Chapter 4 - THE SOCIAL MEDIA MELTDOWNWithin two hours, the luxurious apartment—once a sanctuary of family warmth, now transformed into a scene of utter chaos—was filled with the sound of frantically slamming suitcases and high-pitched screeching.
"Valeria, stop filming!" Daniel yelled, pacing the hallway like a caged animal. "This isn't content, this is a disaster!"
"Are you kidding me?!" Valeria shrieked, her mascara running as she threw her designer clothes haphazardly into a Louis Vuitton duffel bag. "My followers are asking why my live stream cut out! I told them we got kicked out by a psycho gold-digger! Look at my engagement numbers spiking—at least some good is coming out of this!"
Carmen sat rigidly on the velvet sofa, her face twisted in absolute fury. She refused to pack her own bags, treating the situation as if it were a temporary glitch in the matrix that would soon correct itself.
"She'll regret this," Carmen muttered, her knuckles white as she gripped her handbag. "A woman without a man is nothing. Daniel, your father and I gave you everything. You let her wear the pants, and look where it got us! You need to call her boss! Call her company! Tell them she's mentally unstable!"
Daniel didn't answer. He was staring blankly at his phone screen.
He had tried logging into his work email, only to find that his access token had also been revoked. Why? Because the corporate subsidiary he managed was entirely dependent on a massive venture capital partnership managed by—you guessed it—Mariana’s primary corporate firm.
In fact, Mariana wasn't just a senior director; she was a major stakeholder who had personally greenlit the contract that kept Daniel's division afloat.
By 11:30 AM, the building security guard, accompanied by the police officer, stood firmly inside the foyer, tapping his watch.
"Time's up, folks. Bags out, keys on the counter, or we haul you down to the precinct for trespassing."
Defeated, humiliated, and utterly bewildered, Daniel, Carmen, Valeria, and her boyfriend dragged their overflowing designer luggage out into the glaring midday sun. They didn't have cars of their own—Daniel's BMW lease was paid through Mariana's corporate account, which had also been automatically repossessed by the leasing agency an hour prior.
They stood on the sidewalk outside the high-rise building, surrounded by twenty suitcases, waiting for a taxi they couldn't pay for because every single card they owned was dead.
Passersby stared. Valeria hastily put on sunglasses, trying to hide her face, while desperately trying to call her boyfriend’s mother to bail them out.
Daniel pulled out his phone one last time and typed out a message to me, desperate, pleading, and entirely blind to the magnitude of what he had destroyed.
“Mariana, please. This has gone too far. Mom is having chest pains, we are standing on the street like homeless people, and Camila needs her father. Let's talk like adults.”
He hit send.
The message remained unread.
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Three miles away, in a sunlit penthouse overlooking the ocean, I sat at a marble table with Camila playing happily with a brand-new set of building blocks. My phone chimed with the notification that Daniel’s message had been received.
I didn't even glance at the screen. I picked up my phone, blocked his number permanently, and turned my attention back to my daughter, whose smile was brighter and warmer than it had been in years.
