Chapter 4 - The Husband’s Desperate Treason

By 2:00 AM, the atmosphere in the private interrogation suites of the Federal Judicial Complex was as cold as a morgue.
Sebastián Valdivia sat alone at a bolted metal table, his jacket discarded, his forehead resting against the cold steel surface. The arrogance of the high-society playboy had evaporated, replaced by the shivering terror of a man who realized the guillotine of justice was falling.
The heavy steel door buzzed and swung open. Gabriel Mendoza walked in, carrying a thick leather folio. He did not sit. He stood towering over the table, his presence suffocating the small room.
"Gabriel... please," Sebastián choked out, lifting his bloodshot eyes. "You have to listen to me! I swear on my life, I never put a single grain of poison in Lucía’s tea! It was all my mother! She dominated the household! She threatened to disinherit me if I interfered!"
Gabriel opened the folio and tossed a stack of documents onto the metal table with a sharp, resonant slap.
"Is this your mother's handwriting, Sebastián?" Gabriel asked, pointing to a document at the top of the pile.
Sebastián squinted through his tears. It was a secondary life insurance policy on Lucía Mendoza-Valdivia, valued at five million dollars, containing a double-indemnity clause for accidental death by natural organ failure.
The signature of the primary policyholder was Lucía's—or rather, a crude, forged replication of her signature, notarized by a disbarred attorney in Sebastián’s private employ.
"You took out a five-million-dollar death policy on my sister three months after your wedding," Gabriel said, his voice dropping into a register of lethal quietness. "And beneath that policy is a power-of-attorney assignment transferring all of Lucía’s shares in the Mendoza Copper Syndicate directly to your personal offshore account upon her death."
Sebastián began to weep hysterically, the tears dripping onto the forged contracts. "I had debts, Gabriel! The loan sharks were going to break my legs! They were threatening to come to the mansion! My mother said Lucía would never notice a small restructuring of the estate!"
"Lucía gave you everything," Gabriel replied, each word hitting Sebastián like a physical blow. "She paid for your sports cars. She cleared your family's mortgage on the Valdivia vineyards. She loved you with a pure, innocent heart. And you stood beside her bed every night, watching her body waste away, counting the days until you could collect her blood money."
"I will testify against my mother!" Sebastián pleaded frantically, grabbing the edge of Gabriel's sleeve with trembling fingers. "I will sign a full confession! I will give you the location of her offshore accounts in Panama, her hidden safe in the coastal villa, everything! Just ask the prosecutor not to seek the maximum life sentence!"
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Gabriel pulled his arm back with utter revulsion, brushing his sleeve as though it had been touched by vermin.
"You will give the prosecutor everything, Sebastián," Gabriel said coldly. "Not because you will receive mercy, but because a coward always turns on his own pack when the cage door slams shut."