Chapter 1: Prince Of Billions
The clock on Don Pattaya's desk had stopped ticking.
El Santo noticed it the moment he stepped into his father's private study, three days after the funeral, at four in the morning. The antique timepiece that had marked every hour of his father's life for forty years had finally given up. The hands were frozen at 2:47. El Santo did not know if that was the moment his father died or just the moment the clock's spring finally broke.
He stood in the doorway, his bare feet now cold against the marble floor when he smelled the scent of aged leather that had gotten used to his father's body over decades of use rising from the chairs. The cruelest part is the way the dead refused to leave.
El Santo crossed the room slowly, his footsteps silent on the Persian rug. He had not slept since the funeral. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw his father's face, not as it had been in death, but as it had been in life.
El Santo stood in the room where his father had made every decision that built the Santo empire. The walls were lined with books that Don Pattaya had actually read, all brought back from his business trip to China, the desk was a massive oak that had been in the family for generations.
He remembered sitting on his father's lap as a child, watching his father's hands move across ledgers, he recalled being told that one day all of this would be his and also being proud of that, once.
But now all he felt was the weight of it pressing down on him. He moved to the desk, and with his fingers he trailed across the surface, not quite sure what he was looking for. He had just needed to be here, in the last place his father had been alive.
His hand paused at the back of the desk, where the wood grain felt slightly different. He frowned when he traced the edges noticing there was a barely visible seam hidden in the natural pattern of the oak.
El Santo knelt, examining the panel more closely. He pressed his fingers along the edges, trying to feel something. His heart began to beat faster. His late father had always been a man of secrets, but El Santo had never imagined he would find one here.
The panel gave way with a soft click that made El Santo freeze. He had been right. There was a hidden drawer, built into the back of the desk. He reached inside with trembling fingers and pulled out a single file that was thick and heavy, crammed with documents. The cover was marked in his father's distinctive handwriting:
"URGENT. DO NOT DELAY."
He noticed it was dated one week before his father's death.
El Santo's hands were shaking as he opened the file, his eyes scanning the contents, seeing in them financial records, account numbers, a trail of money that led from Santo Industries through a series of shell companies and into accounts that his father had flagged as suspicious ones.
The total was whopping one billion dollars that had gone missing. El Santo's stomach drop. One billion dollars, stolen, by someone anonymous from the Santo empire. And his father had known about it.
He flipped through the pages, searching for a conclusion, a culprit, or something that would tell him what his father had discovered. But he found nothing. Only the evidence of the crime and a single note in his father's handwriting, tucked into the back of the file.
"I don't trust Julio."
El Santo read the words again, his blood turning to ice. His uncle Julio who had been by his father's side for decades, offering him sympathy at the funeral! His eyes became wet with tears.
El Santo sat back on his heels, the file clutched to his chest trying to process the money, the note, and how his father had known someone was stealing from the empire and had suspected his own brother even before he died of a seizure at the age of sixty-three with no prior history of heart problems.
El Santo had accepted the coroner's report without question. His father had seemed healthy, but men of his age could have hidden conditions which was reasonable, but now El Santo wasn't so sure.
would collapse under the weight of a leader who didn't know what he was doing.
But El Santo had been prepared, having with him documents, witnesses, proof of his competence. He had the support of the board members his father had cultivated. He had everything he needed to win, and he did, for when the vote was called, El Santo won by a margin of seven to four.
Julio didn't congratulate him or shake hands, he simply stood up, his face cold and unreadable, before he walked out of the room. The board members stepped out after him, leaving El Santo alone.
He sat in his father's chair, the weight of the empire pressing down on him. He had won the battle of who stays in charge, but the war was just beginning.
After the boardroom was empty, El Santo returned to his father's study, not knowing why he was drawn back here. To him it was habit or grief, maybe he was just hoping to find more answers.
He stood in the center of the room, staring at the portrait of his father that hung above the fireplace. Don Pattaya stared down at him, expression stern, and eyes full of secrets.
El Santo felt a tear slide down his cheek. He wiped it away quickly, ashamed of the weakness.
"I will find who did this to you, I believe someone murdered you," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "And I will make them pay."
The portrait said nothing in return, El Santo turned and walked away.
His penthouse overlooking the city was cold when he arrived that night. He had the finest furniture money could buy, art worth millions, a wine cellar stocked with bottles older than him. He had everything and yet he had never felt more alone.
He set the file containing evidence of his father's secret investigation on the desk, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and sat down in his chair trying to figure out what to do next.
His phone buzzed.
He glanced at it, almost ignored it, but something made him answer.
"El Santo Santo."
The voice that responded was distorted, electronic, impossible to identify.
"Your father did not have a seizure. He was killed. I believe you know about the billion that went missing, that's only the beginning. If you want to know the truth, do not trust anyone. Especially the people who claim to love you."
"Who the f**k is this?"
