“Valeria thinks she needs me. As soon as the transfer clears, I’m gone. Women always want to save someone or punish them. If you figure out which role they need, they’ll write the rest themselves.”
Ximena was silent for two full seconds.
“Save that in three places,” she said.
I still didn’t cry.
What I felt was worse.
A terrible calm.
The kind that comes when you finally realize the fire wasn’t accidental—someone built it carefully, room by room.
That same day, I froze my accounts, changed every password, filed a police report, and canceled all my meetings. By the time I got home, I was drained—empty in body, crowded in mind, with pieces finally starting to fall into place.
And there they were, waiting outside my door:
Emiliano and his mother.
Patricia wore a perfect trench coat, pearls, and the expression of a woman who had spent years believing that every woman her son deceived was somehow to blame for believing him.
“That’s enough of these scenes,” she said the second I stepped out of the car. “My son says you threw him out, changed the locks, and now you’re inventing stories out of spite.”
I looked at Emiliano. He no longer looked drunk. He looked furious.
“Your son stole my ring, copied my documents, and tried to move money from my company.”
Patricia didn’t even blink.
