Chapter 5 - The Midnight Call
At 3:15 AM, the harsh ringing of Raúl’s cell phone cut through the neon-lit gloom of the Querétaro central bus terminal. Elvira was asleep, snoring loudly against her pile of cheap luggage, ignoring the bitter winter chill sweeping off the concrete platform.
Raúl groggily pulled the phone from his pocket. The screen flashed an unfamiliar, restricted number. Thinking it might be a late-night transport coordinator from his industrial plant offering a shift, he swiped to answer.
"Hello?" Raúl croaked, his voice raw from the shouting match earlier that night.
"Raúl Medina?" a smooth, low, completely unfamiliar male voice asked from the other end. "I hope I'm not disturbing your New Year celebrations. I'm calling on behalf of Logística del Bajío—your wife's company."
Raúl sat up straight instantly, a cold sweat breaking out across his neck. "What? What does my wife's company want with me at three in the morning? We're separated. She threw me out."
"Oh, we are well aware of your domestic situation, Mr. Medina," the voice chuckled darkly. "In fact, we've been monitoring your household financials for quite some time. You see, your wife is currently conducting an internal audit of our transport logistics network. And she stumbled upon a rather interesting discrepancy involving unauthorized parts procurement, ghost maintenance tickets, and roughly 450,000 pesos funneled through your industrial plant's maintenance account over the last three years."
Raúl’s heart slammed violently against his ribs. The phone felt suddenly heavy and slippery in his hand. "I... I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't play stupid with me, Raúl," the voice hissed, dropping all pretense of politeness. "You used your access credentials at the industrial plant to sign off on fake maintenance orders for your brother-in-law's phantom repair shop, and you split the profits. Your wife might have stripped you of your apartment, but if she submits that audit report to federal authorities tomorrow morning, you aren't just going to be homeless—you're going to spend the next ten years in a maximum-security federal penitentiary."
May you like
Raúl stood up so fast he knocked his plastic terminal chair over, waking Elvira with a start. "What do you want from me?" Raúl whispered frantically, his hands shaking uncontrollably.
"Simple," the voice replied. "Get the property back. Get the transfer reversal signed. Or by sunrise, we ensure that Mariana Torres pays the ultimate price for digging where she shouldn't have."
