Chapter 5 - The Fallout
Back in Mexico City, the financial pages of every major newspaper carried the headline in screaming bold letters: GRUPO SALGADO COLLAPSES IN RECORD 48-HOUR LIQUIDATION.
The fall of Adrián Salgado was studied in business schools across Latin America as a masterclass in corporate self-destruction. Analysts dissected how a tech company valued at nearly half a billion dollars could evaporate overnight, tracing the invisible threads of ownership back to the enigmatic Mendoza family trust.
Mariana found herself locked out of the luxury Polanco apartment Adrián had rented for her. The landlord, alerted by the banks that the lease was funded by frozen corporate assets, threw her designer bags onto the sidewalk before noon. With no savings of her own—having spent every cent trying to maintain a lifestyle she hadn’t earned—she was forced to move back into her parents' modest apartment in Ecatepec, her phone bombarded by creditors demanding payment for the very dresses she had worn to the gala.
Paola sat in a holding cell at the Reclusorio Sur, abandoned by the high-priced defense attorneys she had assumed Adrián would provide. Every email she had ever sent mocking Valeria, every corporate document she had leaked to undermine the company from within, was now Exhibit A in a federal indictment that carried a ten-year prison sentence.
And Adrián himself—once hailed as the visionary pioneer of Mexican technology—sat behind reinforced glass in a maximum-security remand center, dressed in an orange jumpsuit that hung loosely on his frame.
His cell was six feet by eight feet. No mahogany desk. No panoramic view of Reforma. No executive assistant to bring him espresso.
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The guards didn’t recognize him. To them, he was just another white-collar criminal whose luck had run out.
Every time he closed his eyes, he didn't see the boardrooms, the investors, or the flashing cameras of the gala. He saw Camila’s blue dress. He saw the glitter-covered cardboard medal. And most of all, he saw Valeria’s eyes—not angry, not crying, but looking through him as if he had never existed at all.
