Chapter 18
The air conditioning in the penthouse meeting room of the commercial building in Campo Grande kept the temperature at a surgical, numbing chill.
The floor-to-ceiling glass walls offered a panoramic view of the state capital, but the urban landscape of concrete and asphalt meant absolutely nothing to me.
I sat at the head of the immense black marble table.
I wore an impeccably tailored dark suit, a perfectly aligned tie, and a Swiss watch on my wrist. The image of the billionaire heir was flawless, hiding the dark bruises that still stained my ribs and the healing cuts on my knuckles—a direct inheritance from Nicanor's blood.
The double glass door burst open.
Jurandir Falc?o stormed into the room like a wounded bull, flanked by two of his defense attorneys and Otávio Peixoto. My father's face was red, the veins in his neck bulging, and his jacket suddenly seemed too large for shoulders bearing the weight of imminent ruin.
The last few days had been a media and legal nightmare for the Falc?o family.
The Federal Police had raided the northern retreat and the floating house, arrested Nicanor in a hospital bed, seized entire boxes of forged documents, and I had turned over the ledger Rosário found.
The Mato Grosso do Sul press couldn't stop talking about the search and seizure warrant at our headquarters.
“What the hell are you doing sitting in my chair, Jo?o Bento?!” Jurandir roared, slamming his palm on the marble table, the sound echoing through the empty room.
“The Federal Revenue auditors are blocking the holding's accounts, the shares plummeted fifteen percent at market open, and you call a board meeting without my authorization?!”
I didn't move a single muscle in my face. I kept my hands clasped on the table, watching the man who had terrorized me for thirty years with the cold detachment of someone observing an insect struggling in a spider's web.
“The chair is no longer yours, Jurandir.” My voice came out low and flat, devoid of emotion.
Otávio Peixoto's eyes widened and he took a step back, sensing the lethal shift in the atmosphere. Jurandir let out a rasping, hysterical laugh, glancing at his attorneys before turning to face me with blind fury.
“You've lost your mind. The panic of watching that veterinarian expose the ranch turned you into an imbecile,” Jurandir cursed, unbuttoning his jacket with trembling hands.
“I've already contacted the federal judges on our payroll.
Nicanor will take the blame for the embezzlement as an isolated act.
We're going to sign the merger with Peixoto this afternoon, inject capital from the southern lands, and smother this scandal by the end of the month. You just need to keep quiet and smile for the cameras with Isadora.”
The meeting room door opened again, silent and precise.
Henrique Castillo entered the room with the implacable posture that made him one of the most feared criminal lawyers in the country.
He wasn't carrying a briefcase stuffed with defense motions, but a black leather case that he placed delicately on the marble before sitting in the chair immediately to my right.
My father's attorneys paled the instant they recognized Henrique.
“What is this man doing here?” Jurandir growled, pointing a trembling finger at the newcomer. “This is the vulture from S?o Paulo who's defending the girl! Get this bastard out of my company now, Jo?o Bento!”
“Doctor Henrique doesn't just work for the protection network that took in Rosário, Father. As of this morning, he serves as the new majority legal counsel for Falc?o Holding,” I declared, leaning back in the leather chair.
“Majority counsel? What are you talking about?! I'm the majority shareholder!” My father's shout tore through the room, desperation finally piercing his chronic arrogance.
Henrique opened the leather case. With the precision of a surgeon dissecting a corpse, he laid out three black folders on the table, sliding the first toward Otávio Peixoto, the second to the attorneys, and the last to Jurandir.
“The merger with the Peixoto family is officially canceled,” I announced, locking my eyes on Otávio's.
Isadora's father looked on the verge of a heart attack.
“Otávio, if you sign any paper linking your herd to my family's, your lands will be swept into the federal investigation for money laundering and asset concealment in less than twelve hours. I advise you to walk out that door right now and forget we were ever introduced.”
Otávio Peixoto didn't say a word. He grabbed the folder, looked at the summarized evidence on the first page, went white as a sheet, and walked out, abandoning Jurandir in the room without looking back.
Jurandir gasped, trying to process the betrayal. He looked at his hands, then fixed his eyes on me.
“I'll destroy you,” the old man whispered, his voice trembling with hatred. “I'll remove you from the will. I'll strip your surname and leave you to rot in misery!”
“You have nothing left to take from me,” I replied, leaning forward, resting my forearms on the table, my mask of coldness never wavering for a single second.
