PART 1
CHAPTER 1: THE FINAL TRIUMPHANT ENTRANCE
What would you do if the man you swore to love for the rest of your life showed up at your funeral holding hands with the woman he betrayed you with? It’s not a rhetorical question; it’s the exact scene unfolding before my eyes, a scene so grotesque and painful that it made the air inside the Parish of San Agustín, in the heart of Polanco, feel thick, almost unbreathable.
The mahogany coffin gleamed in the dim candlelight, a beautiful and obscenely expensive box to hold the body of my best friend, Raquel Moreno. She was only 32. She was eight months pregnant when she died. She took little Esperanza with her, or at least that’s what we all thought at the time. Raquel, the woman who had been my shadow, my chosen sister, my partner in crime since we were seven years old and shared cakes during recess at a public school where we dreamed of a better future.
There were about two hundred people seated on the carved wooden benches. The cream of Mexican society was there, or at least those who pretended to be. All dressed in formal black, with designer sunglasses and that rehearsed expression of “deep sorrow” that they drop as soon as they get into their armored SUVs. The scent of tuberoses and white lilies mingled with the cloying aroma of imported perfumes, creating a nauseating atmosphere. But beneath the solemnity, there was a palpable morbid curiosity. Everyone knew that Raquel’s death made no sense. How does a healthy woman, full of life, die overnight? “Multiple organ failure,” the doctors said, shrugging their shoulders as if that explained why a young mother flickered out like a candle blown out by the wind.
I was in the third row, clutching a soaked handkerchief until my knuckles turned white. My name is Clara, and seeing that box there in front of me was tearing me apart inside. But the pain soon turned to a cold fury, a rage that surged up my spine when I heard the heavy oak doors creak open at the back of the church.
The priest, an elderly man who spoke monotonously about eternal life and divine comfort, suddenly fell silent. The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the sound of heels striking the marble with an arrogance unbecoming of a sacred place.
Everyone turned their heads. What we saw left us frozen.
Marcos de la Fuente walked in as if he owned the world, or at least, the tragedy itself. He wore a custom-made suit that cost more than my father earned in his entire life, his hair was perfectly styled with gel, and that square jaw that I once found attractive now only made me nauseous. He didn’t look like a man who had just lost his wife and unborn child. He looked like a man who was late to a boring business meeting.
But he didn’t come alone.
Clinging to her arm, chin held high, with a chilling demeanor, came Yessica. Yessica Serrano. The “other woman.” The mistress. The woman who had been destroying my friend’s marriage while Raquel decorated the baby’s room. Yessica was 28, a salon blonde, surgically enhanced to perfection, wrapped in a black Valentino dress that clung to her body like a second skin. It was a cocktail dress, not a funeral dress. Her red-soled Louboutin heels clicked on the church floor, each step an insult to Raquel’s memory.
I couldn’t believe it. Nobody could believe it. A murmur spread through the benches like wildfire. “Is that her?” “Doesn’t she have any shame?” “How shameless!” I saw several women from Las Lomas discreetly—or not so discreetly—pull out their cell phones to record. The scandal was already served up on a silver platter for WhatsApp groups all over the city.
But the worst part was the sound that came from the front row.
Doña Beatriz, Raquel’s mother, let out a shriek that broke my heart. She was a small woman, weathered by the sun and hard work. She had raised Raquel alone, working double shifts at an inexpensive eatery near the Central de Abastos market so that her daughter wouldn’t want for anything. Doña Beatriz had always felt out of place in Marcos’s world, with its gala dinners and trips to Vail, but she always maintained her dignity. Until now.
Seeing her daughter’s emotional killer—because that’s what Marcos was to us—walk in with his mistress was too much. Doña Beatriz collapsed. Her legs simply gave out. I rushed to her before she hit the floor, cradling her fragile body as she sobbed uncontrollably.
“Get her out of here!” someone shouted, I didn’t know who.
But Marcos didn’t even flinch. He kept walking, dragging Yessica to the front row, the place reserved for the grieving family. They sat right in front of the coffin, their backs to Doña Beatriz, their backs to decency. Marcos crossed his leg. Yessica took out a compact mirror and checked her lipstick.
At that moment, holding my friend’s mother while the unfaithful husband adjusted his jacket, I understood something fundamental: when someone shows you who they really are at your worst, believe them. Marcos wasn’t confused by the pain. He wasn’t in shock. Marcos was celebrating. He believed he had won. He believed that Raquel, “poor, silly” Raquel, had died taking her secrets to the grave, leaving him a clear path and a full bank account.
What Marcos didn’t know, as he discreetly checked his Rolex watch, was that the real show was just about to begin. He had no idea that Raquel wasn’t the victim in this story. She was the architect. And the lawyer who had just stood up, Attorney Villalobos, was carrying the blueprints for her downfall in his briefcase.
CHAPTER 2: LUXURY MASKS
To understand why that man sat there with that smug grin, and why my friend ended up in a wooden box prematurely, we have to go back. Not too far, just a few years. To a time when the fairy tale still seemed real, even though the cracks were already there if you knew where to look.
