Part 2
I didn’t sleep that night.
I packed Ramiro’s clothes into black bags, changed the lock with the help of Don Chava, the neighbor from number 3, and waited for him to arrive shouting like he always did to scare me.
But he didn’t come alone.
He came with my mother.
She arrived wrapped in her shawl, eyes red and voice hard, telling me that a decent woman wouldn’t leave the father of her future nephew on the street.
I let her speak until she said the word that broke my heart: jealous.
She said at least Mariana would give her a grandchild, that I had become bitter from working so much, and that maybe that was why Ramiro looked for tenderness elsewhere.
I didn’t yell.
I simply opened the banking app and showed her the transactions: payments to a private clinic in Satélite, baby furniture, a trip to Huatulco, cash withdrawals, and a huge charge from a finance company I never authorized.
My mother was left speechless, but still tried to defend him.
She said it might be a misunderstanding.
The next day I went to a licensed lawyer recommended by Doña Elvira, my boss at the bakery.
The lawyer reviewed documents, screenshots, and bank statements.
He explained that Ramiro had used my ID, my proof of address, and a scanned signature to take out a loan in my name.
The worst part wasn’t the debt; it was that one final physical signature was missing to release the full amount.
That’s why they were pressuring me.
That’s why the baby shower was at my mother’s house.
They wanted to soften me in front of everyone.
I was leaving the office when Mariana called me crying from a clinic bathroom.
She had found another phone in Ramiro’s backpack.
In that phone were conversations with a woman named Griselda, a widow from Querétaro who was sending him money for a supposed artisanal bakery franchise.
There were also messages with another girl from Toluca, five months pregnant, whom he promised to marry once “the problem with the crazy wife was fixed.”
Mariana didn’t apologize with pretty words; she vomited from fear and then sent me the screenshots.
In one conversation, Ramiro said Mariana was useful because her pregnancy could force me to sign without questions.
In another, he mocked me, calling me “the bakery mule.”
I cried from rage, but not because of him.
I cried because my sister, who had stabbed me in the back, was also discovering she had been used as a weapon.
Still, I didn’t hug her.
I told her that if she wanted to save her baby, she had to stop protecting the man who was drowning both of us.
So we planned something I never imagined doing with her: going back to the same patio where I was humiliated, but this time with evidence.
Mariana convinced Ramiro to organize a family meal to “apologize” to me and close the loan issue.
My mother agreed because she wanted peace.
The aunts came because they loved gossip.
I arrived with the lawyer, a folder, and my phone connected to a speaker.
Ramiro smiled when he saw me, believing I had given up.
Mariana, pale, asked him to say in front of everyone that he had never used my money.
He swore on the baby.
Then she pressed play.
Ramiro’s voice filled the patio, saying that once I signed, he would take the money and leave “the little sisters crying” fighting each other.
My mother put her hands to her chest.
Ramiro tried to grab the phone from Mariana, but she stepped back too fast, hit a chair, and fell to the ground holding her belly.
Blood appeared on her light dress before anyone could even scream.
