Chapter 31
The silence of the Morumbi mansion had always struck me as a symbol of power, but in those last few weeks, it had become the soundtrack to my own personal hell. I was sitting in the leather armchair in my office, with the only light coming from the lamp on the solid mahogany desk.
On my computer screen, an encrypted dossier sent by Marcos, my director of data intelligence, glowed with the intensity of a nuclear bomb about to detonate.
I had ordered my investigators to trace every penny and monitor every move of everyone inside that house.
It didn’t take long for the facade of impeccable loyalty to begin crumbling.
The report revealed highly suspicious financial activity.
The son of Lurdes, the house’s longest-serving housekeeper, had a staggering debt to loan sharks that had been dragging on for years, threatening his family’s life.
However, exactly forty-eight hours after my mother’s death, that debt had been mysteriously paid off in full.
A cash payment, impossible to trace through legal channels, but glaringly obvious to anyone who knew where to look.
Lurdes didn’t have that kind of money, and loan sharks don’t forgive debts.
I clenched my jaw until my teeth ached. The rage that seized me wasn’t hot or explosive; it was glacial, an absolute and calculating fury I reserved for destroying anyone who dared betray my family.
I pressed the intercom button.
“Clara, tell Lurdes to come to my office. Now!”
Less than two minutes later, three light knocks sounded on the thick wood.
“Come in,” I ordered in a voice devoid of any emotion.
Lurdes opened the door. She was wearing her usual impeccable uniform and kept her hands clasped in front of her body in her submissive, trained posture.
She closed the door behind her, but before she could approach the desk, I stood up and walked to the entrance, turning the key in the lock with a sharp click that echoed through the room.
I saw her shoulders tense.
“Did you send for me, Mr. Vasconcelos?” she asked, trying to keep a professional tone, but her eyes wavered as she noticed the darkness in the room and my icy expression.
“How many years have you been working for my family, Lurdes?” I asked, walking slowly back to my desk, circling it like a predator sizing up its prey.
“For almost thirty years, sir. I’ve watched you grow up.”
“Thirty years…” I repeated, picking up the tablet from the desk. “Three decades eating our food, sleeping under our roof, and earning our trust—enough for me to believe you when you pointed the finger at my wife.”
Lurdes’s throat worked. The mention of Maria Rita caused her mask of the perfect housekeeper to crack slightly.
“I just told the police the truth, Mr. Vasconcelos. I couldn’t let that… that girl get away with it after what she did to Dona Eleonora.”
I threw the tablet onto the glass tabletop. The crash made Lurdes jump back. The screen displayed her son’s bank statements and proof of debt repayment.
“Gambling debts, loan sharking, and death threats,” I said, my voice cutting through the air like a razor.
“Over half a million reais, Lurdes—an amount it would take you three whole lifetimes of scrubbing my floors to save up. And yet, miraculously, your son paid it all in cash two days after my mother’s body was removed from the foot of that staircase. ”
The color drained from Lurdes’s face. She trembled, her hands clutching the fabric of her apron in desperation.
“Mr. Vasconcelos, I… I took out a loan, I scraped together my savings…”
“Don’t lie to me!” My voice wasn’t a shout, but a low growl that made the office walls seem to shrink.
I stepped toward her, stopping just a few centimeters from her terrified face.
“You have no savings, and my analysts have already tracked down every last phantom cent of that transaction. Do you think you’re dealing with an imbecile?
Do you think you can get my mother’s blood on your hands and I wouldn’t find out? ”
“I didn’t do anything!” she whimpered, taking a stumbling step backward. “Mrs. Vasconcelos was with her! They hated each other!”
“Maria Rita was in the library!” I snapped, my fury finally breaking through my defenses.
The memory of my wife’s sobs—which I’d ignored in order to believe that disgusting woman standing before me—ate away at me.
“You pushed her down the stairs. You took advantage of the fact that she and Maria Rita had argued earlier—a fact you yourself used to poison the police—and found the perfect moment to kill my mother!”
Lurdes’s legs gave way. She fell to her knees on the floor of my office, covering her face with her wrinkled hands, while convulsive, pitiful sobs tore at her throat. The facade of a loyal housekeeper had crumbled.
“Forgive me… for God’s sake, forgive me, Mr. Vasconcelos!” she sobbed, crouching on the Persian rug. “They were going to kill my son! I was desperate! I didn’t want to hurt Dona Eleonora—I swear on my soul!”
I looked at the woman lying at my feet with a revulsion that turned my stomach.
“You pushed my mother and pinned the blame on the only woman I ever loved, Lurdes. You made me throw my wife out onto the street.”
“I was paid, Mr. Vasconcelos!” she screamed, lifting her tear-streaked face, desperate to share the blame. “I was paid to do this! Someone came to me—they knew about my debt… and that I’d do anything to save my son!”
I stood frozen, my blood running cold in my veins. Henrique’s theory and my own suspicions had materialized right there, at my feet.
“I was told to wait for the right moment,” Lurdes continued, spilling the truth through ragged sobs.
“When Dona Eleonora called Maria Rita over to fight, I saw my chance. I waited for the girl to go upstairs. Dona Eleonora had her back turned at the top of the stairs… I just gave her a quick shove. I knew Maria Rita would be the first to come down when she heard the noise. I was paid to make sure she was found standing over the body and was out of your life forever!”
The shock of that plan’s cruelty left me breathless for a split second.
Lurdes hated Maria Rita; she saw her as an intruder unworthy of our name, and she used that hatred as the perfect fuel to carry out a contract killing, knowing that I, blinded by grief, would buy into the con artist daughter-in-law’s story without batting an eye.
“You sold yourself out to destroy my family,” I said, my voice steeped in a darkness that left me incapable of feeling even a shred of mercy. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket; the voice recording had been running since the moment I locked the door.
Lurdes’s eyes widened when she saw the phone, realizing that her confession was being recorded and her life was over.
“Who paid you?” I demanded, leaning over her, the shadow of my body covering her completely. “Who orchestrated my mother’s death and paid for your cowardice, Lurdes? Name the person. Now!”