Raquel didn’t come from a wealthy background. “Humble zip code,” as Marcos’s mother would say with that condescending little smile. Raquel grew up in a housing complex in Iztapalapa, where the water was out twice a week and the neighbors’ music blasted until dawn. But Raquel had something the De la Fuente family’s money couldn’t buy: a brilliant mind. She was a math genius, on scholarship from middle school through college. She graduated with honors from Tec de Monterrey, Mexico City campus, where she entered on a full scholarship and where she met Marcos.
Marcos was the typical “mirrey” (a derogatory term for a wealthy, privileged young man). A daddy’s boy, heir to a chain of boutique hotels and shady consulting firms. He met Raquel because she did his math homework so he wouldn’t fail. At first, he saw her as a curiosity, then as a challenge, and finally, as a trophy. They married five years later.
The wedding was the event of the year in Cuernavaca. I was the bridesmaid, squeezed into a salmon-colored dress I hated, watching my friend float down the aisle, convinced that love could erase class differences. How stupid we were!
Marcos’s mother, Doña Diana, a woman who seemed made of ice and plastic surgery, never accepted Raquel. “That’s no way to behave,” “She’s clearly from the barrio,” “She’s not good enough for my son.” She would say it in hushed tones at those gatherings where they served canapés that no one ate, making sure Raquel heard her but couldn’t complain without looking like a lunatic.
During the first few years, Raquel tried to fit in. She straightened her hair, learned to distinguish wines, and stopped saying “I need” instead of “I need.” She became a teacher at an exclusive private school for wealthy children, thinking it would give her status. But for Marcos, she was still his charity case. “I rescued you from the trash, my love,” he told her once at dinner, laughing as if it were a loving joke. Raquel laughed too, but I saw her eyes dim.
Then came the real problems. The game.
Marcos had a vice. He loved to gamble. Not on the National Lottery, but at clandestine poker tables in Bosques and on illegal sports betting. The first time he lost a fortune—two million pesos—Raquel saved him. She used her grandmother’s life savings, money meant for emergencies, to pay some men who threatened to break her “little prince’s” legs.
He wept. He swore to the Virgin Mary that he would never do it again. He threw himself on the living room floor of his apartment in Santa Fe, begging for forgiveness. And Raquel, with that enormous, foolish heart of hers, forgave him.
“It’s just a rough patch, Clara,” she told me, while we were having coffee at Vips. “He loves me. He just needs support.”
“What he needs is a psychiatrist and for you to stop covering for him,” I told him, furious.
But she didn’t listen to me. Or so I thought.
Shortly after, Raquel started her “hobby.” She told me she was making digital teaching materials for teachers. “Simple things, Clarita. Lesson plans, worksheets, educational videos. I sell them on an American platform.” Marcos made fun of her.
“Oh, my dear, playing businesswoman with your little drawings. It’s fine, as long as you don’t neglect the house, keep yourself entertained with your little bit of money.”
If Marcos had paid attention, if he had stopped staring at himself in the mirror for five minutes to really look at the woman beside him, he would have realized that Raquel wasn’t the same anymore. There was something new about her. A steely determination. She got up at 4 a.m. and worked until 7, before going to school. She stayed up late “grading exams,” or so she told him.
Six months before the funeral, Raquel arranged to meet me at a café in the Roma neighborhood, far from her social circle. She was three months pregnant and radiant, but her hands were trembling.
“Look at this,” she said, sliding a bank statement onto the table.
It was from a credit card Marcos swore he’d canceled. There were charges at Tiffany’s, at luxury hotels in Acapulco, at restaurants where one dinner costs what I earn in a month. And they weren’t for her.
“I followed him,” Raquel confessed, her voice breaking. “I hired a private investigator. Her name is Yessica. She works in the same office. They’ve been seeing each other for months. They laugh at me, Clara. The investigator recorded a conversation. Marcos told her I’m a ‘boring incubator,’ that he’s just waiting for the baby to be born so he can figure out how to get rid of me without giving me a penny.”
“You damned wretch!” I yelled, slamming my fist on the table. “Get a divorce now! Throw him out on the street!”
Raquel wiped away a tear, took a deep breath, and then I saw the transformation. Her demeanor shifted. Sadness gave way to a calculating coldness I’d never seen in her before.
“No, Clara. I’m not getting a divorce. Not yet. He thinks I’m some stupid elementary school teacher who’s dependent on his money. He thinks he has the power. But he has no idea who he married.”
He stared at me and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. It was a predator’s smile.
“Do you remember my ‘little drawings’? My ‘hobby’?”
“Yes…” I said, confused.
“Well, my ‘hobby’ became EduSpark, the largest educational resource platform in Latin America, and expanding into the United States. I closed a deal last week. Clara, my company is worth 47 million dollars. And everything, absolutely everything, is in a trust that Marcos doesn’t even know exists.”
I was speechless.
“Are you a millionaire?”
