But the stolen money flowed, cleanly, into offshore accounts that Diego controlled.

They had one problem, and her name was Carmen.

Because Carmen, for years, had personally logged every timber truck that came into the primary warehouse bay — recording license plates, driver manifests, physical cargo weights, in a small private ledger she kept.

And every single time Diego forced her to sign off on a delivery that had never actually arrived, Carmen, quietly, in her own book, marked a tiny red star.

When the reckoning finally came, there were twenty-three red stars in Carmen’s ledger.

When Diego began to suspect that his housekeeper might be more than she seemed, he made his gravest mistake.