Chapter 3 - The Mask Falls in Public
"What is that paper, Mateo?" called out his brother-in-law, a prominent lawyer, stepping into the aisle.
"This," Mateo said, his voice booming across the garden, "is an enrollment form for a boarding school in Switzerland for my eight-year-old daughter. And attached to it is a custody agreement transferring all my rights to Valeria's brother."
A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. Valeria’s mother gasped, clutching her pearls, while Valeria’s brother, sitting in the third row, suddenly looked very interested in his shoes.
"That's a lie!" Valeria shouted, her voice losing its sweet, melodious tone and turning shrill. "I would never do that! He's hallucinating! Mateo has been under so much stress since Elena died, he's losing his mind! Officiant, please, he needs medical help!"
"Am I?" Mateo sneered. He unfolded the paper and turned to the audio-visual technician sitting at the back of the garden, who was in charge of the wedding slideshow. "Carlos! Put the document on the main projector screen. Now."
"Mateo, no!" Valeria screamed. She ran toward the tech booth, her heavy gown dragging in the dirt, her perfect hair coming loose. But it was too late.
Carlos, who had been fiercely loyal to Mateo for years, quickly scanned the document Mateo had handed him earlier via a quick phone snap and projected it onto the massive LED screen behind the altar—the screen that was supposed to show a romantic video of the couple's journey.
Instead, the screen filled with the stark, cold text of the custody transfer and the chilling handwritten note: "...the trust fund will be ours to manage, and Mateo will have no legal leg to stand on..."
The guests erupted into chaotic murmurs.
"Is that your handwriting, Valeria?" Mateo asked, walking slowly toward her as she stood paralyzed, staring at the screen. "Is that your signature? You didn't just want to be my wife. You wanted to erase my daughter, steal her mother's trust fund, and medicate me into submission."
Valeria turned to her mother, then to her friends, looking for support. But she found only horrified, disgusted stares. Her perfect social standing was crumbling to dust in a matter of seconds.
Realizing she could no longer play the victim, Valeria’s face distorted. The sweet, elegant bride vanished. A cold, calculating sociopath stood in her place.
"So what if I wrote it?" she spat, her voice dripping with venom as she glared at Mateo. "You are obsessed with that dead woman and her brat! You were never going to give me the life I deserved. I did what I had to do to secure my future. And you? You're nothing without my family's political connections!"
"I built my company with my own two hands, Valeria," Mateo said quietly. "And today, I am tearing down yours."
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He turned to the crowd. "The wedding is off. Get off my property. All of you. Except for the police, who are already waiting at the gate."
But Valeria had one final, desperate card to play—and it involved a dark secret about Elena's death that Mateo was not prepared for.
