PART 3
She looked at the red mark still fading on my cheek.
“Did your husband ever hit you before?”
“No.”
“Threaten you?”
“Not physically.”
“Financially control you?”
I hesitated.
“He always knew what was in my account. He’d ask about my salary. Sometimes he’d take my card when he needed to buy materials for his workshop.”
Elena stopped turning the pages.
“Did you give it to him voluntarily?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
“I was afraid he’d be angry.”
She nodded.
“That’s important.”
I handed her the bank statements.
“I want to know where all this money went.”
She began sorting them by month.
The first pages showed ordinary expenses.
Groceries.
Electricity.
Water.
Medicine.
House repairs.
Then the larger payments appeared.
$2,800 for the roof.
$1,900 for the washing machine and appliances.
$4,600 for construction materials.
$7,500 transferred to Mauricio’s account.
Another $3,200.
Then $5,000.
Then another $6,800.
Elena raised an eyebrow.
“How much did you earn during this period?”
“About $2,700 a month after taxes.”
“And you were paying most of the household expenses?”
“Yes.”
She kept reading.
Suddenly she stopped.
“What is this?”
I leaned forward.
A transfer appeared on the page.
$18,000.
I stared at it.
“I don’t remember that.”
“Look at the date.”
I did.
It was fourteen months earlier.
I shook my head.
“That wasn’t me.”
“Was your husband authorized to use your banking credentials?”
“He knew my password.”
Elena’s expression hardened.
“Did you authorize an $18,000 transfer?”
“No.”
She circled it.
“Then we need to find out where it went.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
I remembered that month.
Mauricio had told me his workshop was finally going to open.
He had been excited.
He’d said he needed money for equipment.
I had refused because I had already given him thousands.
He had sulked for three days.
Then suddenly he told me he’d found another investor.
I had believed him.
“Can we trace it?” I asked.
“Yes.”
She turned another page.
The money hadn’t gone to a supplier.
It had gone to a company.
Mendoza Property Holdings LLC.
I frowned.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She wrote down the name.
“That’s why we’re going to investigate before you confront anyone.”
I swallowed.
“What does a property company have to do with my husband?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
She closed the folder.
“And Valeria, don’t go back to that house alone.”
“I need clothes.”
“We can arrange for someone to accompany you.”
“I don’t want a fight.”
“Neither do I. But people who believe they’ve lost control sometimes become more dangerous when they realize it.”
I nodded.
Before I left, Elena gave me a list.
Change your banking password.
Freeze your credit.
Remove Mauricio as an authorized user from every account.
Preserve every message.
Save photographs of the injuries.
Do not delete anything.
And most importantly:
Do not tell Mauricio what you have discovered.
I promised.
That evening, I stayed at my parents’ house.
My mother prepared the guest room.
She kept asking whether I needed anything.
I told her I was fine.
I wasn’t.
At 8:17 p.m., Mauricio called.
I didn’t answer.
At 8:21, he called again.
At 8:23, a message appeared.
“You have until tomorrow morning to come home.”
Then another.
“Don’t embarrass me.”
Then another.
“My mother says you took some jewelry.”
I stared at the screen.
Jewelry?
I immediately called Elena.
She answered on the second ring.
“Don’t respond,” she said after I explained.
“But she’s accusing me of stealing.”
“I know.”
“I never touched her jewelry.”
“I believe you.”
“What should I do?”
“Save the message.”
I took screenshots.
Then something strange happened.
Another message appeared.
This time from Teresa.
“You think your parents can protect you? They don’t know what you’ve done.”
I showed my father.
He stared at the phone.
“There’s something else going on,” he said.
“I think so too.”
The following morning, Elena called me.
“I found the company.”
My heart began pounding.
“And?”
“It’s registered to someone named Rafael Mendoza.”
“Who is that?”
“That’s the interesting part.”
She paused.
“Rafael Mendoza is Mauricio’s biological father.”
I couldn’t speak.
Elena continued.
“Apparently, Teresa and Rafael were married twenty-nine years ago.”
I frowned.
“I know Teresa’s husband died years ago.”
“Yes.”
“What does that have to do with the company?”
