PART 5
The shattered glass had barely stopped falling when two officers threw themselves over Paola.
"Stay down!"
Another officer dragged Abril behind the overturned dining table.
Daniel Ortega rushed to the broken window, but the black SUV had already disappeared into the afternoon traffic.
The only thing left behind...
...was silence.
And the smell of gunpowder drifting through the house.
An evidence technician carefully removed the bullet from the living room wall.
He frowned.
"This wasn't meant to scare anyone."
Daniel looked at him.
"What do you mean?"
The technician placed the bullet into an evidence bag.
"Professional ammunition."
"One shot."
"Perfect angle."
"He wasn't trying to hit everyone."
"He was aiming at one specific person."
Everyone slowly turned toward Paola.
She was trembling uncontrollably.
"I know who sent them," she whispered.
Daniel knelt beside her.
"Tell us."
She closed her eyes.
"I can't."
"If I say his name..."
"My baby won't live long enough to be born."
Abril stared at the woman who had humiliated her only hours earlier.
For the first time...
She didn't see arrogance.
She saw terror.
Real terror.
Ramón suddenly laughed.
Not loudly.
Just enough to make everyone uncomfortable.
"I warned you."
He looked directly at Daniel.
"You think arresting me ends this?"
"You've barely scratched the surface."
Daniel stood.
"Who is he?"
Ramón smiled.
"A man no one calls by his real name."
"The only name anyone knows..."
"...is El Arquitecto."
The room fell silent.
Even several detectives exchanged uneasy glances.
One officer quietly whispered,
"I've heard that name before."
According to intelligence reports, El Arquitecto wasn't a street criminal.
He never carried a weapon.
Never signed documents.
Never appeared on surveillance cameras.
He built entire networks of fraud using lawyers, corrupt notaries, real estate brokers, and fake charities.
People who refused to cooperate...
Simply disappeared.
Witnesses withdrew their statements.
Evidence vanished.
Fires destroyed archives.
Accidents happened.
No one had ever managed to connect him to a single crime.
Until now.
Daniel turned back toward Paola.
"How do you know him?"
She began crying.
"Because..."
"...I used to work for him."
Every face in the room froze.
"I wasn't just Ramón's assistant."
"I handled appointments."
"I delivered contracts."
"I scheduled meetings with elderly homeowners."
She looked at Abril.
"I told myself they were legal."
"I believed the lies."
"But when I learned what was really happening..."
"I tried to quit."
"So why didn't you?" Abril asked quietly.
Paola slowly placed a trembling hand over her stomach.
"Because two days later..."
"I found a dead pigeon nailed to my apartment door."
"There was a note."
She swallowed hard.
'The next heart we stop will belong to your child.'
Emiliano collapsed into a chair.
"You never told me."
Paola looked at him through tears.
"I wanted to."
"So many times."
"But every time I tried..."
"...someone reminded me they were watching."
She reached into her purse.
"There was one thing I never had the courage to destroy."
She pulled out a tiny silver key.
Daniel recognized it immediately.
"A safety deposit key."
Paola nodded.
"Box 417."
"National Trust Bank."
"I rented it under a fake name."
Abril frowned.
"What's inside?"
Paola whispered,
"The originals."
"The real contracts."
"The fake identities."
"The payment ledgers."
"And..."
She hesitated.
"...a notebook with every politician, lawyer, police officer, and judge who accepted money."
The detectives stared at one another.
If she was telling the truth...
This wasn't just a family crime anymore.
It was organized corruption.
Before anyone could ask another question, one detective's radio crackled.
"Unit Seven, come in immediately."
A frantic voice answered.
"We have an emergency."
"What happened?"
"The evidence warehouse..."
"...it's on fire."
Daniel's heart sank.
"Which evidence?"
The answer came seconds later.
"Everything seized from Ramón Salgado's office."
Smoke.
Flames.
Destroyed documents.
Exactly the way El Arquitecto always erased his tracks.
But Daniel slowly smiled.
The detective looked confused.
"Why are you smiling?"
Daniel reached into his jacket and pulled out a small portable hard drive.
"Because while everyone was watching the house..."
"I made digital copies of every document."
Ramón's confident expression finally disappeared.
For the first time that day...
He looked afraid.
Very afraid.
As firefighters raced toward the burning warehouse across the city...
Another message appeared on Daniel's phone from the same unknown number.
He opened it.
Only one sentence appeared.
"Keep the copies. You'll need them when you discover that someone standing inside that house has been working for me all along."
Daniel slowly lifted his eyes.
Inside the living room stood twelve people.
Police officers.
Investigators.
Victims.
Family members.
One of them...
...was secretly reporting every move to El Arquitecto.
May you like
And no one had the slightest idea who it was.
To Be Continued…