“I’m a multimillionaire,” she corrected me. “And he thinks I can’t even pay the rent. I’m going to let him keep believing that. I’m going to let him keep with his Yessica, keep spending money he doesn’t have, keep digging his own grave. And when my daughter is born, when Esperanza is safe… I’m going to destroy his world.”
But fate, or perhaps human cruelty, had other plans. Raquel didn’t live to see Esperanza born on her own terms. The illness came too quickly, too conveniently. And now, as I watched Licenciado Villalobos walk toward the lectern, breaking the church’s deathly silence, I knew that Raquel’s plan hadn’t died with her.
Villalobos, an older, gray-haired man with a stern face and an impeccable gray suit, cleared his throat. He wasn’t on the program. The priest tried to say something, but Villalobos ignored him and took the microphone.
“Good afternoon,” his voice echoed off the stone walls. “I am the legal representative of Mrs. Raquel Moreno. I have precise instructions to read her last will and testament here, now, in front of all of you, before the body is taken to the cemetery.”
Marcos shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“This is not the time!” he shouted from the front row. “Respect my pain!”
Villalobos looked at him over the top of his glasses. A look that could freeze hell.
“Sit down, Mr. De la Fuente.” His wife insisted. “And believe me, you’re going to want to hear this.”
Marcos snorted, but sat down, gripping Yessica’s hand tightly. She rolled her eyes, bored.
Villalobos pulled out a thick envelope, sealed with red wax. He broke the seal. The sound of the paper tearing was the only thing heard in the entire church.
—“I, Raquel Moreno, being in full possession of my mental faculties…” —Villalobos began to read.
The trap had been set. And I, squeezing Doña Beatriz’s hand, held my breath, waiting for the first blow.
PART 2
CHAPTER 3: THE INCUBATOR AND THE ESCAPE
Attorney Villalobos paused dramatically, holding the document as if it were a sword about to fall on Marcos’s neck. But before he could drop the first bombshell, my mind flashed back to that gray September afternoon, just two months earlier, when Raquel finally understood that her marriage wasn’t just a sham, but a financial death sentence.
We had discovered the infidelity, yes. But Raquel, with that brilliant mind that never rested, knew there was more to it. Marcos was nervous. He was biting his nails, something he hadn’t done since college. He was receiving calls at all hours and locking himself in the bathroom to answer them. Raquel activated what she called “Shadow Protocol.”
“I installed a keylogger on his laptop, Clara,” she confessed to me one afternoon, while calmly folding yellow jumpsuits. “Three years ago. When I forgave him for the bets, I decided I would never be blind again.”
What he found weren’t love letters to Yessica. Well, there were some, full of cheap sentimentality that made him laugh. But what was truly alarming were the folders hidden under false names like “Cooking Recipes” or “Car Manuals.”
Marcos was stealing. And he wasn’t stealing small amounts.
He was diverting funds from his father’s company, “Inversiones De la Fuente,” to accounts in the Cayman Islands and Panama. But that wasn’t the worst of it. He had emptied the joint accounts he had with Raquel. The savings for their baby’s college education, the emergency fund—he had even taken out loans in her name, forging her signature.
And there was a PDF file that explained everything: plane tickets. Two one-way tickets to San José, Costa Rica. Departure date: three days after Raquel’s expected due date.
“He’s going to leave, Clara,” she told me, her pale face illuminated by the computer screen. “He plans to leave me here, alone, with a newborn, up to my neck in debt and facing legal problems because of the fraud he’s committing in my name. He’s going to run off with Yessica to live the high life with the money he’s been stealing.”
That night, Raquel decided to confront him. She didn’t tell him everything she knew, just enough to gauge his reaction. I wasn’t there, but she recorded it. Listening to that recording days later was what finally killed any affection I ever felt for Marcos.
The clatter of dishes could be heard in the kitchen. Raquel gently asked him about a withdrawal of 50,000 pesos that had “disappeared” from the account.
“Not this again?” Marcos’ voice sounded drawn out, annoyed. “You’re unbearable, Raquel. Ever since you got pregnant, all you do is nag about money.”
“It’s our money, Marcos. And we need to buy things for the baby.”
There was a sharp thud, like a hand hitting the table.
“I’m fed up!” he shouted. “Fed up with your complaining, your belly, your stretch marks, and your poverty mentality! Do you think I care about that baby? The only thing you’ve done right these past few years is serve as an incubator. That’s what you are to me now. A talking incubator.”
There was a terrible silence in the recording. Then, Marcos’s voice lowered its tone, becoming a venomous whisper, the kind that hurts more than a scream.
“Look at you, Raquel. You were a small-town waitress. I made you. I clothed you, taught you to eat with utensils, gave you a last name. Without me, you’re nothing. If I leave you tomorrow, what are you going to do? Go back to selling quesadillas with your mother? You have no money, no class, no one. If I try to divorce you, my lawyers will take away your will to live, and I assure you, you’ll never see that girl again. So shut your mouth, sit down, and stop asking about money. Money is a man’s business.”
The recording ended with the sound of a door slamming shut.
Raquel didn’t cry when she played the audio for me. She looked at me with those dark eyes, now dry and hard as flint.
