Part 4: The Predator Becomes the Prey
Javier Robles was panicking. He stood in a dilapidated motel room on the outskirts of San Antonio, sweating through his cheap civilian clothes. The luxury car was gone, abandoned in a parking lot in Austin after he realized the GPS tracking could be used by Alexander’s team. He had a duffel bag with a few thousand dollars in cash—all he could scrape together from a hidden safe his mother kept—and a fake ID he had purchased from a contact years ago.
His phone buzzed. It was an unknown number. He answered it with a shaking hand. "Hello?"
"Running is a very unproessional look for an attorney, Javier," Alexander’s voice came through the speaker, crisp, calm, and terrifyingly close.
"Leave me alone!" Javier screamed into the phone, slamming his hand against the motel wall. "It was my mother's idea! I didn't touch her! I didn't hit Sofia! You can't pin the physical assault on me!"
"You stood outside the door and coordinated the damage control, Javier. In the eyes of the law, and more importantly, in my eyes, you are just as guilty as the hand that held the whip," Alexander replied. "Look out the window."
Javier’s heart stopped. He pulled back the dirty plastic blinds of the motel window. Sitting in the gravel parking lot were three black SUVs. Six heavily armed men in tactical gear stood outside, their faces obscured, their weapons drawn but held low.
"You think you can just kill me?" Javier whimpered, tears of absolute terror streaming down his face. "This is America! There are laws!"
"You're right. There are laws," Alexander said coldly. "And right now, those laws are the only thing keeping my men from pulling you out of that room and burying you in the Texas desert. Open the door, Javier. The Texas Rangers are right behind them. You can either spend the rest of your life in a dark cell, or you can try your luck running into the field. Personally, I hope you run."
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Javier dropped the phone. His legs gave out, and he sank to the filthy carpet of the motel room, sobbing uncontrollably. The golden boy of Dallas, the smooth-talking luxury attorney, was reduced to a broken, sniveling coward. He crawled toward the door, unlocked it, and pushed it open, throwing his hands in the air as the authorities closed in on him.
Back in Dallas, the news of the Robles family's downfall spread like wildfire through the high-society circles. The prestigious law firm where Javier worked released an immediate public statement permanently terminating his employment and condemning his actions. The social status Carmen had spent her entire life lying, cheating, and abusing people to build was completely erased in less than seventy-two hours. They were no longer the elite; they were a public cautionary tale.
