PART 1
On Saturday mornings, Valeria used to relax with a coffee on her terrace in the Condesa neighborhood.
But their peace was broken by a pungent aroma coming from the master bedroom.
It was Bvlgari Man in Black, the perfume that her husband, Mateo, only used for anniversaries or high-level meetings.
Valeria entered the room and found him in front of the mirror, adjusting the collar of a very expensive linen shirt.
The garment had a perfect cut, but the strangest thing was its color: a very specific pastel peach tone.
“How handsome you look, my love,” Valeria commented, leaning against the door, hiding her strangeness.
Mateo jumped up. His hand shook for 1 second before he reacted.
“Oh, yes. I have the baptism of the son of a very annoying client of the agency.
“Which customer? » You didn’t tell me that no one was going to have a baby, » she asked.
“It’s engineer Morales, from Santa Fe.” Neta, I told you about it,” he replied quickly.
He grabbed the keys to his truck and gave it a dry kiss.
“I’m leaving, dude. I’m sure I’ll follow some suppliers, don’t wait for me to eat.
Valeria froze. That Santa Fe project had closed 6 months ago.
Suddenly, Mateo’s old cell phone, the one that he had been “dead” for 2 months, reads up.
The screen displayed a notification of an unregistered number.
“Love, please hurry up. The Mass starts in 30 minutes, I’m very nervous. »
Valeria felt the blood dripping from her. He tried to unlock it, but he had changed the PIN.
Without crying, her survival instinct took over with absolute coldness.
He opened the tracking app that he had installed for Mateo months ago due to the insecurity of the city.
The GPS was not going to Santa Fe, but to a very luxurious hacienda in Tepotzotlán.
He ordered an Uber immediately. The trip lasted 45 minutes of agony.
The Hacienda Los Agaves stood majestically. A detail in the entrance took his breath away.
All the decoration, from the tablecloths to the flowers, was peach-colored.
The exact same shade of her husband’s shirt.
Valeria snuck in among the guests, covering her black blouse with a jacket.
In the VIP area of the room, he saw a scene that broke his soul.
There was Sofia, her own cousin, who supposedly worked outside in Monterrey.
Sofia wore a peach dress, hugging a newborn baby.
Next to her laughed Aunt Carmen. And at that moment, Mateo approached.
Valeria saw how her husband gave a tender kiss on the forehead to Sofia and the baby.
They were the intimate gestures of a true family man.
The entertainer took the microphone and his voice resounded throughout the place.
“We invite the father of the child, Don Mateo, to come on stage for the blessing.
Mateo went up proudly. Valeria came out of the shadows and walked straight down the aisle.
He stood in front of the priest, stared at him, and stretched out his hand.
“Excuse me, father. Lend me the microphone 1 moment. They have skipped a very important speech.
No one was prepared for the monumental hell that was about to break loose.
PART 2
The priest, totally confused and believing that Valeria was from the family, handed him the microphone.
Matthew, who was 1 meter away, began to tremble. Cold sweat beaded his forehead.
“It’s going to be… Valeria… what are you doing here? He stammered voicelessly, feeling the floor open up.
Valeria didn’t even look at him. He starred at the hundreds of strawberry guests who crowded the room.
She looked for Sofia, who was petrified in her VIP chair, and Aunt Carmen, who was clutching her chest in fear.
Valeria took a deep breath. His voice echoed from the huge speakers, firm, loud and without the slightest trembling.
“Good morning everyone. We apologize for the interruption in this very moving event.
The silence in the hacienda became sepulchral. Hundreds of eyes stared at her in amazement.
“I think it’s fair to introduce myself. My name is Valeria. I am the legitimate wife, the only one recognized by the law of this man.
A collective muffled scream ran across the tables. The murmurs exploded like flaming gunpowder.
“And the most twisted thing about this little theater,” he continued, pointing his finger directly at his cousin, “is that the mother of the celebrant is Sofia, my first cousin.
Chaos exploded. The ladies of lineage covered their mouths, incredulous in the face of tremendous gossip.
The priest took 2 steps back, horrified by the sin he had just injured.
Valeria finally turned to look at Mateo, her eyes shot with an icy fury.
