Chapter 4 - THE EMPEROR'S TERRORDeep within the fortified fortress of the Salcedo Mansion in Tepatitlán, Don Eduardo Salcedo was pacing furiously across his mahogany-paneled study.
The air was heavy with the scent of expensive cigars and fine scotch, but Eduardo could not relax. His two best hitmen had gone completely dark. The GPS signals on their truck had flickered out near the Tapalpa forest.
"Find them!" Eduardo screamed at his head of security, a former corrupt federal captain named Vance. "I don't care if you have to burn down the entire mountain! I want Nicolás's corpse brought to me, and I want that bastard child buried ten feet deep!"
"Don Eduardo, calm down," Vance replied nervously. "The local police chief is on our payroll. The governor's office assured us that any reports of gunshots will be swept under the rug. Even if they are alive, they are broke, injured, and running for their lives. What can a family of dirt farmers and a low-level IT technician do against you?"
Suddenly, the power in the massive mansion flickered and died.
The crystal chandeliers plummeted into darkness. Backup generators instantly hummed to life, casting an eerie red emergency glow through the grand hallways.
PING.
Eduardo’s private cell phone vibrated on his desk. It was an encrypted video file sent from an anonymous server.
Hands trembling with anger, Eduardo pressed play.
The screen showed a dark room. Sitting in a chair was Vance's second-in-command—the hitman sent to kill Nicolás at the quarry. He was tied to a steel chair, bloody, but fully conscious.
"Name," a calm, terrifying voice off-camera spoke. It was Gabriel.
"Ramon Garcia," the hitman whimpered.
"Who hired you to murder Nicolás Barragán and Mateo Salcedo?"
"Don Eduardo Salcedo!" the hitman shrieked into the camera. "He paid us two hundred thousand dollars! He gave us the iron bar! He told us to make it look like an armed robbery in the ravine! He ordered us to crush the kid's skull so there would be no questions!"
The video paused. Then, text appeared on the screen in cold, bright white letters:
"WE HAVE THE CONFESSION. WE HAVE THE LAB REPORTS FOR THE THALLIUM POISONING. WE HAVE THE DIGITAL COPIES OF YOUR PHANTOM RANCHES. 7 DAYS, EDUARDO."
Eduardo smashed his phone against the wall, shattering it into a hundred pieces. "TRAITORS! FOOLS!" he roared, his chest heaving violently.
"Sir!" Vance burst into the room, holding a tablet, his face pale as a ghost. "You need to see this! It’s not just a private message!"
"What are you talking about?!"
"It’s trending on social media!" Vance stammered. "A short clip of the hitman's confession was just posted to Facebook, X, and TikTok from a burner account! It already has three hundred thousand views in twenty minutes! The title of the video is going viral!"
Eduardo grabbed the tablet. The headline burned into his eyes:
"THE MEGALOMANIAC OF LOS ALTOS: HOW AGRI-BILLIONAIRE EDUARDO SALCEDO TRIED TO MURDER HIS 6-YEAR-OLD GRANDSON TO COVER UP A BREAD-LINE FRAUD."
Below the video, thousands of comments were exploding: - "Is this real?! Eduardo Salcedo poisoned a child?!" - "Look at the hitman's face! That’s Vance’s guy!" - "Boycott Salcedo Foods! Boycott their products!" - "Justice for Mateo!"
"Take it down!" Eduardo screamed, spit flying from his mouth. "Call the state cyber-crime unit! Pay off the platform admins! DELETE IT!"
"We can't, sir!" Vance yelled back. "The video isn't being uploaded from a single computer! It's bouncing across hundreds of decentralized servers! Someone with master-level cybersecurity knowledge is orchestrating a viral barrage!"
Eduardo felt a cold spike of panic pierce his heart.
May you like
Nicolás.
The IT technician he had beaten and left for dead in the ravine wasn't just a quiet office worker. He was a digital genius. And now, the Barragán family wasn't just fighting back with fists—they were dragging Eduardo’s empire into the blinding light of public execution.
