Alejandro opened it desperately, reading over and over again until the leaves began to shake in his hands.
—No… no… no…
Camila, who had insisted on following us and was now standing at the office door, gasped.
—Was your wife your sister?
Nobody responded.
I felt nauseous.
Rage.
Disgust.
Pain.
But, above all, a devastating feeling of betrayal that went far beyond infidelity.
My father knew it.
He knew it before he died.
And yet he allowed that marriage.
Because? For fear of scandal? For trying to protect an illegitimate son without destroying his daughter?
I could never ask him.
That was the cruelest punishment of all.
Alexander fell to his knees.
He pulled his hair, began to sob, laugh and cry at the same time like a man who had just lost his mind.
—I did not know… I swear I did not know…
A tear ran down my cheek.
—Me neither.
For days, all of Mexico talked about the case.
Not only the million-dollar fraud in Grupo Monteverde.
Also from the impossible scandal: the disgraced CEO, his lover, the shell companies… and the revelation of a hidden relationship that turned that marriage into a moral and legal tragedy.
The marriage was annulled.
Authorities froze accounts, secured property and began criminal proceedings. Camila was abandoned by everyone. His mother and brother tried to flee, but were detained at the Cancun airport with false documents and unjustified cash.
Alejandro did not go to prison immediately.
Before, he asked to see me one last time.
I accepted only because I needed to close that wound.
We met in a private room of the psychiatric hospital where he was being observed. He had tried to take his own life twice in less than a week.
When I entered, he looked up.
There was nothing left of the elegant, ambitious and confident man who once ran my company.
It looked like an empty body.
—Valeria… —he said in a broken voice—. Forgive me.
I looked at him in silence.
—I don’t forgive you —I responded—. But I’m not going to continue carrying you inside me either. What you did destroyed me once. You won’t do it twice.
Her eyes filled with tears.
—I did love you… even if it was late… even if it was bad…
I shook my head gently.
—No. You wanted the power. You wanted the last name. You wanted everything that came with me. Love does not humiliate. Love doesn’t steal. Love does not betray.
I got up to leave.
Then he said something that stopped me:
—Your dad left me something else.
I turned.
He took out of his robe pocket a small crumpled envelope that he said he had found inside the genetic file.
I opened it.
Inside was a second, much shorter note, also written by my father
