Part 4

Two days later, a toxicologist asked to speak with me privately.

“Mr. Salazar, your tests indicate repeated exposure to arsenic,” he explained. “We need additional testing, but this could explain several of your symptoms.”

I stared at my trembling hands.

I’d spent months believing that exhaustion and age were catching up with me. Now there was medical evidence suggesting that someone had deliberately exposed me to a dangerous substance.

I gave the results to the investigators.

I didn’t want accusations based only on suspicion. I wanted evidence that could establish exactly what had happened.

Meanwhile, Patricia hired an independent forensic accountant named Rebeca Solís.

Rebeca compared Lucía’s saved documents with our original accounting records and bank statements.

Within days, she identified eighteen million pesos transferred to three apparently fictitious suppliers.

Two companies were connected to a relative of Verónica Montes. The third had received funds through an account controlled by Adrián.

“The transactions were deliberately concealed,” Rebeca told me. “Someone also altered authorization records using employee credentials.”

I immediately remembered Luis Mendoza and Rafael Torres.

I’d fired both men after Adrián accused them of stealing company money.

The realization that I might have punished innocent employees made me feel physically ill.

Then Rebeca uncovered another document.

Someone had attempted to increase my life insurance coverage to forty million pesos while keeping Adrián as the beneficiary.

The application contained an electronic signature I didn’t recognize.

The insurer had already begun reviewing the irregularities.

I sat in silence, looking at the paperwork.

My son hadn’t merely been waiting to inherit the business.

The evidence suggested he’d been preparing to benefit financially from my death.

That afternoon, I asked Adrián to meet me at my office.

I didn’t reveal everything the investigators had discovered. I wanted to hear what he would say when questioned directly.

He arrived looking confident.

“Dad, we really need to discuss your retirement,” he began. “The board is concerned about your health.”

“Are you concerned too?”

“Of course. You’re my father.”

I looked directly at him.

“Then why did you threaten Lucía and her unborn baby?”

His expression changed.

“She’s manipulating you. You can’t trust anything she says.”

“She’s your wife, Adrián. She’s been working long shifts just to survive.”

“She left because she wanted to!”

I asked him about the missing eighteen million pesos.

He claimed the transfers were necessary business decisions.

When I mentioned Verónica, he abruptly stood.

“Everything you’ve built is supposed to be mine someday!” he shouted. “You can’t take it away because of that woman!”

I finally understood how he saw us.

Lucía was an obstacle to be discarded.

And I was simply the person standing between him and the company.

“I’m not taking anything that belongs to you,” I replied. “But I won’t allow you to keep controlling money you have no right to take.”

With the support of the company’s uninvolved board members, I suspended Adrián’s signing authority and access to corporate accounts pending the investigation.

He stormed out, convinced he could still intimidate me.

Lucía, meanwhile, was discharged to a secure residence where she could continue receiving prenatal care.