Chapter 3
I drove to Saltillo before sunrise.
Sofía sat on Isabel’s porch wearing the same clothes she had worn the previous day.
She had not slept.
When I stepped from the car, she handed me her phone.
Ricardo’s photograph remained on the screen.
“At last,” she said. “He wrote at last.”
I sat beside her.
“He was wrong.”
“Did he wait seventeen years for a better child?”
“No child is better than another.”
“That’s what you think.”
Her voice broke.
“What does he think?”
I refused to lie.
“Your father allowed his desire for a son to become more important than his loyalty to us.”
Sofía stared toward the street.
“I used to feel sorry for him when Grandma criticized you.”
“For not having another baby?”
“She said you were selfish.”
I took her hand.
“I had three miscarriages after you.”
Sofía turned toward me.
I had never told her.
Ricardo said the grief should remain private.
Elvira called each loss another failure.
“I wanted another child,” I said. “But after the third miscarriage, the doctor warned another pregnancy could be dangerous.”
“Dad knew?”
“Yes.”
“And Grandma?”
“Yes.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“So every time she blamed you, they both knew.”
“Yes.”
She leaned against me and cried.
I held her without asking her to forgive anyone.
That afternoon, Ricardo arrived at Isabel’s house.
He carried flowers and a blue hospital bracelet.
Sofía refused to go outside.
He knocked for twenty minutes.
“Please let me explain.”
I opened the door but blocked the entrance.
“You are violating the temporary order.”
“It says I cannot enter the house in Monterrey.”
“It also says you cannot intimidate me.”
“I came to see my daughter.”
“She does not want to see you.”
His face tightened.
“You’re turning her against me.”
Sofía appeared behind me.
“No. You did that yourself.”
Ricardo lifted the blue bracelet.
“Your brother was born yesterday.”
“My half brother.”
“He is innocent.”
“I know. So am I.”
He stepped closer.
“You will always be my princess.”
“Then why did you say your legacy finally had a future?”
“That was for the company.”
“I am not stupid.”
He looked toward me.
“Mariana filled your head with anger.”
“I saw your messages before Mom knew.”
Ricardo froze.
Sofía took out her phone.
“I saved them.”
She had photographed months of conversations between Ricardo and Daniela.
The messages discussed the baby, my inheritance, and Elvira’s role in keeping me at the hospital.
One exchange was worse.
Daniela asked when Ricardo planned to leave me.
After Mariana signs the loan. If she refuses, Esteban’s policy solves everything.
The insurance policy.
Ricardo reached for the phone.
Sofía stepped back.
I moved between them.
“Leave.”
He grabbed my wrist.
Isabel’s husband came from the kitchen holding his own phone.
“I’m calling the police.”
Ricardo released me.
“This family will regret humiliating me.”
Sofía lifted her chin.
“We already regret trusting you.”
Police arrived before he left the street.
They arrested him for violating the protective order and seized the messages.
Prosecutors added attempted fraud and conspiracy charges.
The insurance message raised suspicion, but it did not prove a plan to kill me.
Esteban disappeared before police could question him.
His office had been emptied.
The next day, financial investigator Alejandro Ruiz visited me.
Ricardo’s company was not merely failing.
It had been used to move money through false supplier accounts.
Several payments went to Elvira, Esteban, and Daniela.
“Was Daniela involved?” I asked.
“She received money, but we don’t know whether she understood the source.”
“She knew about my inheritance.”
“Yes.”
Ruiz showed me a transfer request created in Daniela’s name.
It directed two million pesos from my account into a trust for her baby.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
Daniela had signed as a witness.
The hospital discharged Elvira.
Police arrested her before she reached the lobby.
She claimed her surgical medication affected her judgment.
Her surgeon told investigators she had been mentally alert throughout her stay.
Her condition had been serious but stable.
She deliberately exaggerated pain whenever I tried to leave.
Laura was released after agreeing to cooperate.
She admitted watching Sofía while Ricardo copied information from her education account.
My daughter had almost one million pesos saved for university.
Ricardo attempted to pledge it as collateral for a business loan.
The bank rejected the request because Sofía was a minor and I was the account custodian.
He then created a false emancipation document.
Every part of our lives had become a source of money to him.
At home, police removed electronic devices from Ricardo’s office.
A laptop contained a folder labeled New Family.
Inside were plans for a house in San Pedro, private-school applications for the baby, and a projected monthly budget.
The first line of income read Mariana assets.
Daniela chose furniture using money she expected to steal from me.
Sofía looked at the images.
“He planned a nicer room for the baby than I have.”
“Close the file.”
“I want to see.”
“You don’t need more pain.”
“I need to know what was real.”
That question haunted both of us.
We reviewed the messages together with a therapist present.
Some showed Ricardo expressing genuine concern for Sofía.
Others showed him dismissing her future as less important because she would marry.
People could love selfishly.
That did not make the love safe.
Camila filed emergency motions voiding every forged document and securing Sofía’s education fund.
The court froze Ricardo’s business assets.
Gabriel’s purchase of the house moved forward.
Then a second claimant appeared.
Daniela filed a petition stating Ricardo had promised her the property in writing.
She produced a contract bearing my signature.
It was another forgery.
Camila expected the claim to fail.
But Daniela attached an audio recording.
My voice said, Daniela and the baby may live in my house after the birth.
The voice sounded exactly like mine.
I had never spoken those words.
A forensic expert identified signs of artificial generation.
Someone had used recordings from family videos to create my voice.
The court delayed the sale until testing was complete.
That evening, Daniela called me from a blocked number.
Her voice trembled.
“I didn’t file that petition.”
“Your signature is on it.”
“Ricardo’s lawyer brought papers to the hospital while I was medicated.”
“You witnessed the transfer from my account.”
“He said you agreed.”
“You asked what would happen if I discovered the affair.”
She became silent.
“I knew about you,” she whispered. “I didn’t know they planned to hurt you.”
“Why are you calling?”
“Ricardo left something inside my apartment.”
“What?”
“A bottle with your name on it.”
Before she could explain, a man shouted behind her.
Daniela screamed.
The call ended.
Police reached her apartment twenty minutes later.
The door was open.
The newborn lay unharmed in his crib.
Daniela was gone.
May you like
On the kitchen counter stood a bottle of heart medication prescribed in my name.
Beside it was a printed plan for my funeral.