“He called me an incubator, Clara. He said I’m nothing.
” “He’s a monster,” I said, crying for both of us.
“No,” she replied. “He’s a scared man. A mediocre man who knows the only way he can feel important is by making me feel small. But he miscalculated.
” “What?”
“He forgot that incubators give life… but they can also be very hot. And he’s going to get burned.”
That’s when Raquel accelerated her plans. She met with Villalobos in secret. She further secured EduSpark. She transferred her personal assets to untouchable trusts. And she prepared the final blow. But the stress took its toll.
Two days after that fight, Raquel collapsed at school. Severe preeclampsia. She was rushed to Hospital Ángeles. Esperanza was born via emergency cesarean section, premature at seven months, weighing barely 1.8 kilograms. She was a warrior, just like her mother. They put her in the incubator—I couldn’t help but be ironic—full of tubes and monitors.
Raquel survived the surgery, but she was weak. Very weak. And that’s when the second misfortune occurred. Or rather, the second phase of Marcos and his family’s plan.
Because while Raquel struggled to recover in that hospital bed, vulnerable and semi-conscious, the vultures began to circle.
CHAPTER 4: THE MOTHER-IN-LAW’S TEA AND PANDORA’S BOX
Room 405 of the hospital smelled of antiseptic and the expensive flowers that Doña Diana, Raquel’s mother-in-law, had arranged to be placed there. Not because she loved Raquel, but because “it looked good” to have the room decorated.
Raquel wasn’t getting better. The doctors were baffled. Her blood pressure was fluctuating wildly, she had terrible abdominal pain, and her hair was falling out in clumps. “Atypical postpartum effects,” they said. “A resistant infection.”
I went there every day after work. And every day I found Doña Diana there, sitting by the bed like a Chanel gargoyle, with a plastic smile and a silver thermos.
“Oh, Clarita, it’s so good you’re here,” she told me. “I brought Raquelito some special tea. It’s my grandmother’s recipe, excellent for regaining strength after childbirth. These doctors’ medicines only make her more lethargic. Natural remedies are better.”
And she watched as the lady poured the steaming liquid into a porcelain cup she had brought herself. Raquel, pale and with dark circles under her eyes, drank it meekly.
“Thank you, Mrs. Diana,” she whispered. “It tastes a little bitter today.”
“It’s the herbs, my child. Drink it all; it will do you good.”
One Tuesday afternoon, I arrived earlier than usual. Doña Diana wasn’t in her chair. She was standing by the desk, going through Raquel’s purse. She had my friend’s cell phone in her hand and was trying to unlock it.
“What are you doing?” I asked from the doorway, in a loud voice.
Diana jumped as if she’d been electrocuted. She dropped the phone, which fell onto the sheets.
“Oh, Clara! You scared me. I just… I just wanted to check the time. My watch stopped.”
I glanced at her wrist. She was wearing a gold Cartier that probably cost more than my car.
“Your watch works perfectly, ma’am. And there’s a giant clock on the wall.”
Diana regained her composure in a second. She smoothed down her skirt and looked at me disdainfully.
“Don’t be impertinent, child. You’d better make sure Raquel has her tea. I’m leaving now; I have a dinner party.”
She left the room, leaving behind a trail of expensive perfume and bad vibes. I approached Raquel. She was awake, looking at me with a lucidity she hadn’t shown in days.
“Clara,” she said, her voice rasping. “Close the door.”
I obeyed.
“Listen carefully. I’m not sick from childbirth.
” “What are you talking about, Raquel? The doctors say…
” “The doctors don’t know what they’re looking for. Diana… that tea.”
She pointed to the cup on the small table, still with a little dark liquid at the bottom.
“Every time I drink it, I feel like it’s burning me from the inside. At first, I thought it was my imagination. But today… today I saw her, Clara. I saw her put a few drops from a small bottle in it before giving me the cup. She thinks I was asleep.”
I felt an icy chill in my stomach.
“Are you accusing her of…?”
“They’re killing me, Clara. They’re poisoning me. They want me to die before I can change the will, before I can get a divorce. They know that if I die now, Marcos gets everything. The girl, the money… everything.”
“We have to call the police!” I yelled, grabbing the phone.
“No!” Raquel stopped me with surprising strength for her condition. “We don’t have any proof. If we accuse them now, they’ll say I’m crazy, that it’s postpartum delusions. Diana has the best lawyers. They’ll take Esperanza away and lock me up in a psychiatric hospital.”
“So what do we do? You can’t keep drinking that!
” “It doesn’t matter anymore, Clara. I feel… I feel like my kidneys aren’t working anymore. I know myself. I know I’m not going to get out of this bed.
” “Don’t say that, please…”
“Listen. Take the cup. Put it in a Ziploc bag. Take it with you. And I need you to bring Villalobos to me. Tomorrow. And I need to record a video.”
—A video?
—Yes. My final statement. If I’m going to die, Clara, I’m taking everyone with me to hell.
Raquel died three days later. Officially, it was cardiac arrest caused by acute kidney failure. Marcos cried in the hospital, a dry, loud cry that convinced the nurses but not me. Diana patted him on the back, with that “mission accomplished” look on her face.
