PART 3 —

Alba put the call on speaker.

Mercedes’s breathing filled the conference room.

“Why?” Alba asked.

There was silence.

Not confusion.

Not surprise.

The silence of someone realizing she had said too much.

“Why shouldn’t I show anyone the statement, Mom?”

“Come home.”

“No.”

“Alba, this has nothing to do with you.”

Alba looked at the document in her hand.

Her full legal name was printed across the top.

Her national identification number appeared underneath.

Twenty-four thousand euros had left the account three days earlier.

“It literally has my name on it.”

Mercedes lowered her voice.

“You don’t understand how complicated family finances are.”

Nicolás’s attorney, Javier Salcedo, quietly placed his phone on the table and began taking notes.

Alba saw him do it.

For the first time since walking into the building with a nine-day-old baby, she did not feel like the youngest person in the room.

She felt like evidence was finally beginning to speak for her.

“What money is this?” she asked.

Her mother exhaled sharply.

“Your grandmother left certain things arranged.”

Alba froze.

Her maternal grandmother, Isabel, had died when Alba was thirteen.

Mercedes had always said there had been almost nothing left after medical expenses.

A few pieces of jewelry.

Some furniture.

And a sewing box Alba still kept under her bed.

That was it.

Or so she had been told.

“What did Grandma leave me?”

Another silence.

Then her father’s voice appeared faintly behind Mercedes.

“Hang up.”

Alba closed her eyes.

Her father had barely looked at her when Mercedes ordered her to leave school.

Now he sounded terrified.

“Dad?”

The line went dead.

Nobody in the conference room spoke for several seconds.

Then Javier reached across the table.

“Alba, I need you to listen carefully. Do you recognize this account number?”

“No.”

“Have you ever signed documents for this bank?”

“No.”

“Have you ever authorized your mother to transfer money on your behalf?”

“I didn’t even know the money existed.”

Javier looked at Nicolás.

That was all it took.

Nicolás picked up his phone.

“Freeze whatever can legally be frozen.”

Javier stopped him.

“We cannot freeze somebody else’s account because you’re angry.”

“I’m not angry.”

Alba looked at him.

He was furious.

Javier seemed to notice too.

“You are extremely angry.”

“Yes.”

“But this is Alba’s money, not yours. She decides what happens next.”

That sentence changed something.

Not in Nicolás.

In Alba.

She decides.

Nobody had said that to her in a long time.

Maybe ever.

Javier turned back to her.

“You’re eighteen. If the account belongs to you, you can request the bank records yourself. I can help you understand the process, but I won’t act without your permission.”

Alba looked down at the baby sleeping in the carrier beside her chair.

Her sister’s son.

Nicolás’s son.

A child her family had tried to place into her arms like an unpaid bill.

Then she looked at the statement again.

“Help me.”

Within an hour, Alba was sitting inside a private office at the bank listed on the document.

The branch manager asked for her identification twice.

Then he disappeared.

When he returned, he was accompanied by the bank’s compliance officer.

That frightened her more than anything.

They placed a folder in front of her.

The account had been opened five years earlier.

Three weeks after her grandmother died.

Original deposit:

€146,000.

Alba stopped breathing for a moment.

She had spent weekends serving coffee to strangers because she sometimes couldn’t afford textbooks.

She had reused the same winter coat for four years.

When classmates went on graduation trips, she told them she didn’t like beaches.

Her mother had called university “an unnecessary expense.”

And all that time—

One hundred forty-six thousand euros had existed in her name.

“What was the source?” Javier asked.

The compliance officer slid forward another document.

Inheritance distribution.

Isabel Rivas had left separate funds for both granddaughters.

Claudia had received €146,000.

Alba had received the same amount.

Equal.

Exactly equal.

Alba almost laughed.

Her grandmother had apparently been the only person in her family who had refused to rank the two sisters.

“What happened to Claudia’s money?” Alba whispered.

The officer hesitated.

“That account is not yours, so we cannot disclose its activity.”

Javier nodded.

