Chapter 4 - The Confession on TapeLeonel lunged.
It wasn't a brave move; it was the desperate, cornered reflex of a rat. He dove across the kitchen island, aiming for the laptop to smash it against the floor and destroy the digital evidence.
He didn’t even make it halfway.
Daniel moved with the terrifying, mechanical precision of the industrial maintenance engineer he was. He grabbed a handful of Leonel’s designer jacket, hoisted him off his feet with a single fluid motion, and slammed him against the refrigerator with a deafening crash that rattled the magnets and the beer bottles inside.
The steel wrench pressed hard against Leonel’s throat.
—Don’t —Daniel warned, his face inches from Leonel’s sweating, terror-stricken visage—. If you break that laptop, I swear to God I will finish what the cancer started, and the police won't even find enough pieces to bury.
—Okay! Okay! Let me go! —Leonel choked out, clawing frantically at Daniel’s wrist—. We’ll pay it back! We’ll sign over the truck! Just don't kill me!
Irene was screaming now, backed into the corner near the sink, sobbing hysterically—not out of grief for Camila, but out of raw, unadulterated terror for herself.
—It was her idea! —Leonel shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at his own sister—. Irene said you were too checked out with your job to notice! She said people give money easier when it’s a dying kid, and nobody audits crowdfunding campaigns unless someone makes a formal legal complaint!
Daniel slowly lowered the wrench, though his grip never loosened. He looked over at Irene, whose face had gone completely gray.
—Is that true, Irene? —Daniel asked, his voice shaking with a rage so profound it transcended human speech—. You watched her cough. You held her hand while she did chemo. And you calculated how much her death was worth?
Irene slid down the kitchen cabinets until she was sitting on the floor, weeping dry, ugly tears. —We were in debt, Dani... The house was going to foreclosure... We didn't mean for her to... I mean, she was sick anyway...
The final words hung in the air like a rotting corpse.
Daniel let go of Leonel, who collapsed onto the floor, coughing and gasping for air. Daniel walked over to the kitchen counter, picked up his phone, and unlocked the screen.
—I’m not calling the police, Irene —Daniel said softly.
Leonel looked up, a faint, pathetic spark of hope crossing his bruised face. —You... you’re not?
—No —Daniel replied, tapping the screen to stop an active recording session—. The police have protocols. Judges have bail. Lawyers have loopholes. But industrial maintenance engineers know something about machines.
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He held up his phone, showing them a live-streaming video feed connected to public social media groups with over 200,000 followers in Monterrey.
—I just uploaded Camila’s recordings, the bank statements, and your full confessions to every major news outlet and public community page in Nuevo León. Within five minutes, your faces, your addresses, and your bank numbers will be viral. By morning, you won't need to worry about foreclosure. You won't even be able to walk down the street without the entire city spitting on you.
