Chapter 6 - The Broken Alliance
The revelation of the ledger entirely destroyed Doña Victoria’s public legend. Within forty-eight hours, the high-society charity boards she had chaired for decades issued formal statements removing her name from their registries. The extended Vance family—cousins, aunts, and uncles who had previously taken her side—vanished from her legal defense defense fund, refusing to be associated with a woman who had planned to institutionalize her own daughter-in-law to steal a trust fund.
But Victoria was not the only enemy in our shadow.
On a rainy Tuesday evening, a week after the hearing, Alejandro returned from the federal prosecutor’s office with a heavy look on his face. He walked into the living room, where I was sitting with my feet elevated, a cup of red raspberry leaf tea cooling on the table.
"There’s a secondary player, Elena," he said, sitting on the edge of the sofa and taking my hand. "The federal investigators traced the offshore shell company, Aethelgard Holdings—the one where Victoria moved your eighty-four thousand dollars."
"Who owns it?" I asked, a cold dread settling into my stomach.
"My older brother, Julian," Alejandro said quietly.
My breath caught. Julian Vance was the golden child of the family, a prominent corporate attorney who lived in Madrid and handled the international logistics for the Vance family’s real estate assets. I had only met him once, at our wedding, where he had spent the entire evening looking at me as if I were a speck of dirt on his expensive Italian shoes.
"Julian is the one who needs the male heir to secure the Madrid trust," Alejandro explained, his jaw clenching. "He’s been going through a massive corporate bankruptcy with his European logistics firm over the last year. He owes millions to Spanish creditors. If the trust didn't clear into his control by the end of this year, his entire corporate empire would collapse into liquidation."
"So he was the architect," I whispered, the puzzle pieces finally aligning. "Victoria was just the executioner on the ground."
"Exactly. He’s the one who provided her with the digital tools to access the Department of Defense servers. He used his corporate connections in Europe to mask the IP addresses she used to send the fake casualty notice." Alejandro stood up, walking toward the window, his eyes watching the rain pour down over our small garden. "The U.S. Marshals have just coordinated with Interpol. A federal arrest warrant has been issued for Julian Vance for international wire fraud and conspiracy to commit extortion."
"Will they find him?"
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"He's running, Elena," Alejandro said, turning back to face me, his expression hardened into stone. "He left his apartment in Madrid last night before the Spanish police arrived. They think he’s heading toward the states—specifically toward Virginia. He still has access to Victoria’s private accounts, and he knows that if he can force you to sign those custody documents before the end of the year, he might still be able to leverage the Madrid courts to protect his assets."
He walked over, kneeling beside me, his hands resting on my belly. "He’s desperate. A cornered wolf is the most dangerous animal in the woods. From tonight, this house is under twenty-four-hour military police surveillance. No one enters these gates without my clearance."