“Fair.”

But they didn’t need Claudia’s records.

Alba’s were bad enough.

For five years, money had moved out.

Language academies.

A private architecture program.

Flights to Milan.

Flights to Copenhagen.

A MacBook.

A deposit for an apartment in Madrid.

Tuition payments.

Then larger withdrawals.

€8,600.

€12,000.

€17,500.

All authorized by Mercedes while Alba was a minor.

Some might have been legally permissible if used for Alba’s benefit.

None of these appeared to be.

Because almost every description contained either Claudia’s name or an expense Alba had never received.

Then Alba saw the London transfer.

€24,000.

Luxury residential agency.

Six months prepaid.

Tenant: Claudia Martín Rivas.

Her hands began shaking.

“They paid for her London apartment with my inheritance.”

Nobody answered because the document already had.

The compliance officer turned several pages.

“There is another issue.”

He pointed to three transactions made after Alba’s eighteenth birthday.

Alba had turned eighteen four months earlier.

After that date, Mercedes should no longer have been able to operate the account under the authority she had used when Alba was a minor.

Yet €39,800 had still moved.

Javier leaned closer.

“How?”

The officer slid out a photocopy.

Authorization form.

Signature:

Alba Martín Rivas.

Alba stared at it.

“That isn’t my signature.”

Javier didn’t react dramatically.

That made it worse.

He simply asked, “Are you certain?”

Alba pulled out her identification card and signed her name on a blank sheet.

The difference was obvious.

On the bank authorization, the A was rounded.

Alba’s was sharp.

The final stroke of Rivas curved upward on the document.

Alba had never written it that way.

“I’m certain.”

The compliance officer closed the folder.

“We’re placing an internal hold on further outgoing transactions while this is reviewed.”

Alba leaned back.

Her knees felt weak even though she was sitting.

Her mother had not merely favored Claudia.

She had financed Claudia with Alba’s future.

And after Alba became legally old enough to control the money herself, somebody had apparently forged her signature to keep taking it.

Nicolás had been quiet for almost ten minutes.

Then his phone vibrated.

He looked at the screen.

His expression changed.

“Claudia.”

Alba’s head snapped toward him.

“She’s calling you?”

“No.”

He turned the phone around.

A message.

Please don’t believe everything Alba tells you. She’s unstable and jealous of me. Call me before you do anything stupid.

Alba stared.

Something inside her finally stopped hurting.

Not because the message was harmless.

Because it was so predictable.

Claudia had spent years surviving every conflict by placing Alba beneath her.

If Claudia succeeded, she was talented.

If Alba succeeded, she was lucky.

If Claudia needed money, she had potential.

If Alba needed money, she needed to be realistic.

Now there was a baby, a DNA result, missing inheritance money and a forged signature.

And Claudia’s defense was still the same.

Alba is jealous.

Nicolás typed one sentence.

My attorney will contact you.

He blocked her.

Then he looked at Alba.

“I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“For asking how much money you wanted.”

Alba said nothing.

“I thought you came into my office carrying a baby because somebody had created a financial problem for me.”

He looked toward the carrier.

“But you were carrying somebody else’s problem because they were trying to destroy your life.”

Alba’s eyes burned.

She hated that.

She had managed not to cry when her mother told her to leave school.

Not when her father agreed.

Not when she walked out before sunrise with €340 and a newborn.

But one accurate sentence from a near stranger nearly broke her.

She stood instead.

“What happens to him?”

Nicolás understood immediately.

The baby.

“My son?”

“Yes.”

Nicolás looked down.

For the first time, the millionaire heir disappeared.

He was simply a man who had learned forty-eight hours earlier that he had a child.

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “But I’m not abandoning him.”

That answer mattered.

Because it was the first promise anyone had made about the child that did not require Alba to sacrifice herself.

The next morning, they obtained Leo’s birth documentation.

That was how Nicolás learned his son’s name.

Leo Martín Rivas.

Father section blank.

Nicolás read it twice.

Then he sat down.