“I want to know, Mateo, and also you, Aunt Carmen, since when have you been using our savings to play with my blood with your father? »
The microphone fell to the ground with a thud. Valeria had dynamited her castle of lies.
Mateo, red with anger and panic, grabbed her arm sharply and pulled her to the back of the stage.
He pushed her into a private VIP that smelled of expensive flowers and pure panic.
Sofia was in there, curled up in an armchair, crying her eyes out as she hugged the baby.
All the black mascara had dripped down his cheeks. He looked like a cornered animal.
“You’re sick, Valeria!” » Mateo shouted to him, walking like a caged beast. You destroyed me in front of my partners!
Valeria adjusted her jacket, intact.
“You destroyed your reputation by yourself by not tying your pants, dude. I just ran the report over the horn.
“You’re a heartless bitch, Valeria,” Sofia screamed from the armchair, playing the martyr. You don’t know my suffering.
“Your suffering?” » Dressed in silk at a baptism of millions of pesos with my husband? Don’t be with me, Sofia.
Mateo tried to change tactics. He knew that with her screams were useless.
He clapped his hands together, pleading.
“Love, neta, listen to me for 5 minutes. I fell into a trap. Sofia got pregnant by a jerk from her job who abandoned her.
Valeria looked at him with disgust, without saying a single word.
Aunt Carmen begged me crying. He told me that the scandal in the family was going to be brutal. I gave my last name to the boy to save the honor. I swear to you.
Valeria let out a dry laugh, void of humor.
“How many weeks is the child, Mateo? »
—2 weeks. She was born 9 months old,” he replied, hesitantly.
—A 2-week-old baby, born at term. That gives 10 months from conception.
Valeria stepped forward, cornering him with her pure intelligence.
—Exactly 10 months ago you told me that you had a congress of directors in Cancun for 1 week.
Mateo stopped breathing.
“And what a coincidence, Sofia uploaded a photo in a bathing suit in the same hotel. He deleted the photo after 5 minutes, but I took a screenshot of it.
Mateo’s face turned ash gray.
“Don’t use family honor to justify your fevers. You are a fifth-rate adulterer.
The door slammed open. It was Aunt Carmen, sweating, furious and humiliated.
“Ungrateful wretch!” He shouted to Valeria. You ruined our lives in front of all these people!
Valeria reached into her bag, turned on the voice recorder of her cell phone and left it in there.
“The one who has no mother is you, aunt. Sell her daughter for a few thousand pesos a month.
BOOM! Aunt Carmen slapped him very hard with her open hand.
Valeria’s cheek turned red instantly, burning like fire, but she didn’t flinch.
He kept his gaze fixed, defiant and haughty.
“Don’t play the saint,” Aunt Carmen spat, with the veins in her neck pouting. If you were a good woman, Matthew wouldn’t have looked for another. You have been married for 7 years and your womb is dry.
The silence in the little room hurts more than the blow.
“Sofia is a complete woman. She can give him offspring. You are a defective sterile. I gave Mateo permission to take it.
Those words were pure poison, a low blow to his secret struggle with infertility.
But Valeria no longer had the heart to break.
“Thanks for the clarification, auntie. We’re done here.
Valeria turned around, left the place and took an Uber directly to her home in Polanco.
When she arrived, she did not lie down to bed in tears. He went up to the room and took out 3 huge suitcases.
He grabbed all of Mateo’s expensive suits, his shirts and lotions, and threw them into a ball.
He put his designer shoes in 4 black garbage bags.
He called a trusted locksmith. In less than 2 hours, all the sheets in the house were new.
That night, he turned on his laptop and checked the statements of the joint account.
The impudence was unforgivable: 15,000 pesos a month to rent an apartment in Sofia in Roma.
Payments of 20,000 to the private maternity clinic. And 52000 pesos withdrawn 1 week ago to pay for that damn baptism.
He had emptied the savings they accumulated for 3 years for his In Vitro treatment.
The next morning, the doorbell rang. It was Doña Lidia, his mother-in-law.
The elderly woman came in crying in droves. She sat in the living room, devastated.
“Forgive me, daughter. Forgive me for giving birth to such a monster,” Doña Lidia sobbed. I found out about the whole circus.
