Octavio had for years emptied Elena’s inheritance to Renata: stocks of a tequiliera company, agave land and an investment fund that would take control of her daughter when she married or turned thirty.
But the worst appeared in a blue folder.
There were payments to an accountant, a journalist and an official linked to the case that destroyed Sebastian’s father.
“My father was framed,” he murmured. Octavius sank it because he had discovered the fraud.
Renata felt the floor open.
I was seventeen. She was locked up. I didn’t know anything.
Sebastian took a second too long to respond, and that silence hurt her more than an accusation.
“You’re not responsible,” he said at last. Forgive me. My anger spoke before me.
At the bottom of the folder they found a draft marriage covenant that none had seen. It included a counterfeit clause: if Renata died and Sebastian was investigated, all fortune would return to Octavio.
Next to the document were photographs of a dangerous curve on the road to Tapalpa and a note written by the family lawyer:
“Accident after the transfer. The husband will be the natural suspect.”
Renata understood the whole plan.
Octavius had chosen a ruined man to make him a murderer in the public. She must have died. Sebastian had to go to prison. His father would regain every stolen weight.
Then the alarm rang.
The smoke started to enter under the door.
Someone had set the file on fire.
Sebastian took the blue folder, but Renata returned for Elena’s notebook. A burning beam fell between the two. The roof creaked. The windows exploded in the heat.
“Renata, get out of there!” Sebastian shouted.
She managed to see a shadow close from the outside the only clear door.
And, a second later, the main beam fell directly on Sebastian.
PART 3
Sebastian!
Renata went through the smoke blindly. The beam had struck her husband’s shoulder and kept him on the ground. He tried to get up, but the pain bent his body.
For twelve years he had been repeated that he was clumsy, heavy, useless. That night, the strength society used to make fun of it was the only thing that could save them.
Renata supported both hands under the wood, screamed until he felt his throat tear and managed to lift it up enough for Sebastian to pull out his arm. He then held him by the waist and led him into a service passageway that he remembered from his children’s visits to La Cumbre.
The exit was blocked by a door swollen by moisture. Renata hit her with the shoulder once, twice, three, until she gave in.
They fell on the wet land of the garden while the flames devoured the archive.
The notebook was still hidden under Renata’s coat.
They took refuge in a small abandoned chapel at the bottom of the property. Sebastian had a dislocated shoulder and face covered in soot. Renata was shaking, not in fear, but for all that he was about to lose.
“I married you to save my family,” he confessed. I thought it might be right with you, keep a distance and keep the deal. But I no longer want a company, a house or a clean surname if to get them I must give you your father.
Renata watched him in silence.
“Octavio will offer you everything again.
“Then I’ll say no again.
Why?
Sebastian breathed hard.
“Because now I look for your face when you walk into a room. Because I admire your intelligence, your courage, and even the way you contradict me. Because tonight you saved me when everyone claimed that you were the one who needed to be saved.
She didn’t tell her she was beautiful to correct the world. He told her that he loved her for everything the world had never bothered to know.
Renata kissed him first.
The next morning, the fire was declared arrogon. Police found fuel debris in the corridor and a call from family lawyer Mauricio Luján to the guard who had disappeared before the fire.
Octavio denied any relationship.
Then he did exactly what Sebastian had announced.
He offered to pay all the debts of the Alcázar Group, publicly clear his father’s name and guarantee the future of his sister Sofia. I was just supposed to sign a report claiming that Renata was suffering from delusions, that it had set the fire and that it needed to be interned.
Sebastian rejected the proposal to a notary and two independent lawyers.
Renata heard from the hallway.
For the first time in his life, someone gave up a fortune without requiring him to pay the sacrifice with obedience.
However, Elena’s tests were not enough to prove everything. It was still to confirm who had altered his medication the night of his death and who had authorized Renata’s internments.
The response came from a woman named Verónica Robles, Elena’s cousin, who had been missing for four years. He had lived in hiding in Monterrey after Octavio threatened to accuse his son of fraud.
Veronica retained an original letter.
In it, Elena explained that she had discovered the illegal withdrawals of the trust and that the accountant Ernesto Alcázar, Sebastian’s father, had tried to help her. He also wrote that he feared Octavius and that Dr. Salcedo was replacing his medications.
“If something happens to me, it wasn’t an accident,” the last line read.
The hearing to suspend Octavio as administrator of the trust was held in Guadalajara. Judges, bank representatives, journalists and members of both families attended. Octavio was waiting for a private process. Renata turned the room into the place where he would stop asking permission to exist.
He entered with an emerald green dress, uncovered neck and collected hair without trying to hide the finer area of his temple. The conversations went out.
Octavius smiled with contempt.
“Look at her. He’s enjoying the show. My daughter has always needed attention.
Renata placed Elena’s notebook on the table.
“No. For years you needed no one to look at me with enough attention.
Her father tried to discredit her with old medical records. He claimed that Renata suffered from paranoid episodes since he was a teenager and that he had only tried to protect her.
Then Sebastian delivered the bills.
Dr. Salcedo had collected bonuses each time he signed an isolation order. The diagnoses were repeated word for word, even on dates when Renata had not even been examined.
Monica testified about the poisoned chocolate. The independent doctor presented the analysis. The guard of La Cumbre confessed that Mauricio Luján paid him to close the door of the file during the fire.
Then the banks spoke.
The transfers matched Elena’s code. Millions of pesos had come out of Renata’s legacy to cover Octavian’s political campaigns, personal debts and failed businesses.
Sebastian filed the payments used to fabricate the case against his father. A former journalist acknowledged that he received money to publish false documents. A retired official admitted that he destroyed a report exonerating Ernesto Alcázar.
Octavio began to lose his cool.
“That was all the work of Mauricio,” he said. He handled the papers.
The lawyer paled.
Mauritius had been keeping copies of each fraud for twenty years to protect himself. Seeing that Octavius was trying to abandon him, he turned over emails, forged contracts and voice recordings.
One of them contained the conversation that defined the wedding plan.
“Renata will get married, the trust will be released and then there will be an accident,” said Octavio. Alcázar has debts, bad reputations and a father identified as a criminal. No one will doubt that he did it for money.
In the recording, Mauricio asked what would happen if Renata refused to travel.
That’s what Salcedo is for. A correct dose and it will sign anything.
The room was silent.
