Chapter 7 - CHAPTER 6: THE REDEMPTION OF ERNESTO
"Nobody move!" Rogelio screamed, sweeping his weapon across the room.
His face was weathered, scarred, and consumed by desperation. He was sixty-two years old, but his eyes carried the erratic frenzy of a trapped animal.
"Rogelio, you fool!" Veronica yelled. "I told you to get to the airstrip!"
"The airstrip is surrounded by federal agents!" Rogelio spat, his gun locked onto my chest. "Your friend Lucía here tipped off the authorities an hour ago! We’re trapped!"
Lucía didn't flinch. "Put the weapon down, Rogelio. Federal tactical units are two minutes away from this gate."
"Shut up!" Rogelio roared. He looked at me, his lip curling into a snarl. "You look just like your father, Alejandro. Always standing there with that righteous look on your face. You think you deserve all this wealth while I sat in the dirt for decades?!"
"My father built his life with his own hands," I said, taking a slow step forward, drawing his attention away from Lucía. "You stole from him. You murdered him. And then you tortured my mother for fifteen years."
"She should have died in that farmhouse!" Rogelio screamed, raising the barrel of the gun directly to my forehead. "And you should have died in that construction site accident three years ago! I set that rig to collapse, Alejandro! You were supposed to die then!"
A sudden sound shattered the standoff.
From the shattered terrace doors behind Rogelio, a heavy wooden tool struck him across the back of his head with tremendous force.
It was a heavy construction spade.
Rogelio stumbled forward, groaning in pain as his weapon discharged into the ceiling, blowing a hole through the plaster.
Behind him stood Ernesto—the old, retired construction worker who had pushed my mother across the city in a wheelbarrow. He swung the spade again, knocking the gun completely out of Rogelio’s hands.
Lucía’s team lunged forward instantly, tackling Rogelio to the floor and slamming him into handcuffs.
Veronica bolted toward the side exit, but I moved faster, grabbing her by the wrist and twisting her back into the room. She stumbled over her own designer heels and crashed to the floor, where Lucía promptly secured her hands with plastic cable ties.
Ernesto stood in the center of the ruined room, panting heavily, holding the muddy spade like a battle weapon.
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I looked at him in total shock. "Ernesto... how did you get here?"
Ernesto wiped sweat and rain from his forehead, giving a rugged smile. "I drove your mother's old neighbor's truck, Alejandro. Doña Elena told me you were coming into a den of snakes. I may be an old man, but I know how to handle a shovel."
