Chapter 4 - The Storm in the Mansion
It was five o’clock in the evening when the rain began to pour over Mexico City, heavy torrents slamming against the glass domes of the Santillán mansion. Thunder rumbled across the sky, shaking the window frames.
In the kitchen, Marisol was preparing warm milk for Valentina when the heavy door kicked open.
Mauricio stood in the doorway, his eyes wild, his suit unbuttoned, holding a heavy manila envelope in one hand and his gun concealed inside his jacket pocket. Two burly private security guards stood behind him.
“Get upstairs,” Mauricio snarled, grabbing Marisol violently by her upper arm.
“Let go of me!” Marisol screamed, trying to pull away.
Valentina, terrified, grabbed a metal mixing bowl from the counter and threw it at Mauricio’s legs with all her small might. “Leave my mommy alone, you bad avocado!”
Mauricio kicked the bowl aside with a loud clatter. “Shut that brat up! Guards, lock the kid in the pantry!”
“No! Don't touch my daughter!” Marisol shrieked, fighting like a lioness, scratching at Mauricio’s face.
One of the guards grabbed Valentina, but the quick-thinking little girl bit his hand hard. The guard yelped, dropping her, and Valentina scrambled under the central kitchen island, sprinting through the narrow service door toward the main house, screaming at the top of her lungs:
“DON RODRIGO! THE BAD MAN IS HURTING MOMMY!”
Her high-pitched voice echoed through the vast marble hallways.
Upstairs in his study, Rodrigo heard the child’s scream cut through the sound of thunder. The blood roared in his ears. The helpless, passive blind man vanished instantly.
Rodrigo stood up, grabbed his heavy, brass-headed oak walking cane, and threw the study doors open.
“VALENTINA!” Rodrigo bellowed, his voice booming across the grand foyer like a thunderclap.
Valentina came flying up the carpeted grand staircase, tears streaming down her face, throwing herself behind Rodrigo’s legs. “Don Rodrigo! He has a gun! He grabbed Mommy!”
Rodrigo reached down, placing a protective hand on her head, stepping in front of her at the top of the stairs.
Footsteps thundered up the marble steps. Mauricio appeared, his face twisted in a murderous sneer, holding his pistol openly now. Behind him, the two guards dragged a bruised, weeping Marisol.
“It’s over, Rodrigo,” Mauricio spat, his voice trembling with unhinged madness. “You should have stayed quiet in your blind darkness. You should have kept eating your soup alone!”
“Where is my wife, Mauricio?” Rodrigo demanded, his voice dangerously low, his tall frame blocking the top landing completely.
“She’s about to join you in hell,” Mauricio sneered, raising the pistol directly toward Rodrigo’s chest. “I have spent seven years building an empire out of your wealth! I’m not going to let a poor maid and her bastard child ruin everything! I’ll kill you, frame the maid for your murder, and take the remaining offshore accounts before sunrise!”
Marisol cried out through her tears. “Don Rodrigo, watch out!”
“I don’t need eyes to see what you are, Mauricio,” Rodrigo said coldly. “You are a parasite.”
Mauricio clicked the safety off his weapon. “Goodbye, Don Rodrigo—”
BOOM!
The glass dome above the grand foyer shattered into thousands of cascading shards as heavy flashbang grenades detonated in the air!
The front doors of the mansion were blown off their hinges with a deafening roar.
“FEDERAL POLICE! DROP YOUR WEAPONS! ON THE GROUND NOW!”
Dozens of armed tactical officers in black gear poured into the foyer, laser sights cutting through the smoke.
Mauricio, blinded by the flashbang and panicked by the sudden raid, swung his gun wildly toward the stairs. But before he could pull the trigger, Rodrigo moved with astounding, terrifying speed.
Guided by the sound of Mauricio’s breathing and the metallic click of the gun, Rodrigo swung his heavy brass-headed oak cane with the force of a sledgehammer!
CRACK!
The solid brass head struck Mauricio squarely across the side of his jaw. Mauricio let out a sickening gasp as his jaw shattered, his pistol flying from his grip and clattering down the marble stairs. He collapsed backward down the staircase, tumbling limply to the bottom landing, where four federal agents instantly pinned him to the floor in handcuffs.
The two security guards threw their hands up, falling to their knees in immediate surrender.
Through the smoke and chaos, Andrés Sterling rushed into the foyer, flanked by a federal prosecutor.
“RODRIGO!” Andrés shouted, sprinting up the stairs.
Rodrigo stood at the top of the landing, breathing heavily, his cane resting on the floor, holding Valentina tightly against his side while Marisol broke free and ran up to wrap her arms around her daughter.
“Andrés?” Rodrigo asked, his voice trembling.
“We got him, brother,” Andrés said, wrapping Rodrigo in a fierce, emotional embrace. “And we have even better news.”
Andrés turned toward the shattered front entrance.
Through the mist and rain, an ambulance had pulled up right behind the police vehicles. Paramedics stepped aside as a fragile, elegant woman with long graying hair and dark, beautiful eyes stepped into the foyer. She was wrapped in a warm wool coat, her hands shaking violently as she looked up the grand staircase.
“Rodrigo...?” a soft, sweet voice whispered through the quiet house.
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Rodrigo went entirely still. The sound of that voice—the voice he had grieved, loved, and missed for seven agonizing years—vibrated straight into his soul.
“Isabel...?” Rodrigo whispered, tears pouring uninhibited down his face. “Isabel, my love? Is that you?”
