“Who could that be at this hour?” Lucía whispered.

The blue light of the laptop screen cast a cold glow across her pale face.

“The press,” I said. “Or the police.”

I walked over to the tall windows that overlooked the Calle de Balmes.

Rain had started to fall, slicking the black asphalt below.

Two men in dark overcoats stood on the pavement, holding large cameras with telephoto lenses.

They were looking up at our floor.

The buzzer rang again, three short, aggressive bursts.

“They found us,” Lucía said, her voice shaking. “How did they find this place?”

“Alvaro bought this apartment through an offshore shell company,” I said. “It took them exactly four hours to trace the registration.”

I sat back down at the marble kitchen island.

My phone vibrated against the stone.

It was an alert from the Madrid financial news.

The headline was bold, black, and unmistakable.

*Horizonte Capital Suspends Trading Amid Fraud Investigation.*

The stock had dropped forty-two percent before the regulators stepped in to halt the bleeding.

Lucía stared at the screen of my phone.

“Forty-two percent,” she murmured. “That is billions of euros.”