Chapter 5 - THE HUSBAND'S PLEA
Andrés arrived in his silver Porsche, parking in my parents' modest driveway like he owned the neighborhood. He walked into the house wearing his custom tailored suit, his hair perfectly styled, looking every bit the arrogant heir he was raised to be. He didn't bring flowers. He didn't look remorseful. He looked annoyed.
I sat in the living room chair, a blanket over my lap, my father standing silently by the fireplace.
"Camila, look at you," Andrés sighed, running a hand through his hair. "You're dragging this out. The police came to the house yesterday to question my mother. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was? Our neighbors saw squad cars."
"I was assaulted, Andrés," I said calmly. "In a hospital bed."
"She tapped your cheek!" he argued, raising his voice. "She was upset! You were being difficult and hysterical, as usual. Now, you're going to call the precinct and tell them you're dropping the charges. Then you're coming home, and you are going to apologize to her for causing this scene."
I looked at him, really looked at him, and realized the man I had married was nothing more than an illusion. "And what about the business, Andrés?" I asked softly.
He blinked, thrown off by the sudden pivot. "What?"
"The business. The Reyes Investment Group. Project Horizon. How is the accounting going for that?"
A flash of genuine panic crossed his eyes, gone in a microsecond, but I caught it. "It's fine. Why are you asking about work? That has nothing to do with this."
"It has everything to do with this," I replied, leaning forward slightly. "Tell me, Andrés, when your mother was authorizing wire transfers to the Cayman Islands using my digital signature, were you in the room? Or did you just look the other way, like you did when she hit me?"
All the color drained from his face. His mouth opened, but no words came out. He took a step back, looking around the room as if realizing for the first time that my father wasn't just standing there—he was blocking the exit.
"You... you logged into the mainframe," Andrés whispered, his arrogance shattering into a million pieces on our living room rug. "You weren't supposed to look at those ledgers."
"I'm an analyst," I said coldly. "I always look at the ledgers. I know about the fraud. I know you set me up to take the fall for millions in stolen investor funds."
"Camila, please," his voice broke, suddenly transforming from a commanding heir to a terrified child. "It was her idea! She said the market took a turn, we needed liquidity, and she just needed a firewall in case the SEC audited us. I didn't want to involve you, I swear!"
"You just confessed to corporate fraud and conspiracy in front of a witness," my father said quietly, pulling his phone from his pocket. The screen showed an active recording.
May you like
Andrés stumbled backward, bumping into the coffee table. "You can't do this. We're family!"
"We were never family," I said. "I was your scapegoat. But the scapegoat just hired a forensic accountant. Marcus served the injunctions ten minutes ago. Your company’s accounts are frozen, Andrés. The SEC has the files."
