Chapter 2 - The Silent Extortion
"If you tell him, we will make sure he never sees his child."The next morning, the atmosphere in the Coyoacán mansion was suffocatingly tense. Alejandro had barely slept. He had stayed up all night holding Sofía, who cried silently in his arms, refusing to explain what Doña Carmen meant by her parting threat. Every time Alejandro asked, Sofía would only shake her head and beg him to let it go.
At 8:00 a.m., Alejandro left for a mandatory weekend meeting at his firm in Santa Fe. The moment his luxury SUV cleared the security gates of the neighborhood, the mask of the quiet household slipped entirely.
In the kitchen, Sofía was sitting at the table, trying to drink a cup of warm chamomile tea to soothe her nerves. Her hands were still wrapped in bandages to protect the raw skin.
The kitchen door swung open violently. Ximena and Valeria walked in, followed by Doña Carmen. They didn't look like family; they looked like a pack of wolves cornering their prey.
"Did you think your little tears last night would save you?" Ximena sneered, pulling out a chair and sitting directly opposite Sofía. She took a sip from Sofía’s cup and pushed it away in disgust. "Cheap tea. Just like your taste."
"Leave me alone," Sofía said, her voice trembling but holding a spark of defiance. "Alejandro said..."
"Alejandro doesn't know anything!" Doña Carmen interrupted, stepping forward and slamming a heavy manila folder onto the table. "And he never will, unless you want him to find out exactly who his 'pure' wife really is."
Sofía stared at the folder, her breath catching in her throat. She didn't need to open it. She knew exactly what was inside.
"Five years ago, Sofía," Valeria said, a malicious grin spreading across her face. "Before you met my brother. Before you played the part of the modest, small-town girl. You were desperate for money. Your father was sick, wasn't he? And you made a very... interesting arrangement."
"It wasn't like that!" Sofía cried, tears springing to her eyes. "I was a surrogate! It was a legal medical arrangement to save my father's life! I never even met the couple!"
"Oh, but the medical records say otherwise," Doña Carmen whispered, leaning down until her face was inches from Sofía's. "They say you gave up a child for money. How do you think Alejandro—the man who values family honor above all else, the man who thinks you are a saint—will react when he finds out you sold a baby?"
"It was a surrogacy!" Sofía sobbed, covering her face. "I didn't sell anyone! I was desperate!"
"To Alejandro, it’s the same thing," Ximena laughed coldly. "He will look at you with disgust. He will take the baby you are carrying right now, divorce you, and throw you back to the dirt in Puebla. And we will make sure he gets sole custody. We will tell the judge you are unstable, a woman who rents her womb for cash."
Sofía felt the room spinning. She looked at the three women she had tried so hard to love, the women she had cooked for, cleaned up after, and endured endless insults from. They weren't just snobs; they were monsters.
"What do you want from me?" Sofía whispered, defeated.
May you like
Doña Carmen smiled, a chilling, triumphant expression. "First, you will tell Alejandro that you lied last night. You will tell him you insisted on cleaning, and that we tried to stop you. Second, you will convince him to restore our credit cards by tonight. And third..."
Doña Carmen leaned in closer. "You will sign a document we have prepared, relinquishing all rights to Alejandro's estate and this house. If you don't... we hand this folder to Alejandro the moment he walks through that door."
