Next Morning – Gutiérrez and Co.
The sun had only just risen over the skyline, draping a pale golden wash over the high-rise glass building that was home to one of the most imposing corporations in the country: Gutiérrez Industries.
But once you were in, the mood was anything but tranquil.
Maximiliano pushed through the slow-moving glass revolving doors holding a to-go cup of coffee and amends his phone looking at emails from overnight not paying attention to the tension swirling around him.
But something felt… off.
The lobby, usually a polished island of corporate monotony was alive. Staff hissed in lowered tones through the reception, eyes shifting like they were bracing for a gale to rip through at any moment.
Executives whisked in and out of the private lounge. Security was on higher-alert than normal.
Maximiliano furrowed his brows. What the hell?
Without a single more than quizzical look, he entered the silver chrome elevator.
With the doors sliding shut, he sighed and adjusted his cuffs, bracing himself for yet another long day of damage control. The storm from the murder scandal should have been enough chaos to fill a year.
As the elevator dinged open onto the executive floor— it hit him all over.
The same strange energy.
Eyes glances upwards and then away. Phones were swiped, articles read as screens dimmed as he passed by.
Conversations were paused mid-sentence.
Alarm bells started going off in his head now.
"Has something happened?" he muttered under his breath, and started to walk fast down the corridor.
Maximiliano marched over to a junior associate who was standing beside the his desk , furiously whispering into his phone.
In one fluid motion, without uttering a single word, Maximiliano snatched the cell phone directly out of the young man's hand
"Sir—! I—!"
Maximiliano waved him off and was already on to scanning the screen. The phone stares wide open onto a news website—red and white emergency headlines continuingly flashing.
His heart sank.
There it was.
The headline read:
"Dark Past" of Suzzanne Gutiérrez Resurfaced — Shocking allegations ties Heiress toh her own father's death"
Beneath the headline was a picture from long before, more than a decade ago.
An even younger Suzzanne, blurry in a scrubby photo on the outside of a gated estate She was maybe thirteen. Alone.
New fresh reports suggest the heiress was not some mere prodigy — but possibly a key player in an eerie family conspiracy.
Maximiliano froze. His hands went cold but, he kept staring at the screen even it seem to fade a little.
His mind... stopped.
He knew exactly what it was about.
They were digging now. Like wolves. Dragging out everything. Real, twisted, exaggerated—it didn't matter. Smelling blood, the media wanted to destroy her piece by piece.
Clenching his jaw, he returned the phone.
"Where did this come from?" he asked, low and deadly.
"Uh, it was Plus 24 sir. But now it's everywhere. CNN, Business World and even tabloids—someone leaked her youth record. The timeline. The private investigation files. It's all out."
Maximiliano didn't answer. He turned and marched toward his office, mind aflame with thoughts racing with wildfires.
He knew.
He knew what went down the night her father died.
He knew what all Suzzanne had been through.
He was there.
And yet… she had buried it. Carefully. Silently. Until now.
And now her latent past, which she had stored away like specimens in sealed jars behind steel doors, was tossed onto the world stage to perform as a circus act.
Maximiliano ran a hand down his face. Not out of shame—but rage.
They didn't know her. Not like he did.
Later That Morning – Gutiérrez Mansion
The great peak of the mansion loomed darkly and timeless as its granite walls bathed in the early light. It was almost solemn inside, the church silence.
Suzzanne perched on a velvet chaise inside her grand bedroom.
Half-drawn heavy drapes allowed flashes of soft sunlight to streak the dim room like blades of gold. The ivory silk robe wrapped around her body like a second skin, sliding down one shoulder.
In her hands was her iPad.
On the screen front was a headline with long paragraphs beneath it regarding that article.
THIS WAS NOT HER FIRST TIME – Heiress Suszanne Gutiérrez Blamed for Mysterious Death of Her Father when She is Fourteen years Old.
The twisted headlines.
The so-called anonymous sources.
The family therapist's off-record quotes.
The speculation about motives.
Assuming a child is guilty because they say nothing.
Her trauma, rewritten as cruelty.
But Suzzanne… didn't blink.
She didn't gasp. She didn't flinch. She didn't cry.
She just stared.
Eyes locked on the screen. Her pupils unmoving, focused. Cold. Quiet.
Still.
The rest of her was still, only her fingers moving down the page.
Her breath remained steady.
Anyone watching her that moment should think she was reading regular business statistics. Nothing in her posture gave away the burden of words being written about her.
But her eyes—
Her eyes…
They were full of something that had absolute no name.
Something like grief.
Something like fury.
Something like… acceptance.
Something like mix of everything.
She had seen this coming.
She had counted the days.
She had prepared herself.
The loudest voice in the room is always right.
