Chapter 7 - THE SECRET LEDGER
The sun was just beginning to paint the sky over Zapopan in shades of bruised purple and gold when I finally sat down at the heavy oak desk in Roberto’s former home office. Valeria was asleep upstairs in the master bedroom, wrapped in clean sheets with Mateo resting safely beside her.
I had spent the entire night scouring the house, looking for anything Roberto might have hidden. I knew my brother. He was greedy, but he was also lazy. He wouldn't just throw away financial records; he would keep a paper trail so he could blackmail his associates if things ever went south.
It didn't take long to find what I was looking for.
Taped to the underside of the bottom drawer in the mahogany desk was a heavy leather-bound ledger. I sliced the tape open with a pocket knife and flipped it open on the desk.
Page after page of meticulous handwriting stared back at me.
Roberto hadn't just stolen the monthly remittances I sent for Valeria and Mateo. He had been using my engineering earnings as seed money to run an illegal predatory lending ring across Zapopan, loaning out high-interest cash to desperate families and seizing their property titles when they couldn't pay. He had laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars through fake shell companies, some of which involved local politicians and corrupt police officials.
And right there, near the back of the ledger, was a signed contract detailing an agreement to sell this exact house to a third-party developer next month, pocketing the cash and leaving Valeria and Mateo with an eviction notice.
He hadn't just neglected my family. He was planning to throw them out onto the streets permanently once the ink dried on the sale.
My phone buzzed on the desk, breaking the heavy silence of the morning. I picked it up. It was an unknown local number.
I swiped to answer and pressed it to my ear. "Yeah?"
"Is this Gabriel Morales?" a gruff, unfamiliar voice asked.
"Who’s asking?"
May you like
"That doesn't matter," the voice replied, sounding nervous, glancing around in a hurry. "Listen to me very carefully, Mr. Morales. You don't know me, but I'm one of the men your brother Roberto was working with. He took a lot of money from people who don't play by legal rules. Now that he's bolted out of town like a coward, those people are looking for whoever owns this house. They think you're his partner. If you want to keep your wife and son alive, you need to get out of that mansion today."
The line went dead with a sharp click.
