Chapter 3 - THE DOCTOR WHO DISAPPEARED
By sunrise, nobody in Mateo Vargas's house trusted anybody.
Mateo had ordered the estate sealed.
Phones were collected from most staff.
Security credentials were changed.
Hector Salazar—the attorney who had worked for the Vargas family for nearly thirty years—was not called.
That alone felt like an accusation.
I sat at the kitchen island wearing clothes somebody had bought for me overnight.
The shirt fit.
The shoes fit.
Nothing else did.
Julian stood across the room drinking coffee.
He kept glancing at me.
I ignored him.
Mateo entered with Rafael.
“We found Dr. Arturo Salazar.”
I looked up.
“Arturo?”
“Hector's older brother,” Rafael said.
“The man in the photo?”
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
Mateo hesitated.
“Officially, no.”
I hated that word now.
Officially.
Officially my mother died in childbirth.
Officially I died as an infant.
Officially my father died in a car fire.
Officially Esperanza's heart stopped.
Every official story in my life seemed to mean somebody powerful had lied.
“What happened to him?”
“Arturo Salazar disappeared eleven years ago,” Mateo said. “His medical license was voluntarily surrendered.”
“Body?”
“No.”
Julian laughed bitterly.
“Another dead man without a body.”
Mateo ignored him.
“We found a property purchased under his wife's maiden name in New Mexico.”
“You think he's there?”
“Maybe.”
I stood.
“I'm going.”
“No.”
Mateo and Julian said it at the same time.
I stared at both of them.
“Interesting.”
Julian sighed.
“Aurelio—”
“If everyone who stays behind ends up murdered, maybe staying behind isn't safer.”
Neither answered.
Mateo eventually agreed I could travel only if I remained with Rafael and a protection team.
Julian came too.
We flew in a private plane.
I'd never flown before.
I tried not to look impressed.
Julian sat across from me.
For an hour, neither of us spoke.
Then he placed something on the table.
A small green toy truck.
The paint was chipped.
I recognized it.
My chest tightened.
“I had one like that.”
“It was yours.”
I looked at him.
“How?”
“When you were two, Esperanza sent me a photograph of you holding it.”
“You kept it?”
“She mailed it to a storage address after it broke. She thought I might want something you'd touched.”
I picked it up.
“You've carried this for ten years?”
“Yes.”
I didn't forgive him.
But anger became harder to hold perfectly.
The New Mexico property sat outside a small desert town.
One-story house.
Faded yellow siding.
Dry wind.
No cars.
Mateo's men checked first.
Then Rafael signaled.
Inside, the rooms were almost empty.
In the back bedroom they found medical textbooks, old newspapers, and dozens of folders.
One wall was covered with photographs.
Vargas family members.
Gabriel.
Mateo.
Julian.
Me.
Pictures of me walking to school.
Pictures of Esperanza shopping.
Pictures taken years apart.
Someone had been watching us.
Julian turned pale.
“He knew where Aurelio was.”
Rafael stared.
“If Arturo knew…”
“Then why didn't they kill me?”
Nobody answered.
I walked toward a desk.
Inside was a cassette recorder.
Beside it, tapes labeled with dates.
One had my birthday.
Mateo found an old player in the closet.
We listened.
A man's voice filled the room.
“My name is Dr. Arturo Salazar. If this recording is being heard, then I have likely failed to correct what I helped create.”
My skin prickled.
“I was employed as private physician to the Vargas family from 1991 until 2015. After Gabriel Vargas died, his father became obsessed with preventing another war over succession.”
Julian's jaw tightened.
“On the night Elena Mendoza delivered Aurelio, I was instructed to administer a sedative to her and to certify her death if complications arose.”
I stopped breathing.
“Ordered by whom?” Julian whispered.
The recording continued.
“At first I believed the intention was to move Elena and the infant secretly.”
Arturo coughed.
“I was wrong.”
A long silence.
“Hector came to the hospital.”
Mateo's expression changed.
“My brother informed me that Elena could not be allowed to leave alive.”
Julian shut his eyes.
My stomach twisted.
“She knew Julian had survived an attack days earlier. She knew Gabriel's son had produced an heir. She intended to contact federal authorities and use Aurelio's existence as leverage to get out.”
I stared at Julian.
He looked devastated.
“I refused to kill her.”
The tape hissed.
“Someone else entered after I left.”
Julian whispered, “The man I fought.”
Arturo continued.
“I later discovered Elena had been injected with potassium chloride through her IV line.”
Rafael swore softly.
