Rodrigo looked for me. I was already next to my truck, with the door open.
—Mariana, don’t you dare make a scene.
—No, Rodrigo —I said—. You did the scene. I just turned off the lights.
The driver started.
As the dock was left behind, my phone vibrated. It was a message from my private investigator:
“I already have the photos of Rodrigo and Valeria entering the hotel together in Mérida. I also found something worse: he tried to put a property in her name using documents from your company.”
I took a deep breath.
Betrayal was no longer just personal.
And what he was going to discover next would change everyone’s ending…
When I arrived at our house in Lomas de Chapultepec, I no longer entered as a wife. I entered as owner.
I changed my travel dress into a flawless white suit, put my hair up, called my lawyer, and asked for private security at the door. Then I ordered the staff to pack Rodrigo’s things in cardboard boxes and leave them outside, next to the gate.
Two hours later, he arrived in a taxi, red with shame, sweaty, without the elegance he pretended so much. Behind her parents came in another car and Valeria did not come with them.
Rodrigo hit the gate furiously.
—Open, Mariana! This is my house too!
I approached slowly, with a black folder in my hands.
—No, Rodrigo. This house belongs to a company created before our marriage. You knew it, but you never read anything. You only signed when you thought it suited you.
Doña Graciela came between us.
—You are ungrateful. My son gave you his last name.
I looked at her without raising my voice.
—And I gave him a life he could never afford.
Rodrigo swallowed.
I passed the folder through bars.
The photos fell to the ground: him and Valeria entering a hotel, leaving a restaurant, kissing in a parking lot. Then the account statements. Then the copy of the attempted fraud against my company.
Don Ernesto looked down. Doña Graciela was mute for the first time in five years.
—You have two options —I told Rodrigo—. You sign the divorce without a fight and return every last peso you diverted, or tomorrow the complaint comes in for fraud, abuse of trust and falsification of documents.
Rodrigo knelt down.
—Mariana, please… I was wrong. Valeria doesn’t mean anything. I love you.
