Chapter 4 - The Eviction Ordered by His Own Company
One week later, Gabriel entered the Ferrer Group boardroom carrying three folders.
Helena sat near the head of the table.
Beside her was her father, Arturo Valdés, an eighty-year-old attorney whose name had inspired fear inside the company for decades.
Arturo did not rise.
“You look tired,” he said.
“I’ve spent several nights reading documents you hoped I would never see.”
Helena leaned back.
“This meeting is supposed to address the German acquisition.”
“It will.”
“The investors are losing patience.”
“They can afford patience.”
Arturo tapped one finger against the table.
“You’re allowing three strangers to cloud your judgment.”
Gabriel placed the DNA reports before him.
“They are not strangers.”
“Tests can be manipulated.”
“Two independent laboratories reached the same result.”
Helena’s voice remained controlled.
“Even if Elena is your daughter, that doesn’t change business decisions.”
“It changes every business decision made to keep her from me.”
Arturo struck the table with his palm.
“Your father protected the Ferrer name.”
“My father forged the death of a pregnant woman.”
“He prevented you from destroying your future.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“That future was mine to destroy.”
“You were twenty years old and prepared to abandon everything for a poor pastry student.”
“She was the woman I loved.”
“Love does not build an empire.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “Fear built this one.”
The board members exchanged uneasy looks.
Arturo’s eyes narrowed.
“Everything you possess exists because your father stopped you from making a mistake.”
Gabriel turned toward the city beyond the windows.
“For years, I believed the size of this company proved he was right.”
He faced Arturo again.
“Now I understand it only proves how much he took from me.”
Helena opened the acquisition documents.
“We employ more than twenty thousand people. You cannot risk their future over a family dispute.”
“You’re right.”
She paused, surprised.
Gabriel activated the screen behind him.
“That’s why we’re going to discuss business.”
A series of financial records appeared.
Payments from Arturo Valdés to a German civil official.
Legal fees with no declared service.
Funds intended for Lucía Moreno but redirected through private accounts.
Instructions to intercept Gabriel’s correspondence.
Helena’s face lost color.
“These records require context.”
Gabriel displayed her messages from six months earlier.
One ordered staff to remove every file connecting Lucía and Elena to the Ferrer family.
Another demanded the Lavapiés eviction be accelerated before the German acquisition became public.
Murmurs spread around the table.
Gabriel looked directly at Helena.
“The context is a ten-year-old girl selling chocolates so your eviction team wouldn’t put her family on the street.”
Helena rose.
“That redevelopment will earn the company hundreds of millions.”
“You knew who lived there.”
“I suspected.”
“You saw Elena’s date of birth.”
“I was protecting the company.”
“You were protecting your father.”
Arturo stood beside his daughter.
“This can still be handled privately.”
Gabriel gave a bitter smile.
“Private handling is how you concealed it for thirty-two years.”
The boardroom doors opened.
Investigators from Spain’s economic crimes unit entered with company security officers.
Arturo’s confidence faltered.
Helena stared at Gabriel.
“You would destroy your own company for them?”
“No.”
He closed the folder.
“I’m going to discover how much of this company was built by destroying them.”
An investigator approached with a sealed envelope.
“We found this in Mr. Valdés’s personal safe this morning.”
The name Lucía Moreno appeared on the front.
Beneath it was a date.
The day Elena had been born.
Gabriel looked at Arturo.
For the first time, the old attorney seemed afraid.
“What is inside?” Gabriel asked.
Arturo said nothing.
The investigator opened the envelope.
It contained a hospital record, a signed declaration, and a photograph of newborn Elena in Lucía’s arms.
Gabriel lifted the declaration.
His father’s signature appeared at the bottom.
He read aloud.
“Upon the birth of Lucía Moreno’s child, all efforts must be taken to prevent Gabriel Ferrer from learning of the child’s existence.”
Elena, Lucía, and Valentina were watching remotely from the hospital’s private family room.
On the screen, Elena covered her mouth.
Gabriel continued reading.
“If necessary, the child’s official records are to be altered, and the mother is to be relocated outside Spain.”
He stopped.
Lucía whispered, “They tried.”
Elena turned toward her.
“What do you mean?”
“Your grandfather’s men came to the hospital. A nurse warned me. I left through the laundry entrance before they could take you.”
Valentina moved closer to her mother.
Gabriel’s voice came through the screen.
“There’s more.”
He unfolded a second page.
It documented a payment to Arturo.
Not for keeping Lucía away.
For arranging the permanent removal of the infant.
Gabriel looked across the table.
“What does ‘permanent removal’ mean?”
Arturo regained enough composure to speak.
“Your father used dramatic language.”
“Answer the question.”
“No harm came to the child.”
“Because Lucía escaped.”
Arturo’s silence confirmed it.
Gabriel stepped toward him.
“My father didn’t simply steal my family. He ordered you to steal a newborn.”
“I followed the instructions of my client.”
“A crime does not become legal because a rich man requests it.”
Arturo looked at the board.
“Do you understand what this scandal will do to the Ferrer name?”
Gabriel’s reply was calm.
“The name survived because innocent people paid the price.”
He handed the declaration to the investigators.
“Not anymore.”
As agents led Arturo and Helena away, Helena twisted toward Gabriel.
“You’ll regret choosing them.”
May you like
Gabriel watched the doors close.
“I regret every day I didn’t.”