And the world at that moment was screaming knowingly untruths.
Still, she wasn't shaken.
She made walls taller than anyone could reach.
And inside them was planted something far more treacherous than innocence.
Patience.
Suzzanne set the iPad down — gently, almost tenderly — on the table next to her then sighed softly. She rested against the high-backed velvet and gazed through the balcony at the morning sky.
Everyone in the world was gnashing her name with venom.
And she… was still.
Days Later — Police Headquarters
It had rained for three days straight.
It hung on the city like an unsolved thing—soft, unrelenting, stifling.
It felt the same inside the police headquarters.
Heavy.
Stagnant.
Wrong.
Files were scattered all over a steel table, each one like the opposite of another no one could seem to piece together. Photographs, timelines and call logs — all the pieces of the case exposed onto the table.
And still—
Nothing fit.
The brooch sat at the center.
Bagged.
Tagged.
Silent.
Leaning against the window, the lead officer Eduardo gazed out at the grey skyline, his fingers dotted on the glass as if he could squeeze clarity him from it.
Behind him another officer sat—
"We might be pushing in the wrong direction."
The words came hesitant. Careful.
But Eduardo didn't turn.
"Explain." He said.
One more aggravated officer chimed in, his eyes weighed down with fatigue.
"We tied everything to her too early. The design, the power... the presence she carries. It made sense at the time, but—"
"But she had an answer ready," someone else cut in.
"Exactly."
Now Eduardo turned.
Slowly.
"That's not what clears her," he said quietly. "That's what bothers me even more."
Silence followed.
Because they all felt it.
That moment in her office.
Too clean.
Too precise.
Too… controlled.
Eduardo trailed off with, "People freak out when we walk in. "They stall. They deflect. They slip."
His gaze hardened.
"She didn't."
She didn't argued.
Because Suzzanne hadn't just answered—she had anticipated.
And that was worse.
The room was interrupted by a knock, loud and confident.
Before anyone could respond—the door opened.
Lucas walked in.
Fast. Focused. Eyes wide open with something new —
"I've got something."
There was an instant change in the room.
"What is it?" Eduardo asked.
Lucas set a thin folder down on the table, his hand covering it to indicate he was not finished yet.
"I went off record," he said. "Talked to a few informers. The type who are not fond, to say the least of being Jegy.
Someone else mumbled, "That sounds so untrustworthy already."
Lucas ignored it.
"They didn't give names, nor the locations. Hell, most of them didn't even want to touch the subject, they just went cold."
He finally pulled his hand back.
"But they all seem to react the same way."
Eduardo narrowed his eyes. "To what?"
Lucas looked up—and
"The tattoo on his body."
A pause.
Then—
"It's a symbol", Lucas said lowering his voice now, "but it's more than just some basic design."
The room stilled.
"It's a mark."
No one spoke.
"That belongs to a group", he said. "Not officially documented. No files. No registry. No known operations."
As one officer put it, "Then that's not a gang."
"That's a rumor."
Lucas shook his head.
"No. It's worse than that."
He moved to the table.
"They exist. Just not where we can view them.
A beat.
"They move quietly. No patterns. No noise. No unnecessary contact. If, they operate anywhere—nobody knows until it is already over."
"And the victim?" Eduardo asked.
Lucas exhaled slowly.
"He had connections. Small ones, at first glance. Money transfers that didn't align. Meetings that weren't recorded. He brushed against something bigger."
"How big?"
Lucas didn't say anything regarding the question asked by his senior.
Because the truth wasn't itself satisfying. It wouldn't be to anyone present there.
"I don't know." He finally spoke.
Silence.
Frustration flickered across the room.
"We ran everything," another officer snapped in, his frustration vivid in his tone.
"Contacts, networks, underground channels—there's nothing. No trace of any group like that. It's like we're hunting a ghost"
Lucas gave a slight nod.
"I know."
Eduardo's gaze dropped back to the brooch.
The brooch that led him to Suzzanne Gutiérrez.
He stared at its worn edges. Bloody looking.
To the way it looked used—not fancy.
"But they all recognized the mark?" Eduardo questioned as he still examines the brooch.
Lucas gazed up meeting his eyes.
"Not openly."
A pause.
"But enough to shut down the moment it came up."
That was far worse than confirmation.
Eduardo finally tears his gaze away from the brooch, he leaned forward, resting both hands on the table.
"Alright," he said quietly now. "We'll follow what we have for now."
"And what do we even have?" Lucas asked almost curios.
"A dead man tied to something which is invisible to us. A brooch"
His eyes shifted slightly.
"And a woman who is ready behind that door."
The room went still again.
Now—this wasn't about evidence.
It was about his instinct.
Author's Note:
Thankyou for reading<3
Have a Good Day/evening<3<3