Chapter 6 - BETRAYAL AT THE BOARDROOM
The top floor of the Santillán Tower in downtown Mexico City was packed with reporters, investors, and security guards. The atmosphere was charged with tension.
Inside the glass executive boardroom, Uncle Ernesto sat at the head of the long table, surrounded by twelve influential board members.
"Alejandro has succumbed to emotional instability!" Ernesto declared loudly, slamming his fist onto the table for dramatic effect. "He is housing a low-class cleaning woman in the family mansion and making absurd claims about an illegitimate child! He is ruining our stock value! We must strip him of his voting power today!"
The board members whispered nervously amongst themselves, glancing at their tablets.
Right at that moment, the heavy double doors were pushed open.
Alejandro walked into the room. He wore an immaculate bespoke suit, looking every bit the ruthless titan of industry. But he wasn't alone.
Beside him walked Mariana, dressed in a sleek, elegant dark emerald dress, her hair swept up in a sophisticated style. And holding Mariana’s hand was three-year-old Lucía, wearing a yellow dress and holding her worn stuffed rabbit, Panquecito.
"What is the meaning of this circus?!" Ernesto shrieked, standing up abruptly. "How dare you bring those people into this corporate sanctuary!"
"Shut your mouth, Ernesto," Alejandro said, his voice ringing across the silent room like a thunderclap.
Alejandro stepped to the head of the table and plugged a encrypted drive into the boardroom display system. High-definition screens illuminated around the room.
"For three years," Alejandro announced to the board, "Ernesto Santillán has lied to this company. He claimed my late brother Mateo left no heir. He used fraudulent documents to seize control of fifty million dollars in private trust funds."
The screens displayed bank audit logs, showing millions of dollars transferred directly from Mateo’s trust into Ernesto’s private offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands.
"And here," Alejandro continued, gesture toward the video feed, "is Mateo himself."
The screens shifted to a recorded video. Mateo’s face appeared, looking happy and healthy, sitting beside Sofia in a sunlit garden.
“If anyone is watching this,” Mateo’s voice echoed clearly through the boardroom speakers, “it means I have passed away. I am making this recording because my uncle Ernesto has threatened to invalidate my marriage to Sofia Ríos and deny our unborn daughter, Lucía, her rightful name. I leave my entire share of the Santillán empire to my daughter Lucía Santillán, under the joint legal guardianship of my brother Alejandro and Sofia’s sister, Mariana Ríos.”
The boardroom exploded into absolute chaos. Board members jumped to their feet, shouting in outrage at Ernesto. Reporters outside the glass walls began frantically snapping photos through the windows.
Ernesto turned pale as paper. He stumbled backward into his leather chair, trembling violently.
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"This is a fake!" Ernesto screamed frantically. "It's a digital forgery!"
"The FBI and the Federal Police are waiting downstairs, Ernesto," Alejandro said coldly, leaning over the table. "They have warrants for grand larceny, document forgery, and corporate fraud. Your reign is over."
