Chapter 2
“Call the police,” Beatriz ordered. “I want this thief to learn what it costs to touch what isn’t hers.”
Fernanda froze. Sofía, frightened by the shouting, buried her face in her neck.
—That bracelet isn’t mine, Fernanda said. I’ve never seen it before.
Beatriz held the jewel up for everyone to see.
—Of course. It just appeared inside your bag.
Alejandro picked up the bracelet and recognized it immediately. It had belonged to his grandmother and had been kept for years in a safe only Beatriz and her personal assistant had access to.
“Nobody’s calling the police until the cameras have been reviewed,” he declared.
His mother tried to stop him.
—Are you going to question my word to defend a maid?
—I’ll question any accusation without proof.
The hallway cameras showed Sofía entering and leaving the playroom, Fernanda working, several employees passing by normally. But the recording froze precisely during the eight minutes when someone could have planted the bracelet.
Beatriz feigned surprise. Alejandro didn’t.
Fernanda, humiliated, made a decision.
—I quit. I won’t let my daughter grow up watching me treated like a criminal for being poor.
Alejandro tried to stop her, but she left with Sofía before nightfall. The next day, a photo taken from the terrace appeared on social media: Alejandro lying under the oak tree with the girl on his chest, Fernanda sitting nearby. The headlines suggested the businessman was having a secret affair with his employee, and that she’d tried to steal from the family.
Camila Sada showed up that same afternoon, feigning concern.
“I can help you get this under control,” she told him. “If we announce our engagement, people will forget about that woman.”
Alejandro realized the scandal was too well-orchestrated.
He had his systems team recover the original backup files. Meanwhile, he went to Fernanda’s apartment. He found her packing. She’d received an envelope with no return address containing fifty thousand pesos and a note: “Leave Monterrey before your daughter pays the price.”
“I don’t need you to save me,” she said, fighting back tears. “I need your family to leave us alone.”
Alejandro promised to uncover the truth. That night, the technician recovered a deleted fragment: it showed Lucía, Beatriz’s assistant, entering the locker room, taking out the bracelet, and planting it in Fernanda’s bag.
But there was more.
The file included audio. Beatriz on the phone with Camila.
“Once Fernanda’s gone, Alejandro will fall in line again. Then we’ll announce the wedding, and he’ll never know you leaked the photos.”
Alejandro felt the ground give way beneath him. But before he could confront them, he got a call from the hospital. Sofía had suffered a respiratory crisis brought on by stress, and Fernanda couldn’t afford the admission deposit.
He rushed to the clinic. In the emergency room, while the girl was being treated, Fernanda handed him the envelope of money and an old folder she’d found inside it.
“This was hidden under the bills,” she whispered. “It has your father’s name on it.”
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Alejandro opened the folder. It was a report signed six years earlier, the night before his father’s death. On the last page was a handwritten line:
“Beatriz knows why Fernanda’s husband died. And if my son finds out what we did, our family will fall apart.”
