Chapter 15 - THE MADRID FOLDER
The Madrid folder was hidden inside Beatriz’s dressing room.
She told me where to find it only after Elena arrived.
Beatriz refused to enter the room with us.
The folder contained printed emails between her and Lucas.
At first, the messages were business-related.
Then personal.
Then intimate.
I stopped reading those.
They didn’t matter anymore.
The betrayal that mattered was elsewhere.
Lucas had encouraged Beatriz to document every period I spent abroad.
Every missed school event.
Every late return.
Every canceled family dinner.
He wrote that absence could become useful in a custody dispute.
Beatriz responded.
He adores Isabella.
That’s the weakness.
Lucas replied.
Then make her believe he doesn’t.
I read that line three times.
Elena watched me carefully.
There were more messages.
Beatriz described telling Isabella that I preferred Dubai.
That I considered phone calls interruptions.
That I would eventually send her to boarding school.
None of it was true.
But because I was absent, the lies had room to grow.
Then came the financial strategy.
Lucas wanted Beatriz to obtain signatures.
Access codes.
Internal company information.
He believed he could move money through temporary entities and blame accounting errors if questioned.
Beatriz wanted something else.
She wanted enough independent money to leave me without losing the lifestyle she had built around my fortune.
Then we reached the final email.
Sent six days before I returned.
Beatriz wrote.
She’s getting harder to control.
She keeps saying she wants to call her father.
Lucas answered.
Then make calling him feel dangerous.
Beatriz replied.
Already handled.
I closed the folder.
Elena said nothing.
She didn’t need to.
I walked to Isabella’s room.
The chore sheets were gone.
The room was perfectly clean.
Too clean.
It looked staged.
I opened the desk drawer.
Inside was a birthday card Isabella had made for me.
The front showed an airplane flying home from Dubai.
Inside, she had written.
Dear Dad.
Please come home soon.
I miss when our house was happy.
I sat on the edge of her bed.
For months, I had believed my daughter was doing well because every phone call ended with the same sentence.
I’m fine, Dad.
Now I understood.
May you like
Those weren’t reports.
They were survival answers.
