Mauricio’s jaw tightens. “You confuse aggression with vision.”
“And you confuse inheritance with intelligence.”
Javier mutters, “Can we not do the gender war thing while we’re all in a felony?”
You almost admire the accidental honesty.
Mauricio ignores him. “The market won’t wait for her instincts to be right. We needed the debt package. We needed the acquisition notes. The board needed to see what she was hiding.”
“She wasn’t hiding,” you say. “You were stealing.”
He turns to you. “Words are decorative in rooms like this.”
“No,” Alejandra says. “Only men like you are.”
That lands.
Even Javier winces.
Mauricio’s control cracks by millimeters. “The board will remove you in the morning whether this scene exists or not.”
“Then why the blackout?”
He doesn’t answer.
Because now the real thing glitters underneath. The theft was supposed to weaken her. The blackout and physical confrontation were improvisation. Desperation. Something in your earlier intervention forced the operation off script. And desperate men do stupid things in beautiful rooms.
You decide to speed that process.
“You sent the message from Javier’s terminal,” you say. “But the observer in the office wasn’t him. You had someone on the floor. Cleaning staff? Security? One of the executive assistants?”
Javier pales further. Mauricio’s expression does not change enough. That’s how you know you touched the right edge.
Alejandra feels it too. “Who?” she asks.
No answer.
So you shift again.
“You planted the bridge physically. That means access after hours without triggering room scans. Not easy. Someone who could move unnoticed.” You let your eyes drift toward the door. “Elena?”
That does it.
Mauricio looks at the door for less than a second.
Enough.
There is a tiny sound outside, a breath held too sharply.
Then the door pushes open and Elena Ríos, Alejandra’s executive assistant of six years, steps into the red-lit office with tears in her eyes and a gun in her hand.
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