Chapter 2
Mateo looked down at the phone, then back at me. I quietly told him there was a recording on it and that I needed everyone to hear it before anybody asked me to explain what had happened upstairs.
He didn’t argue.
As nearly 140 guests sat waiting, Mateo played the recording so the room could hear. My mother’s voice came through first, demanding that I sign over the house. Then came my refusal, the sound of the struggle, and Lucía screaming that everything I owned belonged to them because they had raised me.
The worst part wasn’t hearing her again.
It was hearing what came after I hit the wall.
My father’s voice was barely there, but it was clear enough. He never told her to stop. Diego’s voice followed, calm and close: “Just do it, Mariana. Then the problem is over.”
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Mateo kept holding my phone. I looked toward my family for the first time since walking downstairs.
Diego tightened both hands around the yellow folder and pushed his way into the aisle toward us.
