Chapter 32 Betrayed
Chapter 32 Betrayed
~Elena’s POV~
My chest tightens. “What?”
“It’s exile essentially but it clears my name. Let me start over somewhere else. London, maybe. Or New York.”
“And if you don’t take it?”
“Then I fight the charges. Probably go to prison for conspiracy I didn’t commit. Evidence is circumstantial but damning…the emails, the phone calls, the timing. Isabella made sure it looks real.”
I sink onto my apartment floor. “When do you have to decide?”
“Twenty-four hours. They need an answer by tomorrow night.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. If I leave, I will lose you. If I stay, I lose everything else.” His voice breaks. “So I’m asking…if I stay and fight, will you wait, or is this already over?”
The question I’ve been avoiding.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “My father tried to destroy us while pretending to support us. Your family actually destroyed us while being honest about it and we…” My voice cracks. “We destroyed ourselves by being too selfish or too stupid or too desperate to stop.”
“So that’s it? We’re done?”
“I don’t know what we are. I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
“This is real.” His voice is fierce. “Whatever happened around us, between us, that was real. Tell me you felt it too.”
I close my eyes. Remember the hotel room, his office, the studio. The way he looked at me like I was the only person in the world.
“I felt it.”
“Then fight for it with me. We’ve survived your ex, my family, your father, the media, the university. We can survive this.”
“Can we? Or are we just addicted to the chaos?”
Silence.
Then Mateo: “I don’t know but I’m willing to find out. Are you?”
Before I can answer, someone pounds on my door.
“Elena! Open up!” Sofia’s voice. “The police are here. They need to talk to you about your father’s involvement. They think you knew about the cameras.”
My blood runs cold. “What?”
“There’s an email. From David to your father. Mentioning ‘Elena’s approval of the plan.’ They think you were working with them.”
“That’s impossible…”
“I know but they have a warrant. You need to come down to the station now.”
I open the door, two police officers stand behind Sofia.
“Miss Vega.” The female officer steps forward. “We need you to come with us for questioning regarding illegal surveillance and conspiracy charges.”
“I didn’t know about the cameras…”
“Then you’ll have a chance to explain that at the station. Please come willingly or we’ll be forced to arrest you.”
Mateo’s voice through the phone: “Elena what’s happening?”
“The police think I was involved. With my father and David.”
“Don’t say anything without a lawyer. I’ll call Marina…”
“Mr. Sandoval?” The officer looks at my phone. “Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“You need to come in too. New evidence suggests you and Miss Vega were both aware of the surveillance and allowed it to continue for purposes of creating a legal defense.”
“That’s insane…”
“We need both of you in the station in an hour.” She hands me a card. “Bring attorneys.”
They leave.
I look at Sofia. “They think Mateo and I planned this, they think we knew about the cameras and let ourselves be filmed to claim we were victims.”
“That’s ridiculous…”
“Is it? We’re both psychology-aware adults who have been through investigations before. What if they think we staged the whole thing? The affair, the videos, the scandal…all to set up a lawsuit against the university and his family?”
My phone buzzes, it’s an email from an unknown address.
Subject: The Real Story
I open it.
Miss Vega…
You don’t know me, but I know your father. I Worked with him at Universidad de Valencia forty years ago. I was the administrator who processed his termination after the scandal with your mother.
Your father told me something before he died. Said he wanted someone to know the truth in case things went wrong.
The cameras in Professor Sandoval’s office? Your father didn’t plant them to protect you. He planted them to protect Mateo.
Your father recognized Mateo from academic conferences decades ago. He knew his history. Knew the pattern of complaints and scandals and he realized something no one else did: Mateo wasn’t the predator. The women around him were.
Carmen. The colleague. Even you, though your father never said it directly. You all pursued him. Used his weakness for complicated women to manipulate situations in your favor.
Your father planted those cameras to document the truth…that Mateo consistently tried to maintain boundaries and was repeatedly pursued, seduced, and then blamed when things went public.
The office footage shows you initiating the encounter. Refusing to leave when asked. Kissing him first.
Your father was dying when he told me this, he needed someone to know that Mateo Sandoval wasn’t the villain in this story. That if anything happened to the footage, someone should tell the truth.
I’m telling it now because the police are building a case against both of you, and someone needs to know that your father’s final act wasn’t manipulation, it was justice.
-Prof. Eduardo Martinez
Universidad de Valencia, retired
I read the email three times.
Then I call Mateo back.
“The footage,” I say. “The office cameras, have you seen what’s actually on them?”
“No, the police won’t let me access the evidence until questioning.”
“My father was trying to protect you. Not me. You.”
“What?”
“He thought I was manipulating you. That I initiated everything. That you were the victim.”
Silence.
“Mateo. Did I manipulate you?”
More silence.
Then, so quietly I almost miss it: “I don’t know anymore.”
The line goes dead.
I’m standing in my apartment, phone in hand, when Sofia touches my shoulder.
“Elena. We need to go. The station is waiting.”
“I can’t. I can’t go down there and answer questions when I don’t know what’s real, I can’t believe my father did Al these”
“Then figure it out fast. Because in one hour, they’re issuing arrest warrants.”
My phone buzzes. Text from Rebecca: I lied about one thing. There’s more footage from the hotel room. Your father hired a private investigator to follow Mateo that night. He has a video of you initiating everything. Meeting him at the bar, propositioning him. The whole thing. Your father was building a case to prove Mateo was being hunted, not hunting. The footage clears him completely. But it also shows you pursued a stranger purely because you saw an opportunity. Question is: are you brave enough to let the police see who you really are?