The men who came to the funeral escorted me to my parents’ house in the Sarrià district, a large property that Tomás had always envied. While my father was alive, I had never dared to take him there; Richard had preferred to keep his distance from him from the start.
The group leader, Gabriel Knox, handed me a black folder.
“Your father asked us to give you this as soon as he passed away,” he explained.
My heart was pounding. I cautiously opened the file. It contained bank documents, deeds to properties in Barcelona, Málaga and London, as well as a letter in my father’s unmistakable handwriting.
I opened it.
“My dear Alexandra,
I know you doubted your own worth for years because someone awakened it in you. Don’t blame yourself. Predators see kindness as a weakness, and Tomás did from day one. That’s why I hid my fortune to protect you. Now it’s yours. Use it wisely, with dignity… and in freedom.
I had to close my eyes. My father had seen what I didn’t want to admit.
Tomás never loved me. He chose me.
When I got home, Tomás was waiting for me nervously in the living room; he couldn’t hide his despair.
“What’s going on here, Alex? Who are these people?” he asked, raising his voice.
I calmly took off my coat.
“They are part of the team that my father entrusted to me.”
He frowned.
“Under your responsibility? Since when do you have a… ‘team’?” he said, putting quotation marks in the air.
“Since today,” I replied, specifying that the situation had changed.
But Tomás couldn’t bear to lose control.
“You can’t manage an inheritance like that. You don’t have the experience. Let me sort this out,” he said, approaching, trying to appear protective.
“The inheritance is mine,” I replied firmly. “And I don’t need you to worry about anything anymore.”
“What else did the old man leave you?” he murmured through gritted teeth.
I moved closer until I was only about 30 centimeters away from him.
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