Chapter 5 - The Road to Cuernavaca
Diego left Valentina with Teresa, the elderly housekeeper who had cared for him since childhood.
Marisol hated leaving her daughter.
She knelt and kissed Valentina’s forehead.
“I’ll be back soon.”
Valentina held out the worn rabbit.
“For you.”
Marisol took it.
“You need him.”
“You need him more.”
Diego watched the exchange with a tight chest.
Before leaving, he crouched beside Valentina.
“Listen to Teresa. Do not leave the house.”
Valentina touched his cheek.
“You come back too?”
Diego swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
The convoy departed before dawn.
Two security vehicles traveled ahead.
Diego and Marisol sat in the center SUV.
A third vehicle followed.
For twenty minutes, neither spoke.
Then Marisol said, “You should not make promises you cannot control.”
Diego looked at her.
“I intend to keep it.”
“You intended to find me years ago.”
The words wounded him, but he did not defend himself.
“You are right.”
Marisol looked out the window.
“I do not know how to trust any of this.”
“You don’t have to trust me today.”
“She already does.”
“Valentina?”
“She looked at you as though she had been waiting.”
Diego lowered his gaze.
“That frightens me more than anything.”
“Why?”
“Because I could fail her.”
Marisol turned toward him.
“The fact that you are afraid of failing her means you care.”
Before he could answer, the lead vehicle suddenly swerved.
Brake lights flashed.
A truck crossed the highway ahead, blocking both lanes.
“Reverse!” the driver shouted.
A second truck appeared behind them.
The convoy was trapped.
Masked men stepped from the roadside carrying weapons.
Diego pulled Marisol down as the windows shattered under gunfire.
The armored glass held.
Security guards returned fire from behind the vehicles.
“Stay down!” Diego ordered.
Marisol clutched Valentina’s rabbit against her chest.
One attacker attached an explosive charge to the rear door.
The driver shouted, “Ten seconds!”
Diego saw a narrow dirt path leading toward a field.
“Drive through the barrier.”
“There’s a drop.”
“Do it!”
The SUV accelerated.
It smashed through a wooden guardrail and plunged down the embankment.
Marisol screamed as the vehicle bounced violently over rocks.
Behind them, the charge exploded.
The rear window cracked but did not break.
The driver fought for control and reached the field below.
A security vehicle followed.
The attackers fired from the road, but the convoy escaped into a line of trees.
Ten minutes later, they stopped beneath an overpass.
Diego’s sleeve was torn. Blood darkened the fabric near his shoulder.
“You’re hurt,” Marisol said.
“It’s glass.”
She pulled his jacket aside.
A fragment had cut him deeply.
With shaking hands, she pressed cloth against the wound.
Diego watched her.
“You still carry bandages.”
“I have a three-year-old.”
Despite the danger, he almost smiled.
The head of security approached.
“We captured one attacker.”
The man was dragged from the following vehicle.
He had been injured during the chase.
Diego crouched in front of him.
“Who hired you?”
The attacker spat blood onto the ground.
“No one you can reach.”
Diego showed him a photograph of Rafael.
“This man?”
The attacker looked away.
That was answer enough.
“Where is he?”
Silence.
Marisol noticed a tattoo on the attacker’s wrist.
A black crown above the letters PR.
“Paulina Robles,” she whispered.
The attacker’s eyes flicked toward her.
Diego saw it.
“He doesn’t work for Rafael,” Marisol said. “He works for Paulina’s family.”
Diego remembered the Robles empire—shipping, private aviation, political contacts.
Paulina had always claimed she wanted distance from her father’s world.
Perhaps that had also been a lie.
The attacker laughed weakly.
“You think Rafael controls this?”
Diego grabbed his jacket.
“Who does?”
The man leaned close.
“Ask your fiancée why your father really died.”
Before he could say more, a shot cracked from the trees.
The attacker’s body jerked and fell still.
Security guards rushed toward the shooter, but the person escaped.
Diego stared at the dead man.
“My father died of a heart attack.”
Marisol held the rabbit tightly.
“Maybe that is what they wanted you to believe.”
Back at the mansion, Teresa carried a tray into the playroom.
The room was empty.
The window stood open.
A small golden button lay on the carpet.
May you like
And Valentina was gone.
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