Chapter 5 - Betrayal in the Dark
The mystery was no longer just Julian’s trauma; it was now deeply tied to Camila’s dead husband. The realization that Mateo might have been involved—or silenced— sent a chill down Camila's spine.
"Mateo didn't die of a heart condition, did he?" Camila whispered, tears brimming in her eyes. "He was thirty-two... perfectly healthy. One day he came home terrified, and two days later he collapsed in the garage."
Julian's expression softened, the cold anger giving way to a shared sense of loss. "We need to find out what Mateo saw that night. Did he keep any records? Work logs, receipts, anything?"
"All his old shop files are stored in a small locker in Hartford," Camila said, wiping a tear from her cheek. "I couldn't bear to throw them away."
"We leave for Hartford tonight," Julian decided. "Before Richard realizes we're onto him."
That night, under the cover of darkness and torrential rain, Julian, Camila, and little Sofia snuck out of the Greenwich mansion through the rear gates in an unmarked sedan. They drove in silence down the highway, the rhythmic sloshing of the windshield wipers echoing the anxiety in their hearts.
They arrived at the dilapidated storage facility on the outskirts of Hartford just after midnight. The rain pounded against the corrugated metal roofs as Julian unlocked the padlock with bolt cutters he’d brought from his garage.
Inside the cramped, dusty unit, Camila located Mateo’s old metal toolbox and a stack of leather-bound work ledgers. Julian held a flashlight steady while Camila flipped through the pages from five years ago.
"Here," Camila said, her finger stopping on an entry dated November 14. "Tow job... Route 91. Client name... blank. Payment... $50,000 in cash."
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Tucked inside the ledger page was a small, folded piece of paper—a hand-drawn sketch of a car's braking system, along with a note written in Mateo's hasty handwriting:
The cut wasn't an accident. The guy in the suit wore a gold ring with the initials R.V. He told me to keep quiet or my wife and baby would suffer.
