Chapter 6 - THE BETRAYAL WITHINThe room seemed to spin on a sickening axis. Alejandro struggled against the iron grip pinning him to the cabinet, but Mateo’s strength was immovable—trained by the very security forces Alejandro funded and trusted with his life.
"Mateo..." Alejandro gasped, his voice raw. "You... you were my brother in arms. I pulled you out of the federal penitentiary. I made you head of security."
Mateo finally looked down at him, his expression completely devoid of remorse or emotion. "You gave me a job, Alejandro. But Don Fernando gave me a purpose. Long before you ever hired me, I swore blood loyalty to the Villarreal name—not to the naive, soft-hearted boy who inherited it, but to the man who built it from blood and iron."
Don Fernando walked slowly toward them, his leather shoes clicking against the floor. He reached out and tapped Alejandro’s cheek patronizingly, the way he used to when Alejandro was a child failing to meet his impossibly high standards.
"You see, Alejandro? You thought you were the master of your own universe," Fernando said softly, his voice dripping with condescension. "You thought your brilliant business mind, your ruthless board maneuvers, and your multi-billion-peso valuations made you untouchable. But you were never more than a placeholder. A pristine, legitimate face to sign the documents while the real machine kept running in the shadows."
"The baby..." Alejandro snarled, straining every muscle in his body against Mateo’s grip. "If you touch my son—if you lay a single finger on Camila or that boy—I swear to God, I will burn this entire empire to ash. I will hand every single financial record, every offshore account, every hidden ledger directly to Interpol and the federal police!"
Fernando burst into laughter—a rich, deep, booming sound that held genuine amusement.
"Hand them over? With what evidence, my boy? The files on this terminal right here are encrypted with military-grade algorithms that self-destruct the moment an unauthorized user tries to extract them. And as for Camila and the child..." Fernando’s eyes narrowed into cold slits. "They are currently under the care of doctors on the sixth floor—doctors who answer directly to my payroll, not yours."
Alejandro’s heart stopped. "What have you done with them?"
"Nothing yet," Fernando said smoothly, turning away and picking up the printed medical folder from the desk. "In fact, I need that child alive. A Villarreal heir is required for the final phase of the European merger next month—a multi-billion-peso restructuring that requires direct bloodline signatories. But Camila? Well, Camila has served her purpose. She was always too weak for our world. A little accident in post-operative recovery—a sudden, tragic embolism—and she can finally rest in peace."
"No!" Alejandro roared, breaking free with a sudden, adrenaline-fueled surge of strength that caught Mateo off guard.
Alejandro swung his fist, catching Fernando square in the jaw. The older man stumbled back against the metal desk, a line of blood appearing at the corner of his mouth.
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Before Alejandro could follow up, Mateo tackled him to the floor, driving his knee into Alejandro’s ribs with bone-crushing force. Alejandro groaned, the wind completely knocked out of his lungs, his vision blurring at the edges as darkness threatened to pull him under.
"Tie him up," Fernando ordered, wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his hand, his eyes burning with cold fury. "Lock him in the basement vault. Let him think about how his arrogance just destroyed everything he loved."
