Chapter 2 - The Shadows of Madrid
The penthouse in Madrid overlooked the Paseo de la Castellana, its sleek, minimalist glass architecture offering a panorama of city lights that usually energized me. Tonight, the city felt distant, like a movie playing behind a glass wall while a fire burned inside the room.
Isabella was asleep in the guest suite, wrapped in a heavy silk duvet. It had taken two hours of quiet coaxing, warm water, and gentle ointment on her hands to get her to relax. She hadn't cried once. That quiet endurance was a ghost that haunted every corner of my mind.
My phone buzzed on the granite kitchen island. It was Beatriz. Ten missed calls. Five text messages ranging from theatrical apologies to outright threats.
“Julian, don’t do something stupid. Call me.”
“You are making a public fool of yourself over a child’s temper tantrum.”
“If you don't return by tomorrow morning, I’m calling my father’s lawyers. You won’t see a cent of the joint accounts.”
I let out a cold, humorless chuckle. Joint accounts. She still believed our marriage was governed by her family’s leverage. She didn't realize that three months ago, while restructuring my corporate holdings into an independent trust, I had legally partitioned every residential asset under my own name. Beatriz didn't control the accounts; she received an allowance. And as of tonight, that allowance was frozen.
I tapped the screen and dialed a number I hadn't used for personal matters in five years.
"Julian?" A sharp, professional voice answered on the second ring. Marcus Vance, senior partner at Vance & Associates, the most ruthless corporate and family litigation firm in Spain. "It’s past midnight. Is everything all right with the Dubai expansion?"
"The Dubai project is finished, Marcus. I need you for a different kind of restructuring."
"Name it."
"I want a complete asset freeze on my wife, Beatriz de la Vega. I want a formal separation filed by nine o'clock tomorrow morning, citing psychological cruelty and child endangerment. And I want full, exclusive custody of Isabella."
A heavy silence stretched over the line. Marcus knew my history. He knew my marriage had been a high-society arrangement, but he also knew I was a man who rarely moved without absolute certainty.
"Child endangerment is a heavy charge, Julian," Marcus said carefully. "Do you have medical evidence? Witness testimony?"
"I have my daughter's blistered hands," I said, my voice tightening. "I have security footage from the Marbella villa’s rear cameras showing her performing manual labor under duress. And I have audio recordings of Beatriz admitting on the phone that she systematically terrorized an eight-year-old child."
May you like
Marcus let out a low whistle. "Well, that changes things. Consider it done. I'll have the private investigators pull the server logs from the villa before morning. But Julian... Beatriz’s family won't go quietly. Her father has ties to the municipal zoning boards. This could get messy."
"Let them try," I said, gazing out at the Madrid traffic below. "They’re about to find out what happens when you threaten a man who has nothing left to lose."
