Chapter 5 - THE SIGNATURES HE DIDN’T REMEMBER
Dr. Brooks compared Alejandro’s medical results with his calendar, and the pattern became difficult to dismiss. His most severe memory gaps occurred after four private events over five months. Each event had been arranged or amended through the family office, and each was followed by an important document bearing Alejandro’s signature.
The first changed the voting procedure for Vega Hospitality during medical incapacity. The second expanded Sebastian Hale’s authority over family investment vehicles. The third authorized Northline Capital to begin confidential due diligence. The fourth modified the trust holding Mateo’s future inheritance.
Alejandro remembered discussing all four.
He remembered opposing three.
Yet every document said yes.
Lucia ordered the same testing. Her results suggested repeated exposure too.
Brother and sister sat together in Alejandro’s penthouse while Sloan laid the records across the dining table. They had spent years competing for influence, accusing each other of manipulating their father, and treating every disagreement as a contest over who understood the company better. Now they could see that several of their fiercest arguments began immediately after one of them signed something they barely remembered.
“What if I thought you were doing it?” Lucia asked.
Alejandro looked at her.
“Doing what?”
“Trying to take control. Sebastian showed me your approvals. Every time I confronted you, you swore you never agreed. I thought you were lying to my face.”
Alejandro had believed almost exactly the same thing about her.
The scheme had not only collected signatures.
It had manufactured distrust.
Valeria remained apart from the table until Alejandro finally asked why she had suspected drugging before anyone else. She hesitated long enough that Lucia immediately noticed.
“There it is,” Lucia said. “She knows something.”
Valeria admitted she began investigating after Alejandro returned from the March retreat and forgot an entire conversation about Mateo’s school. That alone frightened her because Alejandro remembered details obsessively, especially anything involving his son. She later discovered that his primary-care chart contained repeated notes about fatigue, confusion, and “possible alcohol-related episodes” that Alejandro said he never reported.
Someone had been building a medical record alongside the legal one.
Dr. Brooks obtained the chart audit. The questionable entries had been uploaded through a private concierge-health network used by the Vega family.
The network’s legal liaison was Sebastian Hale.
The first major reveal was now unavoidable. The person targeting Alejandro and Lucia was not merely trying to obtain isolated signatures. Someone had spent months creating three parallel records: legal documents showing they surrendered authority, medical files suggesting they were becoming impaired, and interpersonal conflict making each sibling appear unreliable when they denied remembering.
Alejandro looked at the continuity agreement again.
If both he and Lucia were medically unable to act, Sebastian became interim voting trustee for the combined family block.
The Vega family owned fifty-eight percent of Vega Hospitality.
With their votes, Sebastian could approve the Northline acquisition.
“How much is the deal worth?” Valeria asked.
“Two point four billion,” Alejandro said.
“And what does Sebastian get?”
Lucia answered. “Legal fees.”
Sloan shook her head. “Nobody runs a months-long operation like this for legal fees.”
That was the larger question opened by the first major answer.
Sebastian had a clear path to control the vote.
They still did not know why he wanted the sale badly enough to drug two people and falsify medical records.
Then Lucia received an alert from the family office. Sebastian had called an emergency board meeting for Monday morning.
The agenda contained one item.
TEMPORARY EXECUTIVE INCAPACITY REVIEW.
May you like
He was no longer waiting for Alejandro and Lucia to lose control naturally.
He was preparing to take it.
