Chapter 8 - The Stalker in the Rearview
The room seemed to dissolve into static.
“That’s impossible,” I whispered, my voice failing me. “That’s a lie. Mateo, look at me! That is a forgery! You are the only man I have ever been with!”
Mateo didn't look at me. His eyes were glued to the official state seal, the certified lab director’s signature, the matching genetic markers. The trust that had bound our marriage for four years seemed to snap in that single, agonizing second.
“Sofía...” his voice was barely a croak.
“Look at who signed it, you fool!” a deep, commanding voice boomed from the study doorway.
Ricardo Sterling stood there, leaning heavily on his silver-topped cane. He was dressed in a tailored wool suit, fully awake, his silver hair neatly combed. Behind him stood two burly men in dark security uniforms.
“Dad,” Vanessa gasped, lowering the gun slightly. “They broke into the safe. They have the hard drive.”
“I know what they have, Vanessa,” Ricardo said smoothly, walking into the room with measured, deliberate steps. He stopped three feet from Mateo, looking at his son with the cold detachment of a surgeon examining a tumor. “And I know what you’ve been doing behind my back, Mateo.”
“You forged this,” Mateo hissed, his voice trembling between despair and fury, holding up the DNA report. “Tell me you forged this, Ricardo!”
Ricardo chuckled—a dry, rattling sound. “Why would I forge a state lab report, Mateo? You wanted to know why I refused to acknowledge that child? Because I protect this family from deceit. Sofía took you for a ride. She wanted the Sterling trust, and she knew you were too soft, too desperate to please me, to ever question her.”
“You bastard!” I lunged toward Ricardo, but one of the security guards stepped forward, grabbing my arms and twisting them behind my back with brutal efficiency.
“Sofía!” Mateo shouted, dropping the papers to grab the guard.
“Don't touch him, Mateo,” Ricardo ordered, his voice cutting like a razor. “Unless you want the police officers waiting at the end of the driveway to arrest you both for grand larceny and armed burglary.”
Mateo stopped, his chest heaving, his fists clenched. “What do you want, Ricardo?”
“It’s very simple,” Ricardo said, pulling a leather pen from his coat pocket and placing a single sheet of paper on the desk. “This is a voluntary relinquishment of all claims to the Sterling logistics holdings, signed by you, citing irreconcilable family disputes. In exchange, I do not file criminal charges for tonight’s break-in. I do not release this DNA report to the press or the corporate board. And I allow Sofía to take her bastard child and disappear without public disgrace.”
“Don't sign it, Mateo!” I cried out, struggling against the guard’s iron grip. “He’s bluffing! Elena has the financial records! She’s at Clara’s right now! She has the proof that you embezzled forty million dollars!”
Ricardo’s cold facade cracked for the fraction of a second. His eyes flared with genuine venom.
“Elena is a pathetic, broken woman whose testimony wouldn't survive ten minutes in an open deposition,” Ricardo sneered. “Sign the paper, Mateo. Or watch your wife spend the next five years in a women’s correctional facility while your child becomes a ward of the state.”
Mateo stood frozen between the desk and the guard holding me. His eyes flickered from the pen on the walnut desk to the DNA paper on the floor, and finally to my eyes.
In that look, I saw a terrifying fracture. He wanted to believe me, but the poison of Ricardo’s document had already sunk deep into his soul.
“If I sign this,” Mateo whispered, “we walk out of here right now. No police. No guards.”
“You have my word,” Ricardo said smoothly.
May you like
“Mateo, no!” I screamed.
Mateo picked up the pen.
