Chapter 7 - MY BROTHER HAD LOST FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS
Daniel arrived at the hospital furious.
Not at Marcus.
At himself.
“I should’ve called you.”
“Yes.”
He flinched.
Lucia did not soften it.
“What exactly did Marcus tell you?”
“That you thought the building was undervalued.”
“I never saw it.”
“He said your hospital network would need expansion space.”
“I never said that.”
Daniel sat down.
Marcus had shown him projections.
Occupancy estimates.
Potential physician tenants.
A spreadsheet with a header:
HERRERA EXPANSION PIPELINE.
Lucia had never created it.
But the language resembled her reports.
Someone had copied terminology from her hospital planning documents.
“Did Marcus create this?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Teresa sent it.”
Lucia looked up.
Of course.
Teresa had been a real-estate broker for twenty-five years.
She understood presentations.
Numbers.
How to make speculation look like opportunity.
Then Daniel whispered:
“I mortgaged the lake house.”
Lucia’s stomach tightened.
Their parents’ old lake house.
The one Daniel inherited.
“How much?”
“Three hundred thousand.”
Now the failed project was threatening another family property.
Lucia wanted to scream.
Instead, she asked for documents.
Facts first.
The accounting revealed something worse.
Daniel’s $400,000 had entered Salgado Development Partners.
But only $250,000 reached the West Loop project.
$150,000 went to:
TS Family Management.
Teresa.
Again.
Daniel went pale.
“What did she do?”
Teresa claimed it was an acquisition fee.
No written agreement supported that amount.
Then another expense:
$95,000.
“Executive placement and tenant relations.”
Paid to Marcus personally.
Lucia stared.
Her husband had paid himself from her brother’s investment while telling everyone the project needed liquidity.
By evening, Daniel’s anger turned cold.
“I want out.”
Lucia’s attorney warned him not to act impulsively.
Good.
They would unwind whatever could legally be unwound.
No midnight revenge.
No secret seizures.
Then Valeria requested another conversation.
This time she asked for Lucia and Daniel.
“I saw one of those presentations,” she said.
Marcus once left it inside her apartment.
She remembered one line:
ANCHOR TENANT — HERRERA CARDIOTHORACIC GROUP.
Lucia did not own a cardiothoracic group.
She was employed by the hospital.
Marcus had represented an organization that did not exist.
Then Valeria whispered:
“There was a signature.”
Lucia’s stomach tightened.
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
May you like
The project files contained a letter of intent bearing Lucia’s name.
And she had never signed it.
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