Chapter 16 - WHY RICARDO CHOSE THE LIE
Ricardo’s final private journal was found behind a removable panel in his study.
Alejandro almost destroyed it without reading.
Valeria stopped him.
“Dead men don’t get to control evidence.”
So he opened it.
Ricardo had written rarely.
Short entries.
Business problems.
Political meetings.
Family disputes.
Then October 1994 filled fourteen pages.
The first entries were frantic.
The child may not survive.
Beatriz cannot be told in her present condition.
Montalvo is incompetent.
Then the blood results arrived.
Ricardo’s thinking changed.
He wrote about the family trust.
His father had structured Navarro Industrial so that Ricardo’s voting control would eventually pass through his direct descendants.
Without a surviving child, Ricardo’s sister Elena and her family would gain controlling power.
The empire Ricardo had spent twenty years expanding could leave his line.
He wrote:
I will lose my son, my wife, and everything my father entrusted to me in the same week.
Two pages later:
The other child has no father present. The mother is young. There may be a way to preserve what remains.
Alejandro shut the journal.
Valeria said nothing.
He forced himself to continue.
Ricardo had rationalized everything.
Mateo would receive wealth.
Education.
Protection.
A name.
Lucía could eventually have other children.
Beatriz would be spared grief.
The company would remain stable.
Every paragraph transformed theft into mercy.
Every crime became necessity.
Then came one sentence:
A child does not know which life was intended for him. He will love the life he is given.
Alejandro stared at it for a long time.
Ricardo had been right about one thing.
Alejandro had loved his life.
He had loved Beatriz.
Loved his school friends.
Loved the house.
Loved his father.
As a child, he had waited at the window for Ricardo’s car.
At twelve, he had begged to travel with him.
At twenty, he had defended him when journalists called him ruthless.
That was the cruelest discovery.
Ricardo had not been a monster every minute of every day.
He had been a father Alejandro loved.
And he had committed something monstrous.
The last journal entry about Lucía came years later.
Herrera continues searching. Vega says she will not stop.
Then:
Perhaps that is her punishment and mine.
Alejandro closed the journal.
“No.”
Valeria looked at him.
“What?”
“That wasn’t his punishment.”
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He stared at Ricardo’s handwriting.
“His punishment would have been telling the truth.”
