Chapter 3 - The Panic in Polanco
Panic spreads through a corrupt family like wildfire through dry brush. Within an hour, Leticia had summoned Paulina and her husband, Congressman Diego Garza, to an emergency summit in the mahogany-paneled study.
Paulina burst through the front doors, her designer handbag clutched like a shield. “Mom! What is going on? The bank just sent an automated SMS alert to Diego’s executive assistant saying our house is tagged for seizure! How is that possible? We have lines of credit! We have investors!”
“We have nothing,” Leticia whispered, slumped into her high-backed leather chair, looking ten years older than she had at Sunday dinner. Her face was chalk-white, stripped of its usual haughty veneer. “The bank... the bank says the trust was revoked. Someone pulled the plug.”
Diego Garza paced the room, his face flushed with political fury. He was a man accustomed to bullying bureaucrats and intimidating local journalists. This was different. This was cold, hard financial ruin.
“Who controls the trust?” Diego demanded, his voice echoing off the bookshelf. “Every Rivas asset is managed through a blind portfolio. Who has the master key?”
Paulina stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes widened as a terrifying, unthinkable realization dawned on her.
“No,” Paulina breathed, shaking her head in denial. “No, it’s impossible.”
“Who, Paulina? Name names!” Diego barked.
“Mara,” Paulina choked out, the name tasting like ash in her mouth. “It has to be Mara. Or... or that quiet, invisible husband of hers.”
Leticia scoffed, though her hands were shaking so badly she had to clasp them tightly in her lap. “Don't be absurd, Paulina! Mara is a nobody. She spent her entire life apologizing for existing, wearing discount shoes, and letting us pay for her groceries when she was broke. She couldn’t pull together two million pesos, let alone ninety-two!”
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“Are you sure, Mother?” Paulina’s voice rose to a hysterical shriek. “Think about it! For ten years, every time the bank threatened to take this house, the problem mysteriously vanished overnight! We always assumed it was one of your old society admirers, or some ghost investor from Dad’s past! But Mara... Mara was always strangely calm whenever the foreclosure notices arrived!”
Silence descended upon the study. A heavy, suffocating silence that tasted like defeat.
