The heat in Monterrey was different. Dry, biting, full of memory. As Valentina stepped out of the blacked-out SUV onto the dusty ground near the edge of the Sierra Madre, her pulse drummed like war drums in her ears.
Mateo stood beside her, scanning the landscape with the instincts of a man who had buried both bodies and truths here. "You sure about this?" he muttered.
Valentina didn't answer. She clutched the key her father left behind like it was a holy relic.
The entrance to the vault was hidden inside a crumbling warehouse that once served as a tequila distillery. Inside, the air was thick with mildew and the ghosts of a forgotten empire. Behind a false wall, Valentina found it: a reinforced door with an ancient lock that matched her key perfectly.
Click.
The vault swung open.
What lay inside wasn't gold or guns.
It was a throne of paper.
The Contents
Stacks of ledgers. Polaroids. Tapes. Blackmail material on nearly every political figure, police general, and rival cartel boss in Mexico.
At the center, a handwritten journal with the initials R.V.—Rafael Veracruz.
Mateo whistled low. "This isn't leverage. This is nuclear."
Valentina read aloud from a journal entry:
"I knew Xavier would betray me. He believes in thrones built on fear. But fear is sand. Sooner or later, the tide comes in. If you're reading this, mi hija, then you survived. I pray you use what I couldn't—to end him, or to build something better."
Her throat tightened.
He hadn't just left her weapons. He left her a choice.
Meanwhile… at the Herrera Estate
Sofia stared down her father across a dinner table set like a feast for kings. Except tonight, the knives weren't for meat.
"You lied to me," she said.
Xavier raised a brow, the candlelight catching the sharp planes of his face. "About what, hija?"
She tossed the photo on the table.
"You said my mother was your only wife. You said I had no siblings. So who is she?"
Xavier didn't flinch. "A mistake. One I thought was buried."
Sofia stood slowly. "She's not buried. She's building an empire. And she's coming."
Xavier's eyes darkened like a storm on the horizon.
"Then let her come," he said coldly. "But she better bring more than old blood and borrowed soldiers."
Later That Night
Valentina sat alone in the vault, surrounded by ghosts and empires built from shadows. Her fingers brushed over the photos of men who'd killed for power, died for silence, and smiled while selling death.
And in the middle of it all—her father's voice in her head:
"What you build must be stronger than what I destroyed."
Final Scene
Back at her base in Cancún, Valentina laid out her father's files like war maps.
She circled names. Drew arrows. Whispered vows.
"La Reina Escarlata," Lucia said from the doorway, arms crossed. "What now?"
Valentina's eyes gleamed gold in the lamplight.
"Now," she said, "we dethrone a king."