The villa was peaceful—on the surface. But inside, the air was heavy with unsaid words and uncertain trust.
Amara cooked in silence. Emma worked late into the night, eyes glued to her laptop. Santiago did his best to keep things normal for Israel, reading her stories at bedtime, laughing even when his heart felt like it was splitting in two.
One evening, as a storm raged outside, Emma and Amara crossed paths in the kitchen.
"You love him?" Amara asked, her voice low, but firm.
Emma froze. "I respect him. I trust him with my life. But… I would never cross that line."
Amara held her gaze for a moment, then nodded once. "Good. Because I've given too much to lose him now."
That night, Santiago found the two women in the same room, not talking—but not fighting either. A fragile truce.
Meanwhile, across the ocean...
Lara Santos had just cracked the second layer of encrypted data. What she found made her stomach twist.
A name.
General Ramírez del Valle—a former military intelligence commander turned powerful businessman, hidden behind foundations and international charities. Ismael was nothing but a puppet. The real empire—the real threat—was his.
She ran the connections. Corruption. Arms dealing. Human trafficking. Political influence.
This wasn't just national.
It was global.
Lara sent an encrypted message to the judge:
> "Forget everything you know. We were never fighting a man. We were fighting an empire."
Back at the villa, Santiago woke up to Emma calling his name in a panic. She had been analyzing an old audio file from the recovered archives.
A deep voice whispered:
"If Santiago García keeps digging… we erase him. Him, the woman. Even the child."
Amara walked in just as the audio ended. Her face turned white.
"No one's touching my family," she said, fierce and certain.
Santiago nodded. "We end this. All of it."
Emma opened the map. "Then we need to go back to the beginning."