Chapter 3 - THE RAID ON THE COYOACÁN ESTATEForty minutes later, I stood outside the crumbling, colonial-style mansion in Coyoacán. It was a sprawling property surrounded by overgrown bougainvillea and high stone walls, shrouded in the shadows of the fading Mexico City twilight.
For decades, this place had been abandoned, marked as a disputed property in public records. To me, it was just an old ruin. To Jorge Mendoza, it was a multi-billion-dollar goldmine sitting on prime real estate.
I didn't wait for a search warrant. I used the heavy iron side gate, which swung open with a screech of rusted hinges.
The interior of the mansion smelled of damp earth, rotting mahogany, and decades of forgotten history. Moonlight cut through the cracked stained-glass windows, casting long, skeletal shadows across the grand foyer.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Footsteps echoed from the second-floor landing.
I froze, sliding behind a massive marble pillar.
"I don't care how you do it, find those papers!" a familiar, venomous voice hissed.
It was Karina.
She had managed to slip away from the hospital, using her brother's influence or a quick phone call to Jorge Mendoza to post bail or bypass detention. She held a heavy-duty flashlight, directing its beam across the dusty floorboards of the master study.
Beside her stood a towering man in a dark suit—Jorge Mendoza’s personal head of security, a man known in the underworld as El Carnicero.
"The old woman is still breathing," El Carnicero grunted, tossing a crowbar onto a leather-bound desk. "If Alejandro gets those documents, the whole merger with the municipal government collapses. Mendoza Industries will be sued for billions in asset stripping and decades-old murder."
"He won't get them," Karina snapped, her voice devoid of any warmth I had ever imagined she possessed. "I spent five years playing house with that pathetic, middle-management nobody. Five years of cooking his dinners, listening to his corporate complaints, pretending to love him, just to get my hands on this estate. I am not letting a clerk from Reforma Avenue ruin my empire."
My chest tightened. Every affectionate word she had ever spoken to me was a lie. Every anniversary, every smile, every touch—a calculated, predatory performance.
I gripped the brass key in my pocket. My anger eclipsed my fear.
Stepping out from behind the pillar, I let my boot heel slam loudly against the rotting wooden floor.
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"The performance is over, Karina."
Both of them whipped around. Karina’s face drained of color, her eyes widening in pure terror as she saw the phone in my hand—recording every single word.