And so we arrive at today. At the funeral. At the moment when Villalobos, following the instructions of a dead woman, cleared his throat and looked at Marcos.
—Let’s continue— said the lawyer, ignoring the tension that cut through the air. —”I am leaving all of my shares in EduSpark Digital, a company I founded six years ago and of which I am the sole owner, to my daughter, Esperanza De la Fuente Moreno.”
Marcos let out a nervous chuckle.
“Stocks? What are you talking about? Raquel was selling drawings online. That’s worthless.”
Villalobos smiled. It was a predatory smile.
“Mr. De la Fuente, EduSpark Digital isn’t just selling cartoons. It’s the leading platform for educational resources in Latin America. At the time of Mrs. Raquel’s death, the company was valued by external auditors at $47 million.”
The silence in the church was so profound you could have heard a pin drop.
“What?” Marcos whispered. He turned pale, as if all the blood had been drained from his body.
“Forty-seven million dollars,” Villalobos repeated, savoring each syllable. “And according to clause 4 of the trust, these assets are protected and will be managed by an executor until the girl turns 25.”
“That’s a lie!” Diana shouted, jumping to her feet. “That woman had nothing! She was a starving wretch! She probably stole that money from my son!”
“The money is 100% legitimate, Ms. Diana,” Villalobos replied. “Generated by Raquel’s intellectual work. And, by the way, the trust clearly specifies that under no circumstances will the child’s father, Mr. Marcos De la Fuente, have access to a single cent, nor will he be able to make decisions about the child’s education or upbringing using these funds.”
Marcos was trembling. Yessica let go of his hand as if it burned. 47 million dollars. And he couldn’t touch a single one.
“But that’s not all,” Villalobos said, his voice lowering and becoming more serious. “Raquel knew you would try to contest the will. She knew you would say she was crazy. That’s why she left a message.”
The lawyer took a remote control out of his pocket and pointed it at a white screen that the projection team had discreetly lowered behind the coffin, covering the church’s gilded altarpiece.
—Please pay attention.
The screen flickered and lit up. And there she was. Raquel.
Not the vibrant Raquel from the photos. But the Raquel in the hospital. Pale, with deep dark circles under her eyes, connected to monitors, but with a fiery gaze. She was sitting on the bed, looking directly at the camera.
“Hi, Marcos. Hi, Diana. Hi, Yessica,” said the Raquel on the screen. Her voice, though weak, echoed throughout the church thanks to the speakers. “If you’re watching this, it means I’m dead. And you’re probably there, in the front row, pretending you care.”
The people in the church let out a stifled gasp. Marcos tried to get up to stop the video, but two security guards, big, serious-looking men who had entered from the sides, stood in front of him, blocking his path.
“Sit down,” one of them ordered.
—Marcos—Raquel continued speaking from beyond the grave—, you always told me that without you I was nothing. That I was a fool. That you were the business genius. Well, my love, it turns out that the “fool” built an empire while you spent your father’s money on gambling and lovers.
On the screen, Raquel smiled.
“I know about Costa Rica, Marcos. I know about the tickets. I know about the accounts in Panama. And guess what? The police know too.”
Marcos turned his head toward the church door. There, standing under the entrance arch, were four agents from the Attorney General’s Office.
“And Diana,” Raquel’s voice turned icy. “Dear mother-in-law. That tea… that grandmother’s remedy. I saved the last cup. And I saved samples of my blood. My lawyer, Clara, has the toxicology results. Thallium. Rat poison, right? Very effective. Slow. Painful.”
Diana put her hands to her mouth. Her eyes widened.
“Welcome to my funeral,” Raquel said. “I hope you enjoy the show. Because this is just the beginning. And there’s one last thing… about Esperanza.”
The screen went black for a second. And I knew what was coming. The final blow. The secret Raquel had kept until the very last second, the one that was going to shatter what little remained of Marcos’s pride.
Attorney Villalobos looked at the congregation, which was in a state of total shock.
“The video continues,” he said. “And I suggest you don’t move.”
PART 3
CHAPTER 5: BLOOD DOESN’T LIE
Raquel’s image on the giant screen flickered slightly, but her gaze remained fixed, piercing the souls of everyone present in the church. Marcos was petrified, his mouth slightly open, as if the oxygen had suddenly run out in Polanco.
“Marcos,” said Raquel on the screen, with a calmness that contrasted sharply with the chaos she was causing, “you’re always going on about ‘lineage,’ ‘surnames,’ about how the De la Fuentes are a superior caste. Well, I have some news that might hurt your inflated ego more than the loss of millions.”
Raquel held up a document in front of the camera. It bore the logos of a highly prestigious genetic laboratory in Mexico City.
“I had a prenatal DNA test done, Marcos. Not because I doubted myself, but because I needed to be sure my daughter wouldn’t have any of your rotten blood in her. And guess what…”
The camera zoomed in on the paper.
—Probability of paternity: 0%.
The collective scream in the church was deafening. It was as if lightning had struck the altar.
