Chapter 10 - THE MIDPOINT LIE
I replayed the sentence.
Once the trust transfers, none of us needs the child anymore.
Every possibility was terrible.
I forced myself to focus on what could be proven.
Not what I feared.
The police took the recording.
They also informed me of something unexpected.
The trust amendment might be invalid.
Not merely because my signature was forged.
Because the original trust included a protective clause my father had insisted on years ago.
Any change of guardian required independent confirmation from two trustees.
That confirmation had never happened.
Beatriz and Alejandro had been planning around documents they did not fully understand.
For the first time, I felt something close to relief.
It lasted six minutes.
Then Adrian received another report.
“Mateo.”
He handed me a tablet.
“Your life insurance policy.”
I read the screen.
The beneficiary had been changed.
Originally, Isabella received eighty percent.
A family foundation received twenty.
The new policy listed Beatriz as primary beneficiary.
Twenty-five million euros.
The authorization used my digital credentials.
Credentials Alejandro had access to.
“They weren’t just after the trust.”
Adrian nodded.
“They were stacking outcomes.”
“If I died, Beatriz got the insurance.”
“Yes.”
“She became Isabella’s guardian.”
“Yes.”
“She controlled the trust.”
“If their amendment held.”
“And Carmen got the stolen company money.”
“That appears to be the structure.”
I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the scale of it seemed absurd.
Three people had built an entire future around me not being alive to object.
That afternoon, Alejandro woke.
Police questioned him in the hospital.
At first, he asked for a lawyer.
Then he asked whether Beatriz had been arrested.
She had not.
Not yet.
When they told him that, he started talking.
Alejandro admitted stealing company funds.
Admitted the affair with Beatriz.
Admitted helping forge documents.
But he denied planning my death.
He blamed Carmen.
Then he said something no one expected.
“Beatriz wasn’t Carmen’s partner.”
The detective asked, “Then whose partner was she?”
Alejandro looked directly at the camera recording the interview.
“Mine.”
“And Carmen?”
“She was working for Beatriz.”
The detective frowned.
Alejandro laughed bitterly.
“You still don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“My brother thinks Beatriz married him for money.”
“Didn’t she?”
Alejandro shook his head.
“No.”
“Then why?”
His next answer reached me through the investigator three hours later.
Because Beatriz had known Sofia.
My first wife.
May you like
Isabella’s mother.
Long before I ever met her.
