“A distraction,” Delfina repeated, the word flat against the hum of the air circulation system. Her gaze drifted to the monitor, where Catalina’s triumphant face had once flickered, now replaced by an innocuous Ferrero emblem. The wail outside grew louder, cutting through the thick insulation.
Bastian pushed a hand through his dark hair, a gesture of exhaustion she’d seen less of since his health began to mend. “They’ll pin the medical negligence on you. The planted evidence from the bonus, the false reports of my ‘decline’ – it all points to a motive for you to incapacitate me, to seize control, or at least to secure a massive payout. Mendez will see what he wants to see.”
He watched her, his expression softening slightly. “Four years ago, the board did this to my father. Not with fake meds, but with a meticulously crafted financial trap. They cornered him, forced his hand on a buyout designed to fail. He lost everything, right down to his confidence. The sleepless nights started then for me, watching them dismantle his legacy piece by piece, knowing I was next.”
His voice dropped, a low thrum against the steel walls. “I won’t let them do it to you, Delfina. I won’t let them make you their next victim. Not after everything.”
He picked up the small, matte-black burner phone Mrs. Vance had provided. The handset glowed with a single, cryptic icon. His thumb hovered over it, then pressed down. He typed a rapid sequence of commands, his movements economical and practiced. Delfina leaned in, trying to discern the lines flashing across the panel. It looked like a financial trading interface, stripped bare of all branding.
“The company,” he murmured, not looking up, “is a house of cards built on my father’s name. A name they’ve dragged through the mud for years. They’ve been waiting for me to collapse so they could sell it off, carve it up amongst themselves. Catalina, of course, wants to be the one holding the biggest knife.”
His gaze finally met hers, sharp and unyielding. “They’ve bled me dry for years, thinking they were weakening me. They forgot I still own the core. And now, I’m pulling the plug.”
With a final tap, a red button labeled “LIQUIDATE ALL CLASS A SHARES” flashed. Bastian didn’t hesitate. The readout confirmed the transaction in an instant, a single line of text: “Transaction Complete. 48% voting stake divested.”
Delfina stared. “You… you just sold nearly half of your company?”
“Not sold, Delfina. Liquidated. Dumped onto the market at fire-sale prices. Think of it as a deliberate collapse. The entire Sanmoran exchange will feel the shockwave.”
He was already moving, his fingers tapping over the glass again. This time, he opened a different application, a secure ledger. “Now, for the final piece of the puzzle. The bonus was their trap. A large sum of money to implicate you. But what if you don’t need the bonus? What if you already possess more wealth than they could ever offer?”
His gaze sharpened. He typed in a new set of coordinates, a land registry number. Delfina recognized the sequence: the deed to her late grandmother’s coastal cottage. A sudden tension caught in her throat.
“The board seized your family’s property at a fraction of its value through an offshore shell, planning to flip it for profit once they ousted me,” Bastian explained, his voice even. “I bought it back through a blind trust to keep it safe. Now… it’s going to be yours, free and clear.”
Another series of rapid inputs, and he executed the transfer. The glass lit up with confirmation: “TRANSFER COMPLETE. Beneficiary: Delfina Navarro. Asset: Navarro Haven, Block 7, Section 3, Coastal District, Sanmora. Value: 1.2 billion credits.”
Delfina stared at the number. “A… a billion?” The valuation was staggering. Her grandmother's simple cottage sat on prime coastal bluffs, rezoned and ballooned into a multi-acre jewel by corporate speculators. It rendered the planted bonus money entirely irrelevant. No prosecutor could claim she had poisoned her employer for pennies when she already held a fortune in deed.
Just as she absorbed the impossible truth, a new sound filtered through the thick steel. Not the sirens, which were closer now, but a cacophony of shouts and frantic ringing from the upper levels of the villa. Sharp, enraged voices, followed by what sounded like a woman’s shriek. Catalina.
“The market opened,” Bastian said quietly. “And Ferrero shares just went into freefall. That’s the sound of the board’s assets imploding. They won’t be thinking about my medical proxy now. They’ll be thinking about their ruined fortunes.”
He pocketed the burner phone, then turned to Churro, who had been curled patiently at their feet. “Good boy, Churro. Time to be brave.”
The wailing sirens were deafening now, right outside the villa’s walls. The shouting upstairs continued, laced with genuine panic. Bastian reached for the console, his hand hovering over the release button for the panic room’s doors. He looked at Delfina, a profound earnestness in his gaze. “They can’t frame you for something you have no reason to do. Not anymore. You’re not just a maid, Delfina. You’re a major landowner in Sanmora now. Your motives are unassailable.”
A low, mechanical hiss filled the confined space. The heavy steel doors of the panic room began to retract, revealing the blinding glare of the main hall lights. Chief Mendez stood there, his regulation sidearm drawn and pointed squarely at Delfina’s chest, flanked by a furious, but still triumphant, Catalina Vargas.