Her gaze was fixed, sharp, almost predatory.
The woman who once smiled with practiced warmth now radiated irritation—impatience that her plan wasn’t unfolding on schedule.
Ricardo had built a global tech empire by making life-altering decisions in seconds. Acquisitions. Mergers. Risks worth billions.
This one cost lives.
Possibly his own.
Could it really be true?
Sofía—his wife of five years.
The woman who slept beside him in silk sheets, who glided through galas with flawless grace. She had never shouted. Never lost control. Her only visible vice had been an appetite for diamonds and distant, extravagant escapes.
Ricardo forced himself to breathe.
“Sir! Please—get out of the car!”
Leo’s voice cracked as he slammed his small fists against the window. The boy looked disheveled, terrified—but what shook Ricardo most was the honesty in his eyes.
Without warning, Ricardo killed the engine.
The sudden silence was worse than the roar.
It pressed in, suffocating, final.
From the window, Sofía’s face shifted—just slightly. A tiny curl of her upper lip. Not fear. Not concern.
Annoyance.
Ricardo opened the door slowly, deliberately, as though nothing were wrong. As though he were merely adjusting his suit before an ordinary drive.
He stepped out.
Calm. Controlled.
Then he leaned down toward the boy, lowering his voice so it would never reach the woman watching from behind the glass.
“Leo,” Ricardo whispered, his pulse hammering,
“who are you… and how do you know this?”
And in that moment, Ricardo Valdés understood one chilling truth:
The accident was never meant to fail.
And the real danger hadn’t even begun yet.
