Chapter 4 - White Orchids and Old BloodDiego did not take Sofía back to the palace.
He wanted to. She saw it in the first furious glance he gave the street, the crowd, the vanished motorcycle. He wanted walls, gates, guards, cameras, all the expensive defenses men like him used when the world became inconvenient.
But Sofía refused before he could suggest it.
“No palace,” she said.
They stood behind the Prado, hidden in a narrow service lane while Mateo called a friend still working in the police department. Carmen leaned against the brick wall, one hand pressed to her chest. The orchids lay inside a clear evidence bag Mateo had produced from his coat with the weary competence of a man who had seen too much.
Diego’s jaw flexed. “My security office is secure.”
“Your palace is where Lucía died,” Sofía said.
The words struck him harder than she intended.
For a moment, his eyes went empty.
Then he nodded once. “You’re right.”
That unsettled her more than if he had argued.
Men in power often apologized when cameras were near. Diego listened when no one would reward him for it.
Mateo ended his call and approached them.
“No official report yet,” he said. “Not unless you want every tabloid in Madrid quoting police sources by dinner.”
Diego looked at him. “And unofficially?”
“Unofficially, someone wanted to scare her.” Mateo nodded toward Sofía. “Not kill her. Not today. The message was theatrical.”
Carmen laughed bitterly. “Theatrical people still bury bodies.”
Mateo’s eyes softened. “I remember you, Carmen.”
She looked away.
Sofía noticed. “From when?”
Mateo hesitated.
Diego answered. “Lucía’s case.”
The word case made Sofía feel cold.
Until that morning, Lucía had been a story. A tragic name attached to white orchids and Diego’s grief. Now she was a case. A file. A body. A warning.
Mateo rubbed his jaw. “I was young then. Not important enough to change anything. Old enough to know when evidence disappeared.”
Diego turned sharply. “What evidence?”
“A traffic camera near the east gate failed that night. The guard log was rewritten. A mechanic who serviced one of the Mendoza cars left Madrid two days later. Nobody asked why because nobody wanted the answer.”
Diego’s face had gone pale beneath his composure.
“My father handled the investigation.”
“Yes,” Mateo said.
A silence fell.
Sofía knew Diego’s father had died years ago. Heart attack, according to newspapers. A titan gone too soon. Portraits of him still hung in financial magazines, stern and brilliant, the architect of the Mendoza fortune.
But the way Diego looked now made Sofía realize something terrible.
A dead father could still betray a son.
Carmen reached for Sofía’s hand. “This is why I said no.”
Sofía understood.
She truly did.
One dance had pulled them into a grave that powerful people had spent seventeen years covering with marble.
Diego looked at Carmen. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
Carmen’s eyes flashed. “You were a boy surrounded by wolves. What would you have done? Cried at them?”
He flinched.
Carmen’s anger broke then, revealing exhaustion beneath it. “I wanted to. God knows I wanted to. But I had a daughter. Men followed us. My husband was threatened. Lucía was already dead. I chose the living child.”
Sofía squeezed her mother’s hand.
Diego lowered his gaze.
“You were right,” he said quietly.
It was the first time Sofía saw Carmen truly surprised by him.
They moved to a small café two blocks away where the owner owed Mateo a favor and gave them a private back room. The room smelled of garlic, coffee, and old wood. Sofía sat beside Carmen while Diego stood near the window, speaking in a low voice to someone on his phone.
“No,” he said. “Not Isabel. Not yet. Pull the archives from 2009. Internal security. Gate logs. Staff files. Flower room invoices. Anything with Lucía Ortega’s name.”
He paused.
“I don’t care who signed the restriction. Break it.”
He ended the call.
Sofía watched him. “Do you always solve grief by giving orders?”
His mouth tightened.
“No. Usually I solve it by pretending not to have any.”
The honesty disarmed her.
Carmen studied him. “Who sent the orchids?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
Diego looked out the window.
“My aunt would use silence, not theater. Valentina would use humiliation, not Lucía. Alonso Vega would use anything if it damaged me.”
“Alonso Vega?” Sofía asked.
“Business rival. Family friend when it benefits him. Enemy when no one is listening.”
Mateo leaned forward. “Was he connected to the family back then?”
Diego nodded slowly. “His father and mine were negotiating a logistics deal the year Lucía died.”
Carmen’s face changed.
“What?” Sofía asked.
Carmen swallowed. “The car I saw leaving the gate. It had a hood ornament. Not Mendoza.”
Diego went still.
“What kind?”
“A silver falcon.”
Mateo cursed under his breath.
Diego closed his eyes.
Sofía looked between them. “What does that mean?”
Diego opened his eyes, and they were no longer just gray. They were storm before impact.
“The Vega family crest is a falcon.”
By evening, the scandal had grown teeth.
A video of the orchid attack leaked online. The clip was shaky, dramatic, perfectly framed for outrage. Diego pulling Sofía behind him. Carmen screaming. The white orchids on the pavement.
Comments exploded.
This is not romance anymore. This is a thriller.
Who is Lucía?
Why does everyone rich in Spain look terrified?
Someone knows something.
At eight that night, Sofía stood in her apartment while Carmen packed a bag with shaking hands.
“We’re staying with my cousin,” Carmen said.
“We can’t run forever.”
“We can run tonight.”
A knock sounded.
Carmen froze.
Sofía approached carefully. “Who is it?”
“Diego.”
She opened the door with the chain in place.
He stood in the hallway holding a small black folder.
His tie was gone. His hair looked as if he had run his hands through it too many times. Behind him stood a female security officer in plain clothes.
“I found something,” he said.
Sofía did not move.
Diego slid a photograph through the gap in the door.
It was old, slightly blurred, taken in the service garden of the Crystal Palace. A young Diego stood beneath a tree, laughing in a way Sofía had never seen him laugh. Beside him stood Lucía Ortega, dark-haired, bright-eyed, holding white orchids.
Behind them, half-hidden in the reflection of a window, was another figure.
Carmen gasped.
Sofía turned the photograph toward the light.
The reflected figure was Doña Isabel.
And in her hand was what looked like a torn letter.
Diego’s voice was low.
“My aunt told me she never met Lucía.”
Carmen crossed herself.
Sofía looked at Diego through the chained doorway.
“What was in the letter?”
May you like
Diego’s face turned colder than the palace marble.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “But my father locked it in the family archive the morning after Lucía died.”
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