Chapter 10 - The Masterstroke
Three years later.
Inside the high-security yard of Topo Chico Penitentiary, Mateo sat on a rusted bench, scrubbing dirt off his worn uniform. His face was weathered, his hands calloused from manual labor. He was broke, forgotten, and mocked daily by the other inmates as the "17-Call Coward."
A guard tapped his shoulder with a nightstick. "Garza. You have a legal visitor."
Mateo’s heart leaped. A legal visitor? Had an appeal finally gone through? Was there a mistake in his conviction?
He rushed to the visitation room, grabbing the phone handset desperately. Sitting behind the thick glass was Alejandro, dressed in a sleek charcoal suit.
"Alejandro!" Mateo gasped. "Did you bring appeal papers? Are you here to mock me?!"
Alejandro smiled calmly, picking up his receiver. "I'm not here to mock you, Mateo. I'm here to close the final chapter."
"What do you mean?"
Alejandro leaned closer to the glass. "Do you remember the night Camila fell?"
Mateo flinched. "I remember."
"You always thought it was an accident," Alejandro said softly, his voice chillingly calm. "You thought she slipped because she was clumsy or dizzy."
Mateo blinked. "What are you talking about?"
"Camila was a national-level gymnast in her youth, Mateo," Alejandro whispered with a sharp, lethal grin. "She didn't slip. She engineered that tumble down the bottom three steps of the stairs."
Mateo’s eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated shock. "What...? No... no!"
"She knew you were at the club with Valeria," Alejandro continued, laying out the final puzzle piece. "She knew you had turned off your phone or would reject her calls. She had set up cameras inside the house that recorded her falling, recorded her desperately dialing your phone seventeen times, and recorded your systematic rejections."
Mateo pressed his hands against the glass, his breath hitching. "She... she risked her life... the baby..."
"The medical team waiting outside the security gate was mine, Mateo," Alejandro revealed, the shocking reality crashing down on Mateo like a tidal wave. "I was parked two blocks away from your mansion an hour before she ever walked down those stairs. The moment she pressed call to me, my paramedics breached the gates. The fall was controlled. The blood on the floor was from an emergency medical IV package she opened to make the crime scene look catastrophic for the police."
Mateo stared at Alejandro, his mind completely shattering.
"She baited you," Alejandro whispered. "She knew your arrogance would make you ignore her. She knew your selfishness would make you turn off your phone. She gave you seventeen chances to be a human being, Mateo. Seventeen chances to save yourself. And you rejected every single one."
Mateo let out a broken, soundless scream, tears falling down his dirt-stained face.
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"Camila and I were married last week," Alejandro added, standing up from his chair and buttoning his jacket. "Sofia calls me Dad. We own your former estate, your firm, and your legacy. You didn't just lose everything because of a mistake, Mateo. You lost everything because you played a game against a queen who was ten steps ahead of you."
Alejandro hung up the phone receiver, turned his back, and walked out into the bright sunlight, leaving Mateo screaming hysterically against the glass as the iron cell doors locked him in darkness forever.
