“This is your last act as a father.”

“To leave them with nothing?” he asked, his eyes wet.

“To leave them with me,” I said.

“To let them grow up without your name dragged through the mud.”

He looked at the signature line.

His hand shook so hard the nib scratched against the thick paper without making a mark.

“I will not see them again,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“You will not.”

The door opened wider.

Two men in dark suits stood in the frame.

One of them held a badge.

“Alvaro Montero?” the first man asked.

Alvaro did not look at him.

He pressed the pen down.

He signed his name on the first document.

He turned the page and signed the second.

His signature was jagged, unlike the smooth script he used on corporate deeds.

I pulled the blue folder toward myself before the ink was dry.

I closed the cover.

“He is all yours,” I told the officer.

The lead investigator, a man named Inspector Gallego, stepped into the room.

He smelled of wet wool and cheap coffee.