“You’re a whore!” Marcos shouted, turning red with fury, forgetting he was in a sacred place. “I knew it! You were always a slut!”
But the Raquel in the video didn’t flinch; of course, it was a recording, but she seemed to be responding in real time.
“Spare me the insults, my love. Yes, I had an affair. Just once. Three years ago, right after I found out about your first million-dollar gambling debt, the one I paid off with my grandmother’s inheritance. I was devastated, alone, and I met someone at an education conference in Guadalajara. A good man. A man who listened to me, who treated me like a person, not like a piece of furniture or an incubator.”
Raquel sighed in the video, a mixture of nostalgia and sadness.
“I’m not proud of having broken my vows, but I don’t regret it either. Because thanks to that, Esperanza doesn’t carry your genetic burden. She doesn’t have your selfishness or your cruelty. And legally, Marcos, that means you have no rights over her. No custody, no visitation, and certainly no access to the trust. The biological father has already been contacted by Attorney Villalobos. He’s an honorable man who truly loves his daughter, not the money she’s carrying.”
Marcos collapsed on the bench. He looked like a rag doll whose strings had been cut. He had lost the money. He had lost control. And now, he had lost the only bargaining chip he had left: the little girl.
But Raquel wasn’t finished. Her eyes moved across the screen, as if she were looking for someone else in the front row.
—Yessica—he said.
The blonde jumped in her seat. Up until that moment, Yessica had been looking at Marcos with a mixture of disgust and panic, trying to physically distance herself from him.
“Oh, Yessica, Yessica,” Raquel whispered with a mocking smile. “The ‘influencer,’ the perfect woman, the one who posts photos with motivational quotes while sleeping with other women’s husbands. You think you won, don’t you? You got the rich man.”
Yessica crossed her arms defiantly, although her lower lip was trembling.
“I have a little gift for you too,” Raquel continued. “I know you’re not with Marcos for love. Please, nobody believes that. You’re with him for the unlimited Black card. But you know what’s the funniest thing? You’re smarter than you seem. Or more treacherous.”
Screenshots of emails and WhatsApp messages appeared on the screen.
—Marcos, do you recognize these emails? They’re from Yessica. But they’re not for you. They’re for Rodrigo Montalvo. Does that name ring a bell?
Marcos jerked his head up.
“Montalvo?” he stammered. “My direct competitor?”
“Exactly,” Raquel confirmed. “Your ‘girlfriend’ has been sending Montalvo all your company’s secrets. The bids, the VIP clients, the future projects… Yessica has been selling you out, Marcos. She passes information to your rival in exchange for cash deposits. She’s been the mole who’s been sinking ‘Inversiones De la Fuente’ for the past year.”
Marcos slowly turned his head toward Yessica. The look he gave her was pure murderous hatred.
“What did you do?” he growled. “Damn it, Yessica! Did you sell my clients to Montalvo?”
Yessica stood up, hysterical.
“You were broke, Marcos!” she shouted, no longer caring about the audience. “Always crying about not having any cash! I needed to be sure! Montalvo pays in dollars and in cash! Besides, you told me you were going to leave your wife, but you took years! I had to look out for myself!”
The slap echoed throughout the church. Marcos, the high-society gentleman, slapped his lover across the face in front of God and the entire Mexican jet set.
Chaos erupted. People were screaming. Security guards were trying to separate the couple who had entered holding hands just minutes before.
And on the screen, Raquel let out a soft, sad, final laugh.
“Never underestimate a quiet woman,” Raquel said, and her image began to fade. “They thought I was weak. They thought I was stupid. I hope they like their new lives. Because mine… mine ended so my daughter’s could begin clean. Goodbye.”
The screen went black. But reality was about to get much darker for the De la Fuente family.
CHAPTER 6: HANDCUFFS, TEARS, AND A CUP OF TEA
The silence that followed the end of the video lasted barely a second before being broken by the sound of sirens. Not distant sirens. Sirens outside, in the street, surrounding the church. Red and blue lights bounced off the Gothic stained-glass windows, painting the saints in police colors.
Licenciado Villalobos, impassive at the lectern, gestured towards the entrance.
—Officers, you may proceed.
The four prosecutors who had been waiting at the door advanced down the central corridor. Their heavy boots echoed with authority. They weren’t alone; agents from the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) followed them in.
Two officers walked directly towards Marcos, who was still standing, breathing heavily after hitting Yessica.
“Marcos De la Fuente,” the commanding officer said, showing him an arrest warrant, “you are under arrest for the crimes of tax fraud, money laundering, document forgery, and organized crime. We have evidence of your transfers to tax havens and the embezzlement of your late wife’s accounts.”
“This is a mistake!” Marcos shouted as they handcuffed him with his hands behind his back. “I’m Marcos De la Fuente! Call my lawyer! You don’t know who you’re messing with!”
“We know perfectly well who you are,” the officer replied, pushing him toward the exit. “And the tax authorities know it too. Believe me, they won’t care about your last name at the North Prison.”
