When Ryan stood up to pour himself a drink, Sophia deliberately dropped a metal tray in the hallway, and the crash drew both of them away from the documents in irritation.
“Clumsy,” Victoria snapped from the dining room.
In that brief distraction, Sophia pushed me through the service corridor toward the rear exit.
“Do not take your car,” she insisted. “It has company tracking.”
Outside, humid night air wrapped around us as we hurried toward her old gray sedan parked near the service road behind the property.
As she started the engine, my voice felt distant even to myself.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To my cousin Gabriel Martinez,” she replied. “They will never think to look there.”
We drove in silence through quiet neighborhoods, and I stared out the window at streetlights blurring past, realizing how close I had come to signing away my company and perhaps my life.
Gabriel opened the apartment door without hesitation when Sophia explained the situation in urgent Spanish, and he ushered me inside with solemn understanding.
Sophia handed me a small sealed plastic bag.
“I collected what she used,” she said. “You need proof before you confront them.”