Chapter 6 - Unearthing the Past
Winning the emergency custody hearing was a major victory, but as Elena reminded me over dinner that night at the estate, a full criminal trial was still months away. Beatriz’s defense team was playing dirty, digging into my past and trying to construct a narrative that I was an unfit, absentee parent who had driven my wife to madness.
"We need to strike back harder," Marcus said, laying out a thick folder on my study desk. "While Beatriz is in jail, I sent an operative team to her family’s private estate in Valencia. We bought out the digital assets of her father's failed investment company."
"Find anything?" I asked, sipping black coffee.
"More than we bargained for," Marcus said with a grim smile. "Beatriz didn't just target you, Julian. You weren't her first husband."
I froze, looking up from the documents. "What did you say?"
"Six years ago, before she met you in Marbella, Beatriz was married to a wealthy real estate developer in Milan named Matteo Rossi," Marcus explained, pointing to a photograph of an Italian man in his late forty's. "Matteo died suddenly of an apparent heart attack eighteen months into their marriage. Beatriz inherited his entire three-million-euro estate."
My stomach churned. "Did anyone investigate his death?"
"It was ruled natural causes at the time," Marcus said. "But look at the financial trail. Three weeks before Matteo’s heart attack, he signed over a comprehensive life insurance policy naming Beatriz as the sole beneficiary. And guess who the attending physician was who signed off on his death certificate in Milan?"
"Dr. Hector Morales," I guessed, my eyes narrowing.
"Bingo," Marcus confirmed. "The very same doctor she paid two hundred thousand euros to create the fake psychological reports on Isabella."
The full horror of who I had brought into my home and into my daughter's life hit me like a physical blow. Beatriz wasn't just a greedy socialite or an abusive stepmother. She was a systematic, lethal predator who preyed on wealthy, busy men with families, isolating them, siphoning their wealth, and destroying their lives from the inside out.
"If she did that to Matteo Rossi," I whispered, cold sweat breaking out on my neck, "what was her ultimate plan for me?"
"We checked your personal medical records from the estate’s private clinic, boss," Marcus said, his voice dropping to a somber hush. "The daily vitamin supplements Beatriz had been prescribing and ordering for you from Seville over the last year... we sent samples to a forensic toxicology lab in Madrid yesterday."
"And?"
"They were laced with trace amounts of digitalis—a heavy-duty cardiac medication," Marcus revealed. "In small doses over a long period, it causes gradual heart failure that mimics natural cardiac arrest. If you hadn't returned early from Dubai, Julian... you likely wouldn't have survived until the end of the year."
A heavy silence fell over the room. The rain tapped against the windowpane like cold, skeletal fingers.
She hadn't just been abusing my daughter to break her spirit; she was systematically destroying Isabella so that when I died of an 'unexpected heart attack,' there would be no one left to question Beatriz taking total control of my four-hundred-million-euro enterprise.
May you like
I stood up, staring out into the dark gardens where my daughter had bled for that monster's amusement.
"Call the Italian authorities," I told Marcus, my voice echoing with an absolute, lethal resolve. "Reopen Matteo Rossi’s file. Get the Spanish Federal Prosecutor on the line. We are not just putting Beatriz away for child abuse. We are going to ensure she spends the rest of her natural life behind iron bars."
