My phone buzzed on the desk.

It was an alert from a major Madrid business daily.

*Alvaro Montero Ousted as CEO of Horizonte Capital.*

The board had voted nine to two to strip him of his executive powers.

I closed my eyes and took a slow breath.

The silence of the old house seemed to deepen around me.

For ten years, Alvaro’s identity had been entirely bound to that title.

Without Horizonte, he was simply a man with a mounting pile of legal liabilities.

I stood up, walked to the kitchen, and made a pot of black coffee.

My hands were steady, but my mind was calculating his next move.

Alvaro was not a man who accepted defeat in silence.

He would look for the source of the leak, and he would quickly realize Matthew could not have acted alone.

He would look for me.

The landline phone on the kitchen wall rang, its shrill bell echoing in the high-ceilinged room.

I let it ring five times before I picked up the receiver.

“Yes?” I said.

“Ines,” Alvaro’s voice was low, strained, and dangerously quiet.