Chapter 12 - A Father’s Ghost
The library fell into a stunned, suffocating silence.
Clara stood frozen, her eyes wide, tears pooling rapidly along her lower lids. "You... you said he was dead. I thought they killed him eight months ago!"
Mateo looked at Virgilio, then back at Clara. "Morales kept him alive in an underground cell near the border. He was keeping him as a contingency in case the keys to the ledger couldn't be decrypted. Morales sent a live video timestamped an hour ago."
Mateo handed the tablet to Virgilio.
On the screen was an emaciated, gray-haired man sitting on a concrete floor in chains. His face was weathered and bruised, but there was no mistaking the features: Diego Reyes. In the video, the old man looked into the lens and wept:
*"Clara... my little girl... if you hear this, do not come. Keep running. Morales will kill us both..."*
Clara broke down completely, dropping to her knees by the fireplace, burying her face into her hands as violent sobs wracked her body.
Virgilio rose from the sofa instantly. Ignoring the throb of his stitched arm, he crossed the rug, knelt beside her, and pulled her trembling form against his chest.
"He's alive, Virgilio," she wept against his collarbone. "They're torturing him... he's starving... and it's all because he tried to protect me!"
"Look at me, Clara," Virgilio commanded softly, using his hands to cup her tear-streaked face. His dark eyes were burning with an intensity she had never seen before. "Listen to my voice."
Clara looked into his eyes, her breath catching in ragged hitches.
"I will bring your father back," Virgilio swore, each word carved from pure granite. "Do you hear me? I will bring him out of that border hell, and I will place him right here in this room."
"Morales wants an exchange," she whispered in despair. "He wants me. He won't let my father go unless I walk into his hands."
"You are not walking into anything," Virgilio said firmly. "Morales thinks he’s setting a trap at an abandoned rail yard. He thinks he’s luring a businessman into a slaughterhouse. He has forgotten that before I built El Puente, I fought three cartel wars on that very dirt."
Virgilio looked up at Mateo.
"Call Dante. Call Leo. Call every heavy gun we have in the northern territory. I want forty men, military-grade ordnance, and sniper teams on the perimeter roofs by 22:00 tomorrow."
Mateo’s eyes lit with lethal pride. "And the girl, boss?"
Virgilio looked back down at Clara, his thumb gently wiping away a tear from her cheek.
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"She stays in the armored command van behind our lines," Virgilio decided. "She will watch the man who terrorized her father kneel in the mud."
***