Chapter 5 - THE FATHER I HAD WORSHIPED
I spent most of my life believing my father was a hard man.
Not a cruel one.
There was a distinction in families like mine.
Eduardo Romero built an empire from construction, shipping, hotels, and political favors nobody discussed at breakfast.
He loved me in the language he understood.
Expectations.
Responsibility.
Power.
When I was sixteen, he told me:
A Romero does not ask whether the world is fair. He asks what he can control.
For years, I thought that was wisdom.
Now Carlos was telling me my father ordered my death.
“Explain.”
Carlos looked sick.
“Your father did not want you killed originally.”
“Interesting defense.”
“He wanted you frightened.”
“By sabotaging my car?”
“A controlled crash.”
I laughed.
There is no such thing.
Carlos knew that too.
“Why?”
“You were planning to sell the port businesses.”
“Yes.”
“Your father used those companies for things you didn’t know about.”
Smuggling.
Bribery.
Cash movement.
The darker side of Romero Holdings.
I had discovered enough to know I wanted out.
My father refused.
“We argued,” I said.
“Everyone knew.”
“He died a year later.”
“Cancer.”
“Yes.”
“So he ordered the crash?”
“He ordered Rafael to scare you.”
My hands tightened around the chair arms.
“And Rafael?”
“Made sure it would do more.”
I understood.
My father wanted intimidation.
My uncle saw opportunity.
“If I died, Rafael inherited control.”
“Yes.”
“If I survived disabled…”
“He became operational chairman anyway.”
For five years.
I looked down at my legs.
“He paid Serrano.”
Carlos nodded.
“To tell me I would never recover.”
“Yes.”
“To leave the hardware in?”
“I think so.”
“What does think mean?”
“I handled money, not medicine.”
“And Javier?”
“He found the original work order.”
“What work order?”
“The one Rafael gave the garage.”
Carlos swallowed.
“Damage the brake pressure line. Make it look like wear.”
My body went cold.
“Javier copied it.”
“So Rafael made him disappear.”
“Eventually.”
“Where?”
“An old agricultural property outside Lleida.”
Tomás stood beside Diego.
His eyes filled.
“Is he still there?”
“I don’t know.”
We left within the hour.
Not alone.
Spanish police took the lead after Carlos provided a statement.
For once, I followed.
The property was abandoned.
Or looked abandoned.
An old farmhouse.
Collapsed barn.
Dry fields.
Inside one locked storage building, police found a mattress.
Food cans.
Medication.
Recent.
Then a wall covered in marks.
Days.
Hundreds of them.
Tomás found the photograph first.
He screamed.
“Dad!”
Javier stood in the image with all three children.
Lucía as a baby.
Nico missing two front teeth.
Tomás smiling like a child instead of a guard dog.
The photograph sat beside a note.
IF THE CHILDREN COME, TELL THEM I NEVER LEFT.
Tomás broke.
He dropped to the floor.
I had never seen a nine-year-old cry like that.
Not loudly.
Like someone whose body had been holding back two years of grief and finally lost the strength.
María wrapped him in her arms.
Nico joined.
Lucía looked confused.
“Is Daddy here?”
No one answered immediately.
I hated that.
Children deserved answers.
Even painful ones.
“We think he was,” I said.
“Where now?”
“I don’t know.”
She touched my hand.
“Find him.”
Two words.
Not please.
Not a request.
Faith again.
Only this time she was giving it to me.
Police searched the property.
Behind the barn, they found tire tracks less than two weeks old.
Someone had moved Javier recently.
Because Lucía appeared in my restaurant?
Because Carlos fled?
Because I reopened everything?
Then Diego found a hidden floor compartment.
Inside:
The original sabotage order.
Rafael’s signature.
My father’s authorization initials.
Payments to Carlos.
Payments to Serrano.
And a video file.
My father.
Recorded months before he died.
Older than I remembered.
Thinner.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Alejandro.”
My throat tightened.
“If you are seeing this, then Javier Morales refused to destroy the documents.”
A pause.
“I asked Rafael to stop you.”
His voice trembled.
“I told myself fear would make you sensible.”
I looked away.
“But your uncle went farther than I ordered.”
At least he admitted it.
“I learned after your accident that Rafael had altered my instruction.”
My pulse changed.
“He told Serrano to ensure you never returned to full strength.”
María gasped.
My father continued.
“I could have exposed him.”
Silence.
“I didn’t.”
That was his true crime.
Not the first order.
The choice afterward.
“I was dying. The company was unstable. I convinced myself the family could not survive another scandal.”
His eyes looked older.
“I protected the name instead of my son.”
I could barely breathe.
“I am sorry.”
The screen went dark.
No explanation could give me five years back.
No apology could return the nights I sat in darkness believing my body had become my prison.
My father had known.
He had protected Rafael.
The man I worshiped had chosen the Romero name over me.
Tomás whispered:
“Adults are terrible.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
María did too.
Even Diego smiled.
“You’re not wrong,” I said.
Police traced the farmhouse utilities.
A payment had been made two weeks earlier from a company owned by Rafael.
Another property.
Near Zaragoza.
By midnight, officers surrounded it.
At 1:12 a.m., Diego called.
“They found him.”
I gripped the phone.
“Javier?”
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
A pause.
Then:
“Alive.”
I looked toward the children sleeping together in the mansion guest room.
My chest tightened.
“And Rafael?”
“Gone.”
Of course.
“He left Spain this afternoon.”
“Where?”
“Private jet filed for Morocco.”
Rafael was running.
But for the first time, I did not care.
Not yet.
Because three children who had spent eighteen months believing their father abandoned them were about to learn he had been trying to survive long enough to come home.
And the next morning, Javier Morales walked through my mansion doors.
Lucía saw him first.
“Daddy?”
He dropped to his knees.
She ran.
Tomás tried not to.
Failed.
Nico reached him next.
The four of them collapsed together.
I watched from my wheelchair.
And for the first time in five years, I understood that standing was not the only way a man could return to life.
But my surgery was three days away.
And this time—
May you like
I intended to try.
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