Chapter 7: The Fight She Came Back For
Rodrigo called at eight-fifteen.
I was at the kitchen counter, watching Isabella eat toast with the focused seriousness she brought to anything involving strawberry jam.
"She's filed a counter-claim," Rodrigo said.
I moved to the hallway.
"What kind of counter-claim?"
"Contested separation.
She's claiming the financial transfers were made with your implicit approval.
She's also claiming the child welfare situation is being misrepresented and that the notebook was coached — that Elena instructed Isabella on what to write."
I looked back through the doorway at Isabella, who was now drawing a small figure in the corner of her napkin with a jam-covered finger.
"She's claiming a child coached her own diary."
"Her attorney is aggressive.
It's a pressure tactic.
She wants you to offer a settlement rather than go through a full proceeding."
"What does she want?"
A pause.
"The villa.
A lump sum of two million euros.
And she wants the financial transfer records sealed."
"She wants me to pay her two million euros and bury the evidence of what she took."
"That's the opening position, yes."
"No."
"I expected that.
I want you to be prepared — her attorney will push hard on the paternity question.
They'll try to use it to destabilize the child welfare case.
The argument will be that you have a personal grievance driving an exaggerated complaint."
"Let them try," I said.
"I need you steady, Marcos.
This is going to get uncomfortable before it gets resolved."
"I've been uncomfortable before."
"Not like this." He paused.
"There's one more thing.
Tomás Ferreira — the brother.
He's not in Lisbon.
He arrived in Marbella last night.
He's staying at the Hotel Puente Romano."
I was quiet for a moment.
"She called him after she left."
"Almost certainly.
I don't know what she told him.
But I'd like to know who else she's called in the last twenty-four hours.
I have someone working on it."
I ended the call and stood in the hallway.
Then I heard the front gate.
I looked through the entrance hall window.
Beatriz was walking up the front path.
She was dressed carefully — not the silk robe of yesterday, but a linen blazer, hair done, sunglasses pushed up on her head.
She looked composed.
She looked like a woman arriving at a meeting she had prepared for.
She rang the bell.
I opened the door.
"I'd like to speak to you," she said.
"Alone.
Without the lawyers."
"No."
"Marcos—"
"Whatever you want to say, say it to Rodrigo."
She glanced past me into the house.
"Is she here?"
"She's eating breakfast."
"I want to see her."
"No."
Something moved across her face.
"You can't keep me from—"
"You are not her stepmother as of last night," I said.
"You are a respondent in a child welfare case.
You do not come into this house."
"You're making a mistake." Her voice dropped.
"I know things about your business that you don't want examined.
The Dubai project.
The land acquisition in '21.
There are questions that could be asked."
I looked at her for a long moment.
"Are you threatening me?"
"I'm telling you that a full legal proceeding is bad for everyone." She held my gaze.
"Take the settlement.
Keep this quiet.
Let me walk away and I'll let you walk away."
"You want me to pay you two million euros and seal the records," I said.
"So that what you did to my daughter disappears."
"What I did to your daughter." She said it with a short, hard breath.
"I kept her fed.
I kept her in this house.
I kept her safe for three months while you were building luxury hotels in another country.
That's what I did."
"You made her carry garbage until her hands bled," I said.
"You took her tablet so she couldn't call me.
You told her I would believe you over her.
You kept a child terrified and silent for ninety-three days."
"And you left her." Beatriz's voice was very quiet now.
Precise.
"You left her with me and you didn't check.
Not once.
You called twice a week and you asked if everything was fine and she said yes because I was standing three feet away and you never once asked to speak to her alone.
So before you make me the only villain in this story, think about that."
The words landed.
I let them land.
Because she wasn't entirely wrong about that part.
And she knew it.
And she was using it the same way she had used everything else — as a tool, precisely placed.
"You're right," I said.
"I should have checked.
I will carry that."
She blinked.
She hadn't expected agreement.
"But carrying my failure," I said, "does not reduce yours.
And it does not buy your silence.
The report has been filed.
The evidence is documented.
The proceeding will happen."
I stepped back and closed the door.
Through the glass panel beside the frame I watched her stand on the path for a moment.
Then she turned and walked back toward the gate.
Her phone was already at her ear before she reached it.
I went back to the kitchen.
Isabella looked up from her napkin drawing.
"Who was at the door?"
"Someone who needed an answer," I said.
"They got it."
She looked at me carefully.
Then she held up the napkin.
She had drawn two figures.
A tall one and a small one.
They were holding hands.
"That's us," she said.
May you like
"I know," I said.
I sat down across from her and poured myself a coffee and didn't say anything else for a while.
