Chapter 4 - The Confrontation
Mateo walked into the living room with frantic energy, followed closely by Andrés Segovia, who was frantically checking his watch.
“Gabriel!” Mateo barked, marching over to the coffee table where the unsigned €21 million contract lay untouched. “What is wrong with you?! You missed the 5:00 PM conference call with the German investors! Segovia had to stall them, but they’re giving us until 10:00 PM tonight to submit the executed agreement, or they’re walking away!”
Andrés Segovia adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, stepping forward with an oily, polite smile. “Gabriel, my friend, please understand. This merger is the culmination of three years of hard work. If we don't sign this contract tonight, the company’s valuation will plummet by forty percent. You can’t let a minor domestic issue with your staff disrupt a deal of this magnitude.”
Gabriel stood perfectly still beside the piano, his hands resting in his pockets. He looked at Segovia, a man he had trusted for fifteen years, and then at Mateo, his own blood.
“Where were you two nights before Irene died?” Gabriel asked softly.
The question hit the room like a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure.
Segovia froze, his hand hovering over his leather briefcase. Mateo blinked, caught entirely off-guard.
“What?” Mateo chuckled nervously. “Gabriel, that was two years ago! What does Irene’s accident have to do with a twenty-one million euro renewable energy expansion?!”
“Answer the question, Mateo,” Gabriel said, stepping out from behind the piano. His voice was calm, but his eyes carried a dark, dangerous intensity that neither man had ever seen before.
“I was in Madrid!” Mateo snapped defensively. “You know that! Segovia and I were preparing the annual financial audit for the foundation!”
“The foundation,” Gabriel repeated, taking another step forward. “The Valdés Pediatric Foundation. The trust set up to ensure my autistic son would be taken care of if anything ever happened to me.”
Segovia swallowed hard, glancing nervously toward the front door. “Gabriel, you’re exhausted. You’ve been working sixteen-hour days. Perhaps you should let us handle the signing tonight so you can rest—”
“I found Irene’s tablet,” Gabriel interrupted plainly.
Mateo went utterly pale. The color drained from his face so fast he looked like a ghost under the chandelier light. Segovia’s jaw tightened, his eyes darting frantically around the room.
“She left a complete record,” Gabriel continued, pulling the cracked tablet from his jacket and holding it up. “Video logs. Bank transaction receipts. Internal audit overrides. She discovered that you two embezzled twelve million euros from my son’s medical trust to cover gambling debts in Macau and failed real estate speculations in Marbella.”
Silence descended upon the mansion—a thick, suffocating silence.
Mateo stared at the tablet in Gabriel’s hand. The nervous, brotherly pretense evaporated from his face, replaced by a cold, desperate glare.
“You always were a hypocrite, Gabriel,” Mateo hissed, his voice dropping all warmth. “You played the saint, building your green energy empire, traveling the world, receiving awards in Paris and Berlin, while I did the dirty work! I built this company with you! But who got eighty percent of the equity? You! Who got the Pedralbes mansion? You!”
“So you robbed my son?!” Gabriel roared, his voice shaking the crystal fixtures above. “A helpless nine-year-old boy who lost his mother?!”
“We didn't rob him!” Segovia stammered, backing away. “It was an advance! We were going to replace the funds as soon as the German merger closed tonight!”
“The German merger isn't closing,” Gabriel said, taking the €21 million contract from the table and ripping it cleanly in half, then in quarters, tossing the paper scraps onto the marble floor at his brother’s feet. “And neither of you is leaving this house as free men.”
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Mateo’s expression turned sinister. He looked at Segovia, then back at Gabriel.
“You think you have us trapped, brother?” Mateo whispered, taking a step toward Gabriel. “Look around. There are no security guards here tonight. You gave the staff the evening off for your private meeting. It’s just you, a broken tablet, and two men who have nothing left to lose.”
