Chapter 10 - HER FATHER’S OLD SIN
Elena searched her father’s home office while he attended a board meeting.
She hated herself for doing it.
Don Roberto had protected her all her life. After Elena’s mother died, he learned to braid his daughter’s hair from a book. He attended school plays in expensive suits and cried louder than anyone at her graduation.
Yet Victoria’s file suggested he had once made an agreement with the Varelas.
Elena found nothing in his safe.
Then she remembered the wooden box her mother had kept beneath old family photographs.
Inside was a yellowed contract dated twenty-eight years earlier.
Don Roberto had borrowed money from Alejandro’s father to save his first hotel from foreclosure.
The loan was legal.
The final page was not.
It gave the Varela family a private option to purchase a controlling share of Marquez Holdings if Don Roberto failed to repay within five years.
The contract appeared to show that he had missed the deadline.
Elena’s heart sank.
If enforceable, the Varelas could claim they had owned part of the Marquez empire for decades.
Don Roberto entered while she was reading.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then he closed the door.
“I hoped you would never see that.”
“Is it real?”
“The loan was real. That page was not.”
He explained that Alejandro’s father had tried to add the purchase option after the contract was signed. Don Roberto refused. Months later, a copy appeared with his initials forged beside the new language.
He had fought privately but never publicly.
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“Because Victoria’s husband threatened your mother.”
Elena went still.
Her mother had been pregnant at the time.
Don Roberto paid the debt early and kept proof, but he avoided a public battle to protect his family. After Alejandro’s father died, Victoria promised the forged page had been destroyed.
She had lied.
“Why did you trust them again?” Elena asked.
“I did not trust Victoria. I trusted you when you said you loved her son.”
The pain in his voice broke her.
Elena nearly told him everything.
Then his phone rang.
Gabriel was calling.
Don Roberto answered on speaker.
“Roberto, we have a problem,” Gabriel said. “Someone is investigating the Varela loans.”
Elena and her father stared at each other.
Gabriel continued.
“I think Elena may be involved.”
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The betrayal had reached them sooner than expected.
👉 Don Roberto finally knew someone was hunting his daughter—but before Elena could reveal the truth, Gabriel warned Alejandro that their frightened bride had been gathering evidence.