Doña Lidia took out of her bag a thick manila-colored folder and handed it to Valeria.
“Mateo asked me to keep this in my safe. I opened it yesterday. Use it to sink them.
Valeria opened the documents. His blood boiled as he read them.
They were the deeds of a piece of land in Valle de Bravo and the invoice for a late-model Mazda truck.
Mateo had bought them with the money from the marriage, but he put them in the name of Aunt Carmen to commit fraud and hide his patrimony.
Early on Monday, Valeria was sitting in front of the most feared lawyer in Mexico City.
He gave him the USB with the recordings, the social media evidence and the embezzlements.
They didn’t go for the traditional. They staged a masterful attack, straight to the corporate jugular.
Valeria sent the divorce papers, along with a fraud lawsuit, directly to the Human Resources office of Mateo’s transnational company.
He attached all the evidence of the theft of 52,000 pesos from the joint account.
In less than 2 hours, the general director sent for Mateo.
He was fired without severe pay for violating the strict code of corporate ethics.
They canceled her major medical insurance and took away her access card.
That night, a brutal storm fell on the city.
Mateo appeared at Valeria’s house. It was pouring rain and he didn’t have an umbrella.
He was holding on to the bars of the gate, soaked, begging loudly.
Valeria went out to the door, protected by the ceiling, drinking a cup of hot tea.
“Valeria, please!” » They ran me like a dog! Matthew pleaded, weeping truly. I don’t have wool! The banks freeze everything for me.
Valeria took a sip from her cup, impassive.
“Sofia demands luxuries from me. It’s driving me crazy. Please withdraw the claim from the garrison!
“And why are you crying for me, dude? » she answered, with a terrifying calmness. Ask your perfect new wife to get to work, or for Aunt Carmen to sell the land.
Mateo fell to his knees in the puddles.
“I can’t stand them, I really regret it. Let me come home.
“You don’t have a house here anymore. Enjoy the hell you built.
Weeks later, in the family court, Sofia arrived with her diva airs, believing herself untouchable.
“That truck is mine, it was a gift for giving birth to your son. And the land belongs to my mother,” she complained, haughtily in front of the judge.
Valeria’s lawyer took out a sealed court order.
“Mexican law is clear, mija. Buying things with marital funds on the sly is fraud. The judge has already approved the definitive seizure.
Sofia’s world collapsed. She turned to Mateo, furious.
“You said you were a millionaire!” » Pay them the 52000 and that’s it, don’t let them take our things!
“I don’t have a damn weight split in half!” » Mateo shouted at him in the middle of the courtroom. I’m unemployed, broke, and up to my neck in debt from your whims!
Sofia stepped back, pale. She realized the harsh truth: she had slept with a failure.
At Christmas dinner, the whole family gathered at the house of grandfather Don Roberto.
Aunt Carmen and Sofia tried to play the victim, saying that Valeria was a ruthless resentful.
Valeria took out her speaker, connected it to her cell phone and pressed play on the recording of the baptism.
The auntie’s poisonous voice rang out clearly: “Your womb is dry… I gave him permission to take it…”
Grandfather Don Roberto turned red with fury.
“Get out of my sight!” » The patriarch bellowed in a voice of thunder. They are the biggest shame of this nickname!
They were banished from the family forever, humiliated in front of everyone they knew.
The final judgment gave Valeria absolute victory.
He won 100 percent of Polanco’s property and the reimbursement of his 52,000 pesos with the forced sale of the truck.
6 months later, divine justice put everything in order.
Mateo ended up living in a rented micro apartment in a dangerous neighborhood, working as a delivery man 14 hours a day.
The fights with Sofia were brutal, because there was not even enough for diapers, much less for luxuries.
On the other hand, Valeria flourished like never before.
Free of parasites, she was promoted to creative director of her company.
That afternoon, sitting on a very expensive terrace, she drank her favorite coffee.
She had just paid for tickets for a trip to Japan with her best friends.
He looked at the clear sky, taking a deep breath.
He understood that, sometimes, life takes away from the worst people disguised as a blessing.
And she, in the end, had crowned herself as the absolute queen of her own destiny.
