Chapter 8 - Corporate Counter-Strike
The emergency session of the Williams Development board of directors took less than twenty minutes. The fifteen men and women who controlled the largest real estate portfolio in the country sat in absolute silence as Mateo Herrera laid out the forensic evidence of Maris Williams's fraud.
There was no debate. There were no defensive speeches from her old friends on the board. In the corporate world, loyalty is an asset that depreciates instantly the moment a criminal indictment is stamped by a federal judge. By a unanimous vote, Maris was stripped of her voting rights, her name was removed from the corporate charity foundation, and her access to the executive offices was permanently revoked.
Victor stood at the window of his office, watching the city below. The rain had cleared, leaving the sky a bright, piercing blue that made the glass towers of Reforma look like blocks of ice under the sun.
His phone vibrated on the desk. It was Dr. Mendez.
"Victor," the doctor's voice came through the speaker, warm and clear. "Catherine is awake. Her neurological panels are perfect. The steroid therapy has reduced the renal inflammation by forty percent. She’s asking for you. And for Annie."
Victor felt a great, crushing weight lift from his chest, his first real breath in three long years. "I’m on my way, Jorge. Is Annie with her?"
"She hasn't left her side since she woke up," Mendez said. "The nursing staff brought them some hot soup and some fresh bread from our kitchen. The little girl is currently trying to feed her mother with a plastic spoon."
Victor smiled, his eyes damp as he grabbed his coat from the leather sofa. "Tell them I’ll be there in ten minutes, Brian is bringing the car around."
As he stepped out of the executive suite, he saw his brother, Julian, standing near the reception desk. Julian looked ruined—his designer shirt unbuttoned, his hair wild, his eyes bloodshot from a night of panic. Two security guards were holding him back from the main corridor.
"Victor!" Julian screamed when he saw his brother. "You can't do this! Mom’s in a holding cell in San José el Alto! The banks froze my cards! I have people waiting for me at the airport, Victor! They’re going to kill me if I don't clear the balance by five o'clock!"
Victor stopped five feet away from his younger brother. He looked at the expensive gold watch on Julian’s wrist—a watch that had probably been paid for by three months of Catherine’s missing medication.
"You should have thought about that before you let our mother turn my daughter into a beggar, Julian," Victor said, his voice entirely dead.
"She’s your mother too!" Julian shouted, his voice cracking with a childish, pathetic terror. "We're blood, Victor! You can't just let them ruin us for some provincial schoolteacher!"
Victor leaned in close, his face inches from his brother’s trembling nose. "The provincial schoolteacher has more honor in her little finger than you and Maris have in your entire history, Julian. If those people at the airport are looking for you, I suggest you go to the police. Of course, you’ll have to share a cell block with the people you owe money to, but that’s an internal logistics problem for the state to solve."
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He nodded to the security guards. "Take him out of my building. If he sets foot on Williams property again, have him arrested for trespassing."
Victor walked past his brother’s screams into the private elevator, the doors closing with a smooth, silent whoosh that left the wreckage of his old family behind him.