While they dragged Marcos, who was kicking like a tantrum-throwing child, two other agents approached the front row, where Doña Diana was trying to make herself invisible, huddled in her fur coat.
—Diana Iturbide, widow of De la Fuente—a female agent said in a firm voice—. You are under arrest as the main suspect in the aggravated homicide of Raquel Moreno.
Diana let out a high-pitched shriek, unbecoming of her social standing.
“What?! That’s absurd! I’m a respectable lady! That woman was crazy, she made it all up! It’s a doctored video!”
“We have the toxicology report, ma’am,” the agent said, pulling out a pair of handcuffs. “And we have the cup. The cup you gave her at the hospital. The lab confirmed traces of thallium. And we found receipts for rat poison in your name from an industrial hardware store three months ago. You systematically poisoned her.”
The socialite lost her temper. She started flailing her arms, scratching the officer.
“Let me go, you stuck-up bitch! Don’t touch me! My son is innocent! It’s all that social climber’s fault who died!”
They dragged her out, stumbling along, shouting obscenities that would make a sailor blush. The people in the church, her lifelong “friends,” stepped aside as she passed, staring at her with horror and morbid curiosity, recording everything with their iPhones. No one lifted a finger to help her. In that world, when you fall, you fall alone.
And finally, there was Yessica.
She stood in the middle of the hallway, her cheek red from Marcos’s punch and her makeup smeared with angry tears. She thought she was safe. She thought that, since she hadn’t killed anyone or stolen from the taxman, she could walk away. She started walking toward the side exit, trying to slip away.
—Miss Serrano—Villalobos’ voice stopped her dead in her tracks.
An officer stepped in front of her.
“Yessica Serrano, you are under arrest for complicity in financial fraud, industrial espionage, and criminal association. Mr. Montalvo is already giving a statement to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and has handed over to the police all the conversations in which you sold him confidential information stolen from Mr. De la Fuente’s computer.”
Yessica burst into tears. She wasn’t crying out of regret. She was crying because her game was over.
“I just wanted to secure my future!” she sobbed as they put the handcuffs on her. “He promised me we’d go to Costa Rica!”
“The only trip he’s going to make is to Santa Martha Acatitla,” the agent told him.
The church fell into an eerie silence after the three were taken away. Raquel’s coffin remained there, at the front, serene, victorious. I approached the casket, with Doña Beatriz at my side. Raquel’s mother was no longer crying. She wore a peaceful expression, a mixture of sorrow and satisfaction.
—You did it, my child —whispered Doña Beatriz, caressing the polished wood—. You finished them all off.
I turned to the congregation. Those two hundred people who had come to “do their duty,” to murmur and judge, were now pale and ashamed. They had witnessed the most brutal and perfect justice ever seen in Mexico.
Attorney Villalobos closed his folder.
“The funeral is over,” he announced. “The family thanks you for your presence. And reminds you that loyalty and honesty are priceless, but betrayal comes at a very high price.”
We left the church under the afternoon sun. The air felt cleaner. Raquel was gone, yes. But she had left us Esperanza, she had left us an educational empire, and she had left us the most important lesson of all: never, ever anger an intelligent woman who has plenty of time to think and nothing to lose.
But the story didn’t end there. I still had to find out who Esperanza’s real father was and what would happen to the millions. And, of course, there was the last letter Raquel had hidden for me.
PART 4
CHAPTER 7: THE TRUE FATHER AND THE INHERITANCE OF LOVE
Two weeks after the funeral, the media storm was still raging. Marcos, Diana, and Yessica’s faces were plastered across every newspaper front page and every news broadcast. “The Black Widower of Polanco,” “The Poisonous Mother-in-Law,” “The Spy Lover.” It was the scandal of the decade.
I was in Attorney Villalobos’s office, reviewing trust documents. I was now Esperanza’s legal guardian and the temporary administrator of EduSpark. The responsibility weighed heavily, but I felt Raquel guiding me with every signature.
The door opened and a man walked in. He wasn’t handsome in the traditional sense, like Marcos. He wasn’t wearing a shiny Italian suit or a flashy watch. He wore a simple shirt, dark jeans, and a slightly worn leather jacket. He had kind eyes and the hands of someone who actually works.
“Good afternoon,” he said softly. “I’m Daniel. Daniel Torres.”
It was him. The man of adventure. Esperanza’s biological father.
I stood up, assessing him with the protective instinct I’d developed for the baby.
“So you’re the mysterious man from Guadalajara.”
Daniel smiled sadly.
“Not so mysterious. I’m a rural school teacher. I met Raquel at that conference three years ago. We sat together during a terribly boring presentation on educational reforms. We started talking… and didn’t stop for three days.”
“She never mentioned you by name,” I told him.
“I know. We agreed it would be a break. A moment of peace amidst our complicated lives. She loved her husband, or so she thought then, and wanted to try to save her marriage. I respected that. But I never forgot her.”
Daniel took a photo out of his wallet. It was an old Polaroid. It showed him and Raquel eating tortas ahogadas at a street stall, laughing with that open laughter that Raquel had forgotten years ago.