“The ledgers from the northern retreat. The original reports signed by Sebasti?o ten years ago. The proof of accounts in tax havens that you used to pay off police and local judges.”
Jurandir swallowed hard. The mention of the original ledgers drained the last drops of blood from his face.
“You thought they were with the Federal Police?” I raised an eyebrow, a cynical, predatory smile curling at the corner of my mouth.
“The auditor found them first, but I was the one who pulled them out of hiding and handed them directly to Henrique. None of your friends in the local court can bury evidence that was filed directly with the attorney general’s office in Brasília. ”
“You turned in your own blood to the police, you worm...” Jurandir cursed, bracing both hands on the table to keep from falling. “You sank the entire holding because of that whore! The empire is finished!”
“Your reign is finished,” I corrected, my voice cutting and calm.
I nodded to Henrique. The lawyer pulled out a notarized document and slid it toward my father.
“The compliance clauses you made Jo?o Bento sign years ago to attract foreign investors are very clear about fraudulent management, Jurandir,” Henrique explained, his voice polished and lethal.
“In the event of a formal indictment of the board president for federal crimes, the second-largest shareholder has the legal right to remove him immediately to protect the company’s capital.
And your personal accounts have already been frozen by federal court order. ”
Jurandir looked at the document. His old hands, weathered by the Pantanal sun, trembled violently.
“You orchestrated all of this...” the old man murmured, looking at me as if he were seeing a ghost. The shock of absolute defeat was breaking the bones of his authority before my eyes. “You used my own contract against me. You staged a takeover behind my back.”
I rose slowly from the chair. My height and broad shoulders dominated the space. I circled the marble table with silent, heavy steps, stopping inches from the man who had once been the absolute master of my destiny.
His two lawyers instinctively stepped back. The smell of fear and cold sweat rolled off Jurandir.
“You made a fundamental miscalculation, Jurandir,” I said, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper meant only for his ears.
“You thought that threatening to rip out my heart was enough to control an heir, and you almost succeeded. But when you ordered Nicanor to drown her with my child in her womb, you didn’t leave a coward behind.
You forged a monster far worse than yourself. ”
Jurandir’s eyes widened. The mention of the pregnancy was the killing blow. He realized, too late, that he had threatened the bloodline—awakened a primitive protective instinct he himself had never known.
“What... what are you going to do?” The voice of the almighty Jurandir Falc?o had been reduced to a frightened whimper.
“I’m going to take your crown, Father,” I decreed, staring deep into the abyss of his eyes.
“I’m going to assume the presidency of Falc?o Holding with absolute power and use every cent of this empire—which you built on corpses—to publicly clear Sebasti?o’s name. And then I’m going to destroy yours.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the pen he’d left on the table. I shoved it into his trembling hand and pushed him back into the chair.
“Sign the removal of powers,” I ordered, my voice brooking no argument. “Sign now, or I’ll call the press myself and have you handcuffed in the lobby of this building in five minutes. And believe me, Jurandir: I’ll be in the front row applauding when they slam the paddy wagon door.”
Jurandir Falc?o crumbled.
He didn’t fight. He had no weapons left. The king of the Pantanal looked at the papers and, with hunched shoulders and tears choked back against the supreme humiliation of being annihilated by his own offspring, signed the document abdicating all executive and shareholder control.
The moment he finished signing, I collected the paper.
“Call security, Henrique. Escort the former president to the street,” I ordered without so much as a glance at Jurandir. “His access to the building, the bank accounts, and any rural property belonging to the group is revoked as of this moment.”
I turned my back and walked to the immense glass wall while security guards entered to drag my father out. The sound of his pathetic protests vanished when the door closed.
I stood alone at the head of the table. Silence reigned in the cold room.
I was the absolute owner of Fazenda Falc?o. The owner of the holding, the plains, the cattle, and billions. I had won the cold war with a lethal precision that would make any dictator proud. But victory tasted like ash in my mouth.
I touched the cold glass of the window, gazing toward the endless horizon to the south, where I knew S?o Paulo lay.
I was willing to wear the crown forged in blood and transform myself into the ruthless executive those lands needed for their purification. I would dismantle the corruption brick by brick and ensure that Rosário and our child would never again have to look over their shoulders in fear.
The revulsion in her eyes during her captivity still tore at my soul, and I knew she would never forgive me.
But that didn’t matter. If keeping my lioness and my cub free and safe in this world meant I had to be the villain, banished to reign alone in the dark, I would accept that punishment until the last day of my life.