Chapter 6: The Man Who Thought He Was Winning
The restaurant was called Sal Marina.
It sat on a narrow street two blocks from the waterfront, the kind of place that looked casual from outside and charged three hundred euros a head inside.
I arrived ten minutes early and took a table near the back where I could see both the entrance and the kitchen door.
Marcos Vidal arrived at noon exactly.
He was younger than I had expected.
Mid-thirties.
Well dressed without being showy.
The kind of man who understood that real confidence doesn't announce itself.
He spotted me immediately, crossed the room without hesitation, and sat down across from me as if we were old colleagues meeting for lunch.
"Thank you for coming," he said.
"You suggested it."
He smiled.
It was a practiced smile — warm, easy, designed to make the other person feel they were among friends.
I had seen that smile across negotiating tables for twenty years.
"I'll be direct," he said.
"I think we've arrived at a situation that neither of us benefits from escalating."
"Go on."
The waiter appeared.
Marcos ordered sparkling water.
I ordered nothing.
"You have the folder," Marcos said.
"You have the phone.
You've had your people sweep the study, I assume." He said it without any visible concern, as if he were describing the weather.
"What you don't have is the full picture."
"Tell me the full picture."
He leaned forward slightly.
"The recordings from your study include several conversations that would be very uncomfortable for you if they became public.
Not illegal, necessarily.
But the Seville arrangement — the offshore structure your father created — sits in a gray area that your board of directors and your investors would find difficult to explain to their own stakeholders."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's a fact." He picked up his water.
"I'm not your enemy.
I'm someone who got involved in a complicated situation and wants to find a clean exit for everyone."
"Including yourself."
"Especially myself." He set the glass down.
"Here's what I'm proposing.
You walk away from the folder.
I walk away from the recordings.
Beatriz gets a reasonable settlement.
Everyone moves forward."
I looked at him across the table.
"You've been receiving confidential information from my wife for fourteen months," I said.
"You used it to cost me a twelve-million-euro deal.
You had a listening device installed in my home.
And you've been in a relationship with my wife during our marriage." I paused.
"And your proposal is that I walk away from the folder."
"My proposal is that we both avoid a situation that damages us both."
"The situation damages you," I said.
"Not me."
His smile stayed in place.
But something behind it adjusted.
"The Seville arrangement—"
"Was a legitimate offshore holding structure created by my father in 2009 and fully disclosed to my legal team and tax advisors at the time of the company transfer.
It has been reviewed twice by external auditors.
There is nothing in those recordings that my board doesn't already know." I watched his face.
"Did Beatriz tell you it was a secret?"
The smile didn't disappear.
But it became something different.
Thinner.
"She may have characterized it that way," he said carefully.
"She was wrong." I reached into my jacket and placed a single sheet of paper on the table.
"That is a letter from my legal team, drafted this morning, outlining the basis for a criminal complaint against you personally for corporate espionage, illegal surveillance, and obtaining confidential commercial information under false pretenses."
He looked at the paper.
He didn't pick it up.
"This is not the direction I hoped this conversation would go," he said.
"I'm sure it isn't."
"If you file that complaint, I will release the recordings."
"Release them," I said.
"My lawyers have already prepared a full briefing for my board explaining the context of every conversation on those recordings.
The briefing goes out this afternoon whether or not you release anything." I leaned forward slightly.
"You built your leverage on a lie Beatriz told you.
The foundation was never real."
For the first time, Marcos Vidal looked at me without the smile.
"You came here to tell me that," he said.
"I came here so you could hear it directly.
Before the complaint is filed."
He was quiet for a moment.
The restaurant moved around us — plates, conversation, the sound of the kitchen.
He looked like a man doing rapid arithmetic in his head and not liking the results.
"What do you want?" he said.
"I want the original recording device.
I want confirmation in writing that no copies of those recordings exist outside your possession.
I want the names of everyone at Serrano Group who received information from you.
And I want your signed statement confirming that Beatriz provided those documents voluntarily."
"And in exchange?"
"Nothing.
You don't get an exchange.
You give me those things and then my lawyers decide what to recommend to the Policía Nacional.
Your cooperation will be noted."
His jaw tightened.
"You're not giving me anything."
"I'm giving you the chance to cooperate before this becomes something you have no control over at all." I stood up.
"You have until five o'clock this afternoon.
After that, the complaint is filed regardless."
I picked up the letter from the table and put it back in my jacket.
He sat very still.
"She told me you were soft," he said quietly.
"That you were too focused on business to pay attention to what was happening at home.
That you wouldn't fight."
I looked down at him.
"She was describing the man she wanted me to be," I said.
"Not the man I am."
I walked out of the restaurant into the Marbella afternoon.
My phone was already ringing before I reached the street.
Tomás.
"He made three calls in the last hour," Tomás said.
"One to Beatriz.
One to his lawyer.
One to a number registered to the CEO of Serrano Group."
"Good.
We'll want records of all three."
"There's something else." A pause.
"Beatriz's car is gone.
She left the villa approximately forty minutes ago."
I stopped walking.
"Where is Isabella?"
"With Rosa.
Isabella is fine.
Rosa called me the moment Beatriz left."
I started walking again.
Faster.
May you like
"Find out where Beatriz went," I said.
"And call Delgado."
