CHAPTER 4 – THE SECRET INSIDE LOCKER 27
Alejandro didn't wait another second.
The moment Efraín and his men disappeared back into the warehouse, he slipped through the shadows, reached the main road, and flagged down the first passing taxi.
"Central Bus Terminal," he said, struggling to keep his voice calm.
"As fast as you can."
The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror.
"You look like you've seen a ghost."
Alejandro stared out the window.
"I'm beginning to think I have."
Mexico City's Central Bus Terminal was a city within a city.
Thousands of travelers rushed through its endless corridors.
Families hugged goodbye.
Street musicians played near the entrances.
Vendors shouted over one another, selling coffee, tamales, newspapers, and bottled water.
It was the perfect place to hide something.
Nobody noticed anyone.
Alejandro stepped inside and reached into his pocket.
The brass key felt heavier than before.
27.
He followed the signs toward the public storage lockers.
Rows upon rows of identical metal doors stretched across the wall.
Twenty-three.
Twenty-four.
Twenty-five.
Twenty-six...
Then...
Locker 27.
It looked ordinary.
No scratches.
No labels.
Nothing to suggest it held anything important.
Alejandro looked around one final time.
No one appeared to be watching.
He inserted the key.
Click.
The old lock released with surprising ease.
He slowly opened the narrow metal door.
Inside...
There wasn't a suitcase.
There wasn't money.
There wasn't jewelry.
Only a faded brown envelope tied with red string.
Across the front, written in careful handwriting, were six chilling words.
"If you're reading this... I'm gone."
Alejandro's pulse quickened.
He untied the string.
The first item inside was an employee identification badge.
Miguel Herrera.
Kitchen Supervisor.
Grandma's Hearth.
Original Coyoacán Location.
The same Miguel whose name had been crossed off the employee schedule.
The same Miguel nobody wanted to discuss.
Beneath the badge sat a thick stack of photocopied payroll records.
Alejandro flipped through them.
His eyes widened.
Every month...
Thousands of pesos had been deducted from employee salaries.
The paperwork claimed the deductions were for damaged equipment, uniform replacements, or disciplinary penalties.
Yet many signatures looked identical.
Almost perfectly copied.
Forged.
He turned another page.
Then another.
The fraud had continued for nearly three years.
Hundreds of employees.
Millions of pesos.
Stolen little by little.
Enough that few workers would realize how much they had lost.
Enough to build a fortune in silence.
Alejandro's hands trembled.
Someone had been robbing the very people his grandmother had sworn to protect.
But the next document was even worse.
A confidential bank transfer summary.
The destination account wasn't listed under Efraín's name.
Instead, every transfer went to a consulting company.
RM Strategic Services.
Alejandro frowned.
He had never approved hiring such a company.
Yet according to the records...
Grandma's Hearth had paid it over 48 million pesos in just thirty months.
He quickly photographed every page with his phone.
Then he reached the bottom of the envelope.
There...
Hidden beneath everything else...
Was a small USB flash drive wrapped inside clear plastic.
A handwritten note had been taped to it.
"This is why Miguel disappeared."
Alejandro froze.
Disappeared.
Not resigned.
Not fired.
Disappeared.
He slipped the USB into his pocket.
Just as he prepared to leave...
A folded photograph slid from the envelope onto the floor.
He picked it up.
It showed Miguel standing beside several restaurant employees at a company picnic.
Everyone was smiling.
Everyone except one man standing in the background.
Efraín.
Watching Miguel.
Not smiling.
Almost...
Studying him.
Alejandro turned the photograph over.
Written on the back was a date.
Three days before Miguel vanished.
A chill ran down his spine.
Someone had known exactly when everything changed.
He left the terminal through a side exit.
The afternoon sun had begun to disappear behind dark clouds.
As he reached the parking lot, his phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
He hesitated.
Then answered.
"Hello?"
Silence.
Only breathing.
Then...
A woman's frightened voice.
Barely audible.
"Don't go home."
Alejandro's heart skipped a beat.
"Valeria?"
"You opened the locker."
It wasn't a question.
It was certainty.
"How do you know?"
"They're watching the lockers."
Alejandro looked around instinctively.
Dozens of strangers crossed the parking lot.
A family loaded luggage into a taxi.
A delivery driver pushed a cart.
Everything seemed normal.
Too normal.
"Listen carefully," Valeria whispered.
"The USB..."
"Don't plug it into any computer connected to the internet."
"They'll erase everything."
Alejandro stepped behind a concrete pillar.
"What is on it?"
Valeria's breathing became uneven.
"Video."
"What kind of video?"
"The kind..."
Her voice cracked.
"...that proves Miguel never stole anything."
Alejandro closed his eyes.
"So he was innocent."
"He tried to expose them."
A long pause followed.
Then Valeria whispered the sentence that changed everything.
"It wasn't Efraín who gave the order."
Alejandro felt his entire body go cold.
"What do you mean?"
"There is someone above him."
Before she could continue...
A man shouted in the background.
"Who are you talking to?"
Valeria gasped.
"I have to—"
The line went dead.
Alejandro immediately called back.
The number no longer existed.
Disconnected.
As he lowered the phone...
He noticed something reflected in the glass doors of the terminal.
Across the street...
A black SUV.
The same one Efraín had driven.
Only this time...
It wasn't parked.
It was slowly pulling away.
As if whoever had been inside had already seen everything they needed to see.
Alejandro looked down at the USB drive in his hand.
For the first time since beginning his undercover investigation...
He realized he wasn't chasing a case anymore.
He had become part of it.
And somewhere in Mexico City...
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Someone powerful had just learned that the billionaire owner of Grandma's Hearth was no longer in the dark.
End of Chapter 4...
