Chapter 4 - The Tables Have Turned
Andrés stared at me as if I were a ghost. He looked from my designer dress to the legal documents in his trembling hands, and then back to Licenciado Morales, who respectfully stepped aside and nodded in my direction.
“Lucía?” Andrés choked out, his voice cracking into a pathetic squeak. “What... what is the meaning of this? Did you pay off some lawyers to play a sick joke on me?”
I walked slowly toward him, the click of my heels echoing sharply against the stone courtyard. The ambient music from inside the ballroom thumped dully against our backs, a surreal soundtrack to a life that was about to shatter completely.
“A joke, Andrés?” I asked quietly, stopping just an arm's length away from him. “Did you think I spent eleven years playing the quiet, obedient wife because I had nowhere else to go? Did you really believe your mother’s little narrative about the poor girl who 'got lucky'?”
From the doorway of the ballroom, Doña Patricia emerged, her ivory suit gleaming under the porch lights, her face twisted in a mask of haughty irritation.
“Andrés! What is taking you so long?” she snapped, marching down the steps. “Who are these people? And why is this woman back here? I thought I told you to deal with her little tantrum.”
She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the look on her son's face.
“Mother,” Andrés whispered, turning to her with wide, terrified eyes. “The hacienda... this property... it’s not ours.”
Patricia scoffed, waving a dismissive hand. “Don’t be ridiculous. The Villaseñor name owns half of Querétaro. I personally oversaw the purchase agreement.”
“No, you didn't,” I said, my voice cutting through her arrogance like a blade. “You oversaw a promissory note disguised as a real estate acquisition. Andrés was so desperate to impress you—so desperate to prove he was the golden boy who could match your impossible standards—that he signed away every corporate asset he didn't even truly own.”
I turned back to Morales and held out my hand. He handed me a second, thicker folder containing the certified corporate registry of Horizonte Capital Inmobiliario.
I opened it and held it out for Patricia to see.
May you like
Founder and Majority Shareholder: Lucía Elena Montero.
“Surprise, Doña Patricia,” I whispered, stepping closer to her. “The company that financed your precious family empire, the company that holds the debt on this hacienda, and the company that has been keeping your son afloat for the last five years... belongs to me.”
