Chapter 1 - THE WILL OF A DYING WOMAN
"If I only have six months left, I will spend them saving the man who broke my heart."The cardiologist’s words felt like a physical blow to Alejandro’s chest. The sterile, white corridor of the ABC Medical Center in Santa Fe seemed to tilt, the steady beep of distant monitors echoing like a countdown in his ears.
"What do you mean, she knew?" Alejandro’s voice was a ragged whisper, the arrogant, untouchable billionaire completely stripped away. He grabbed the doctor’s sleeve, his knuckles white. "She’s my wife. She’s fine. She’s just tired from work."
Dr. Elena Vargas gently but firmly removed his hand. Her eyes held a mixture of pity and severe judgment. "Mr. Villarreal, your wife has Advanced Dilated Cardiomyopathy. Her heart muscle is failing. It has been failing for over a year. Six months ago, right around the time you married her, her specialist told her that without a highly risky, experimental transplant, her life expectancy was less than a year."
Alejandro felt the air leave his own lungs.
Six months.
The exact duration of his cruel, arrogant wager with Emilio.
"She refused to put her name on the priority transplant list," Dr. Vargas continued, flipping through Mariana’s medical file. "When I asked her why she was giving up, she told me she had one last thing to accomplish. She said she needed to anchor someone before she drifted away. She signed a medical proxy. Do you know who she named as her sole beneficiary and decision-maker, Mr. Villarreal?"
Alejandro couldn't speak. He could only shake his head.
"You," the doctor said. "She left everything to you. But more importantly, she left a letter in her medical file, to be delivered to you only if she was admitted in critical condition."
Dr. Vargas handed him a crisp, white envelope. Alejandro’s hands shook violently as he tore it open. The handwriting was unmistakably Mariana’s—elegant, calm, and grounded.
Alejandro, If you are reading this, my time has run out sooner than I hoped. I know about the wager. I knew about it before I signed the papers. Emilio thought I would cry, but I didn't. Because a year ago, before you ever knew I existed, my little brother Diego died in Iztapalapa because your company’s construction truck violated safety protocols. Your lawyers paid off the corrupt local officials and buried the case. I wanted to hate you. I wanted to destroy you. But then I watched you from afar. I saw a man drowning in his own privilege, suffocated by a toxic world of fake friends like Emilio and a family that only values your net worth. I realized that if I died leaving you to that world, Diego’s death would truly mean nothing. I didn't marry you to win a bet, Alejandro. I married you because I had six months left to live, and I decided to spend my last breaths forcing you to become a human being. I needed to see if the man who took my brother’s life had a soul worth saving. Please, don't let my death be in vain.
Alejandro collapsed into a plastic waiting room chair, burying his face in his hands. A raw, choked sob tore from his throat.
Every cynical thought he had ever possessed burned to ash. He hadn't been playing a game with a naive girl from the barrios. She had been playing a game with death itself, using her final days to perform open-heart surgery on his broken morality.
Suddenly, the red emergency lights above Mariana’s ICU door began to flash frantically. A high-pitched, continuous alarm pierced the hallway.
"Code Blue!" a nurse shouted. "We’re losing her! Crash cart, now!"
Alejandro lunged toward the glass doors, but security held him back. Through the glass, he saw Mariana’s pale, lifeless body jerking as the defibrillator paddles hit her chest.
“Clear!”
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“Nothing! Increase to 200 joules! Clear!”
"No!" Alejandro screamed, tears streaming down his face, his forehead pressed against the glass. "Mariana, don't you dare die! You haven't finished saving me yet! Mariana!"