“When the lawyer contacted me and told me I had a daughter… and that Raquel had died…” her voice broke. “I don’t care about the money, Clara. I know there are millions involved. I don’t want a single penny. I’m giving up any rights to the company. I just want to meet my daughter. I want… I want to tell her who her mother was when she was happy.”
I looked into his eyes and knew he was telling the truth. There was no greed in him, only genuine pain and a timid hope.
“Welcome to the family, Daniel,” I said, extending my hand. “Esperanza has her mother’s eyes, but I think she has your chin.”
Daniel’s integration was slow but natural. He moved to Mexico City and got a job at a public school. He visited Esperanza every day. He learned to change diapers, burp babies, and sing off-key lullabies that made the baby smile. Doña Beatriz adored him. “Now this is a man,” she would say, “not like that clown Marcos.”
EduSpark continued to grow. With the free (albeit tragic) publicity of the scandal, subscriptions skyrocketed. But now, under my leadership and following the manuals Raquel had left behind, the company began donating millions to rural schools and scholarships for single mothers. The “Teacher’s Empire” became a legend.
A year later, we celebrated Esperanza’s first birthday. It was a simple party in the garden of the house we bought with the trust fund for Doña Beatriz. There was a piñata, tres leches cake, and children running around everywhere.
As evening fell, I gathered my closest friends and family: Doña Beatriz, Daniel, Villalobos, and myself.
“There’s something else,” I told them. “Raquel left one last video. For today.”
I turned on the television on the terrace. Raquel’s face appeared again, but this time she wasn’t in the hospital. She was in her studio, months before she died, when she still had color in her cheeks and her pregnancy was barely noticeable.
—Hello, my beautiful girl —Raquel said from the screen, smiling—. Happy first birthday.
Daniel covered his mouth with his hand, weeping silently as he held Esperanza in his lap. The baby stared at the screen, fascinated by her mother’s voice.
—If you’re watching this, it means Clara and your grandmother have done a great job. And if my intuition is correct, your dad Daniel is there too. Hi, Dani. Thanks for coming.
Daniel nodded towards the screen, as if she could see him.
“Daughter, I left you money. A lot of money. But that’s not what’s important. Money comes and goes. What I left you is the truth. I left you a story. The story that no one has the right to make you feel less than. Never let a man, or a friend, or the whole world tell you who you are. You are Esperanza. You are the dream I couldn’t finish living.”
Raquel approached the camera.
“Be brave. Be kind. But above all, be smart. And if anyone ever tries to step on you… remember you carry my blood. And we don’t break, my love. We fight back.”
The video ended with Raquel blowing a kiss.
CHAPTER 8: THE EPILOGUE OF FIRE
I thought that was the end of it all. With the peace, the celebration, and the memories. But Raquel was Raquel. She always had a trick up her sleeve.
The next day, I received a package at my office. It was a manila envelope with no return address, but I recognized Raquel’s handwriting. Inside was a key to a bank safe deposit box and a sticky note that read: “Just in case Marcos tries to leave early.”
I went to the bank with my heart in my throat. In the safety deposit box there was a USB drive and a thick folder.
I opened it.
It was evidence. More evidence. But not of tax fraud. It was security camera footage from Marcos’s office. Videos showing him meeting with very dangerous people. People from organized crime. Marcos wasn’t just laundering money for himself; he was laundering money for a local cartel.
There were audio recordings where Marcos offered “safe routes” through his father’s hotels to transport “merchandise”.
I was stunned. This wasn’t white-collar crime. This was federal and high-risk. With this, Marcos wouldn’t get out of jail for 20 years. He’d stay there for life, or he’d be extradited to the United States.
And then I understood. Raquel hadn’t worn this at the funeral. She’d kept it. Why?
I read the last letter that came in the folder.
“Clarita:
If you’re reading this, it’s because Marcos is trying to appeal his sentence or get out for good behavior. I know him. He’s a cockroach who survives everything. If that happens, if you see even the slightest chance that he’ll get out and go near Esperanza, turn this over to the DEA. Not the local police. The DEA. This will bury him for good.
But if he stays quietly in jail, keep it. It’s your life insurance. It’s the nuclear button. Use it wisely.
I love you, sister. Take care of my girl.”
I smiled, with tears in my eyes, caressing the folder.
Marcos was in the North Prison, complaining about the food and planning his appeal. Diana was in the Santa Martha women’s prison, aged and alone, rejected by the other inmates who despised “child-killers” or “family-killers.” Yessica had been released on bail but was destitute, barred from any decent work, selling used clothes online to survive.
They got what they deserved.
I put the folder in my personal safe. I didn’t need it today. But knowing it was there gave me infinite peace.
I left the office and walked along Reforma Avenue. The sun was shining, office workers were eating on benches, life went on. I thought about Raquel, her laughter, her plans, her perfect revenge.
She had turned her tragedy into a shield for her daughter. She had transformed pain into an empire.
I looked up at the sky, where a plane was crossing the clouds, and whispered, “
Rest, Raque. Down here, everything is under control. Checkmate, my friend. Checkmate.”
