Chương 2
Fear of me.
“You’re Ramon Ortega.”
It was not a question.
I froze.
“Yes.”
Her hand moved weakly across the ground until her fingers touched my sleeve.
“You have to leave.”
I looked around the clearing.
“Who did this?”
Her breathing became uneven.
“They wanted you here.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
Behind me, Victor climbed down from the tree.
“Boss.”
His voice changed.
I turned.
He was holding something wrapped in plastic.
“We found this under the roots.”
He placed it on the ground.
Inside was a small black case.
My name was carved into the leather.
Not printed.
Not written.
Carved.
Sofia stared at it.
“I saw that before.”
I looked at her.
“Where?”
She pointed toward the forest.
“The men who took Mommy had one like it.”
My stomach tightened.
“How many men?”
She looked at her mother.
Then back at me.
“Three.”
Victor opened the case carefully.
Inside were photographs.
Not old photographs.
Recent ones.
Pictures of me entering my office.
Pictures of my security team.
Pictures of my home.
Pictures of my daughter leaving school.
I stopped breathing for a second.
The photograph of my daughter was taken two days earlier.
Nobody outside my family knew that route.
Nobody outside my security circle should have had access.
Victor looked at me.
“Ramon.”
I did not answer.
My eyes stayed on the photograph.
Someone had not just planned to find me.
Someone had studied me.
Then Isabella grabbed my wrist with surprising strength.
Her eyes were open now.
And whatever pain she was feeling was buried under something stronger.
Regret.
“I tried to warn them.”
“Who?”
Her lips trembled.
“The people who hired me.”
The forest seemed to become colder.
“You work for them?”
She closed her eyes.
“I did.”
Sofia started crying.
“No.”
Isabella looked toward her daughter.
“I was trying to get us away.”
A sound came from the trees.
A single crack of a branch.
Every man around me reached for a weapon.
Victor stepped between us and the forest.
But Isabella only whispered one sentence.
“They’re not coming back for me.”
She looked directly at me.
“They’re coming back because you found me.”
“They’re coming back because you found me.”
I looked toward the trees.
The men around me were already moving.
Victor signaled Diego and Matteo to widen the perimeter.
Nobody needed to be told what the priority was.
The woman on the ground was injured.
The child was terrified.
And somewhere beyond the fog, someone was watching us.
“Can you walk?” I asked Isabella.
She tried to move her arm and immediately winced.
“No.”
“Then we carry you.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand enough.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her voice was weak, but there was anger underneath it.
“They wanted me to disappear.”
She looked at the black case sitting in the mud.
“They wanted you to find that.”
Victor turned toward her.
“You knew about the case?”
Isabella hesitated.
That hesitation answered the question before her words did.
“I knew there was something hidden here.”
“What is it?”
She looked away.
“I don’t know everything.”
I had spent years dealing with people who lied.
Most lies were easy to recognize because they came too quickly.
The person rushed to fill silence.
They offered explanations nobody asked for.
They tried to control the conversation.
Isabella did the opposite.
She looked like someone who had been carrying a truth so heavy that even speaking about it made her tired.
“Start with what you know,” I said.
She swallowed.
“They called themselves the Gray Circle.”
Victor’s expression changed.
It was small.
Most people would have missed it.
I did not.
“You know that name,” I said.
Victor stared at the ground for a second.
“I’ve heard it.”
“From where?”
“Old information.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He looked at me.
“Because the answer is complicated.”
A strange anger rose in my chest.
Not because Victor had withheld something.
Because I realized there were things happening around me that I did not know about.
That was a feeling I hated.
I had built my life around knowing.
Knowing where money moved.
Knowing who wanted what.
Knowing when someone was lying.
But standing in that forest, holding the evidence of someone studying my family, I felt something I had not felt in years.
Blind.
Matteo returned from the edge of the clearing.
“Nothing moving.”
He looked at Isabella.
“But we should leave.”
He was right.
The clearing was too exposed.
We could question her later.
We could investigate the case later.
Survival came first.
Diego lifted Isabella carefully while I carried Sofia again.
The little girl did not want to leave her mother.
She kept reaching toward Isabella even while Diego held her.
“Mommy.”
“I’m here,” Isabella whispered.
“You’re here.”
Those words sounded like a promise both of them needed to believe.
We moved quickly through the forest.
The fog had grown thicker.
The path back seemed longer than before.
Maybe because now we knew we were not alone.
Halfway to the road, Sofia touched my shoulder.
“Mr. Ortega.”
“What?”
“Are you angry at my mom?”
I looked down at her.
Children asked questions adults spent years avoiding.
“Why would I be angry?”
“Because she lied.”
The honesty of it caught me off guard.
I looked ahead.
“Maybe.”
Sofia lowered her eyes.
“She said she lied because she was scared.”
I did not answer immediately.
Because I knew something about fear.
Fear could make people betray others.
Fear could make good people make terrible decisions.
Fear could also reveal what someone truly cared about.
“What was she afraid of?” I asked.
Sofia was quiet for a long time.
Then she whispered.
“Losing me.”
The answer stayed with me.
When we reached the vehicles, my driver opened the rear door immediately.
The rain had stopped, but the air felt heavier.
We placed Isabella inside.
May you like
One of my men handed her a medical kit until emergency services could arrive.
I made one call.
