Chapter 17 - The BulletAlejandro moved before he thought.
He threw himself between the gun and Valeria.
The bullet struck his shoulder.
He collapsed.
Valeria screamed.
The courtroom descended into chaos.
Police tackled Esteban.
Lucía ran.
Rafael chased her.
Mateo knelt beside Alejandro.
“Stay awake.”
Alejandro looked at Valeria.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded, sobbing.
“The baby?”
Mateo checked her.
“Still safe.”
Alejandro closed his eyes.
Then the pain vanished into darkness.
When he woke, he was in a hospital room.
Valeria was sitting beside him.
Her hand rested on his.
“You scared me.”
Alejandro smiled weakly.
“You scared me first.”
She laughed through tears.
Then the door opened.
Rafael entered.
“We caught Lucía.”
Alejandro sat up.
“What happened?”
“She tried to leave the country.”
“Esteban?”
“In custody.”
“Esther?”
Alive.
Barely conscious.
But there was more.
Rafael placed a folder on the bed.
“We found another account.”
Alejandro opened it.
Millions had been transferred over two decades.
But the money wasn't going to Lucía.
It was being moved into a foundation.
A children's foundation.
Alejandro frowned.
“Why?”
Rafael looked at him.
“Because the real purpose wasn't wealth.”
“What was it?”
“Control.”
The foundation had been buying hospitals.
Clinics.
Schools.
Judicial charities.
Media companies.
Political influence.
Lucía had been building an empire inside institutions.
The Marquez trust was only the final piece.
Alejandro looked at Valeria.
“She wanted the child as a legal key.”
“Yes.”
Then Valeria's face changed.
“What?”
She pointed to the file.
“There.”
A line near the bottom.
A transfer scheduled for tomorrow.
Alejandro read it.
The recipient was listed as:
MARQUEZ HEIR TRUST, IN THE NAME OF VALERIA ARANDA.
He frowned.
“That means—”
Valeria stared.
“The trust already belongs to me.”
Silence.
Everyone looked at her.
Then Gabriel entered.
He smiled.
“My daughter.”
Alejandro looked confused.
“Daughter?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Valeria is not only your wife.”
He handed her an old document.
Valeria read it.
Her face drained of color.
“My father…”
The document confirmed that Valeria's biological father had been Gabriel's closest ally.
The same man who had helped hide Alejandro.
The same man who had been murdered twenty years earlier.
Valeria had unknowingly carried the second key to the Marquez fortune.
The marriage between Alejandro and Valeria was not accidental.
Their families had been connected long before they met.
And the unborn child was the final link.
Rafael looked at them.
“There is still one problem.”
“What?”
“Lucía claims the child was never supposed to survive.”
Valeria touched her stomach.
“Why?”
Rafael whispered:
“Because there was another heir.”
Everyone froze.
“Who?”
Rafael looked toward the hospital corridor.
A young woman entered.
She had Alejandro's eyes.
She was holding a birth certificate.
May you like
And she said:
“I am the first heir.”
