when Gabriel walked in.
He took us to the basement.
Behind the old refrigerator was a hidden door.
Inside was a room.
Documents covered the walls.
And there, on the central table, was the Black Rose Ledger.
I stared.
After twenty years, it was finally here.
Gabriel opened it.
Every page was devastating.
Names.
Payments.
Partnerships.
Murder orders.
Then he stopped.
“What?”
He showed me one page.
A list of names.
My mother.
My father.
Gabriel's father.
And beneath them:
Lucía Reyes.
I looked at him.
“Your mother knew.”
He shook his head.
“She may have been involved.”
Another page showed the truth.
Victor had planned to use both families to build a network.
But Gabriel's father tried to stop him.
My father joined him.
Lucía had helped hide the evidence.
She had been protecting the ledger.
She had never been part of the betrayal.
I felt relieved.
Then footsteps echoed upstairs.
Gabriel's men immediately moved.
A gunshot.
Another.
Someone shouted.
Gabriel grabbed my hand.
“Move.”
We escaped through the basement tunnel.
Outside, black SUVs waited.
We drove through the city.
“What now?” I asked.
Gabriel looked at the ledger.
“Now we expose everything.”
“You know that will destroy you too.”
“Yes.”
“You could lose your companies.”
“Yes.”
“Your reputation.”
“Yes.”
“Your family's name.”
He looked at me.
“I don't care.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother spent twenty years hiding the truth.”
He reached for my hand.
“I won't ask another woman to hide for me.”
My heart stopped.
May you like
Then he said the words I had been afraid to hear.
“Especially not you.”
Related Stories