“Rafael didn’t die.”
My mouth went dry.
“What?”
“He disappeared from Teresa’s life.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It gets stranger.”
Elena sent me several documents.
Corporate filings.
Property records.
Loan agreements.
I opened them.
The company owned three properties.
One was a warehouse.
One was a small commercial building.
And the third was—
I froze.
The house where Mauricio and Teresa lived.
I stared at the screen.
“Elena…”
“I know.”
“Teresa said that house was hers.”
“She told you that?”
“Constantly.”
“She doesn’t own it.”
My hands began shaking.
“Then who does?”
“Technically, the company does.”
“And who owns the company?”
“Rafael Mendoza.”
I felt like the room had shifted beneath me.
“But Rafael disappeared.”
“That’s what Teresa wanted everyone to believe.”
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then Elena said something that made my blood run cold.
“Valeria, there’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“The company records show that someone has been making monthly payments into it.”
“From whom?”
“Your husband.”
I closed my eyes.
“How much?”
“Almost exactly the amount you’ve been transferring to Mauricio every month.”
I remembered every conversation.
Every request.
Every time he told me the money was going toward his workshop.
Every time he told me he was building our future.
I had believed him.
But apparently, my money had been paying someone else.
“Why?” I whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“Can we find out?”
“Yes.”
She paused.
“But we may have to go back to the house.”
My stomach turned.
“I don’t want to see him.”
“You don’t have to. But there may be documents there that explain everything.”
That afternoon, Elena arranged for a police officer to accompany us while I collected my belongings.
When I arrived, Teresa was standing on the porch.
She looked furious.
“You came back.”
“I came for my things.”
“You’re not taking anything from this house.”
I looked at her.
“It’s not your house.”
Her face changed.
Just for a second.
But I saw it.
Fear.
Then Mauricio stepped outside.
His expression was cold.
“You went to a lawyer.”
I said nothing.
Teresa crossed her arms.
“You think you can destroy this family?”
“No,” I replied. “I’m trying to understand what this family has been hiding from me.”
Mauricio’s face went pale.
“Go upstairs and pack.”
The officer stepped between us.
“She’ll pack her personal belongings. Nobody touches her.”
I went upstairs.
My hands trembled as I opened the bedroom closet.
I began placing my clothes into boxes.
Then I noticed something.
The floorboard beneath the wardrobe looked different.
One corner was slightly raised.
I knelt.
I pulled it up.
There was a small envelope underneath.
My name was written on it.
VALERIA.
I stared at it.
Nobody had ever told me about this envelope.
I opened it.
Inside was a single handwritten letter.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
I read the first line.
“If you’re reading this, Teresa has probably already told you that this house belongs to her.”
My heart stopped.
I continued.
“It doesn’t.”
I looked toward the bedroom door.
Then I read the next line.
“And Mauricio is not the man you think he is.”
I sat down on the floor.
My hands were shaking so badly that I nearly dropped the paper.
The letter was signed:
Rafael Mendoza.
I read it again.
Then again.
At the bottom was a date.
Three months before my wedding.
And beneath the signature was a sentence that changed everything:
“Valeria, I tried to warn you before you married my son. Teresa made sure you never received my message.”
I stopped breathing.
My wedding.
The envelope had been written before my wedding.
Someone had hidden it.
Someone had wanted me to marry Mauricio without knowing the truth.
I folded the letter and slipped it into my purse.
Then I heard footsteps approaching.
Mauricio.
I quickly stood.
He entered the room.
“What are you doing?”
“Packing.”
His eyes moved toward the wardrobe.
Then toward the floor.
For a second, his face became completely expressionless.
“You found something.”
It wasn’t a question.
I said nothing.
He stepped closer.
“What did you find?”
I backed toward the door.
The officer immediately appeared behind him.
“Step away.”
Mauricio stopped.
But before leaving, he looked directly at me.
“You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
I waited until he left.
Then I called Elena.
“I found a letter.”
“What does it say?”
I told her.
There was silence on the other end.
Then Elena said:
“Bring it to me immediately.”
“Why?”
“Because if Rafael really wrote that letter before your wedding, then we need to find him.”