“Her death was made to resemble cardiac failure after hemorrhage.”
I couldn't hear anything for several seconds.
My mother had not simply been killed.
Her murder had been planned around the fact that she had just given birth.
Around me.
Julian sat down.
He covered his face.
The recording wasn't finished.
“I told Hector I would expose him.”
Arturo's breathing became uneven.
“He reminded me my wife was pregnant.”
Mateo looked at Rafael.
“I obeyed.”
Arturo's voice cracked.
“I helped falsify the infant's death certificate.”
That surprised everyone.
“What?” I whispered.
“I believed the child had been killed. Esperanza later contacted me and revealed Aurelio survived.”
Julian looked up sharply.
“She told him?”
“She needed the fake documents,” Rafael said.
Arturo continued.
“She asked for my help creating a medical trail proving a different infant was Aurelio Mendoza. I helped her.”
I stared at the wall of photographs.
“Then why was he watching me?”
As if answering, Arturo's recording continued.
“For twelve years, I have watched Aurelio from a distance. Not for Hector.”
A pause.
“For protection.”
I stepped closer to the recorder.
“Hector eventually learned someone had falsified the original hospital file, but he did not know where Aurelio was.”
Mateo frowned.
“Then how did Arturo know?”
Julian answered.
“Esperanza trusted him.”
The tape clicked.
Another voice suddenly spoke.
A woman.
“Arturo?”
The recording had captured a conversation.
“Hector called again.”
“What does he want?”
“He says the Vargas succession document is missing.”
My heart pounded.
The woman replied.
“Esperanza?”
“I think she has it.”
Arturo cursed.
“If Hector finds that document and the boy…”
The recording ended.
Mateo immediately searched the folders.
No succession document.
Julian started tearing through drawers.
Then Rafael noticed something.
“The floor.”
One wooden board under the desk sat slightly higher than the others.
They lifted it.
A metal box lay beneath.
Inside were photographs, an old passport, and a stack of letters.
No succession document.
But there was something stranger.
A laboratory report.
PATERNITY ANALYSIS.
Subject A: Julian Gabriel Vargas.
Subject B: Aurelio Mendoza.
Probability of paternity: 99.998%.
I stared.
So Julian truly was my father.
He looked at me.
Neither of us spoke.
Then Mateo picked up another test.
His face changed.
“What?”
He handed it to Rafael.
Rafael read.
Then looked at Julian.
“This can't be right.”
“What?”
Mateo took the paper back.
The second test was older.
Twenty-one years old.
PATERNITY ANALYSIS.
Subject A: Gabriel Vargas.
Subject B: Julian Vargas.
Probability of paternity: 0.00%.
Julian stared at it.
“What?”
Mateo's face went pale.
Julian snatched the paper.
“My father was Gabriel.”
“Apparently not biologically,” Rafael said.
Julian looked furious.
“This is fake.”
Mateo found another page.
A handwritten note by Arturo.
Gabriel knew.
Mateo read aloud.
“Gabriel discovered Julian was not his biological son when Julian was six years old.”
Julian's hands shook.
“No.”
“He raised him anyway,” I whispered.
Nobody looked at me.
Another line.
Gabriel refused to reveal the truth because he loved Julian as his son.
My throat tightened.
The story felt strangely familiar.
Mateo continued reading.
The biological father was believed to be—
He stopped.
Julian stared.
“Who?”
Mateo looked toward Rafael.
Rafael went white.
“Who?” Julian demanded.
Mateo finally finished.
“Esteban Vargas.”
His uncle.
Gabriel's younger brother.
Silence exploded through the room.
Julian staggered backward.
“No.”
Esteban wasn't merely Mateo's uncle.
He had also been one of the old council members who took power after Gabriel died.
If the report was real, he had secretly fathered Julian with Gabriel's wife.
Which meant the entire bloodline was different from what anyone believed.
Then I noticed one last envelope.
It had Esperanza's handwriting.
Mateo opened it carefully.
Inside was a letter addressed to Arturo.
If anything happens to me, do not let Hector tell Aurelio that inheritance is why Elena died.
That is only half the truth.
The boy must eventually know why Esteban feared Elena more than Julian.
Mateo looked up.
“More than Julian?”
Julian grabbed the letter.
Below was one final sentence.
Elena discovered what happened to Gabriel.
Julian stopped breathing.
Mateo's face changed completely.
Gabriel Vargas hadn't simply died in a gang war.
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According to Esperanza, someone inside his own family had arranged it.
And Elena had learned who.
