Chapter 5 - The Showdown in Coyoacán
The wooden door of the art studio splintered with a loud crack as Hector and the off-duty cop forced their way inside, flashlight beams cutting through the dark room filled with easels, paint cans, and framed canvases.
"Search the back room!" Hector ordered, his voice gruff. "Mrs. Aranda said the documents are hidden behind one of the big paintings! Burn everything once you find them!"
Before the cop could reach the back storage room, the front door was kicked wide open.
Thunder crashed outside as Commander Vargas and three tactical guards breached the studio, floodlights illuminating the dark space, blinding Hector and his accomplice.
"Drop your weapons! Federal warrant!" Vargas shouted.
The off-duty cop instinctively reached for his hip, but Commander Vargas moved with lightning speed, striking the cop’s wrist with a tactical baton, sending his sidearm skidding across the wooden floor, and forcing him to the ground.
Hector drew a tactical knife, lunging toward Vargas, but Alejandro stepped through the doorway.
Without hesitation, Alejandro grabbed a heavy wooden easel and swung it with all his strength, shattering the frame across Hector’s chest. The impact drove Hector back against a brick wall, knocking the breath from his lungs and sending his knife clattering to the floor.
Alejandro stepped up to Hector, pinning him against the wall by his throat, his eyes filled with pure, unbridled rage.
"You're the one who dragged my wife up the stairs by her hair, aren't you?" Alejandro growled, his knuckles whitening as he applied pressure.
Hector choked, panic filling his eyes as he realized Alejandro was not playing the civilized billionaire. "It... it was your sister's orders, sir! She paid me fifty thousand pesos!"
"You touched a pregnant woman," Alejandro whispered in his ear, his voice trembling with fury. "You are going to rot in a federal cell for the rest of your life."
Commander Vargas stepped up and slapped heavy steel handcuffs on Hector and the cop. "Federal Marshals are two minutes away, Director. We have the scene secured."
Alejandro walked into the back storage room, his flashlight beam illuminating the large 18th-century oil painting of the Archangel Michael leaning against the wall.
He carefully turned the heavy frame around. Taped securely to the canvas backing was a thick, leather-bound accounting ledger, along with a USB flash drive containing digital scans of bank statements dating back twenty years.
Alejandro unclipped the ledger and held it in his hands.
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Inside were his father’s original signatures, paired with Doña Esther’s distinct handwriting, detailing systematic embezzlement that had ruined Valeria’s father and sent him to an early grave.
"It’s over, Mother," Alejandro said quietly to the dark room.
