Billionaire Ricardo Landa believed he had already won his divorce as he walked into the courthouse with his mistress and a smug grin—until he froze in dread when the judge opened the envelope his wife had secretly held onto for months. Inside was a brutal truth that would shatter his empire and annihilate his pride forever.

CHAPTER 1: The Santa Fe Circus and the Silence of the Hills

Traffic on the upper level of the Periférico was unbearable, as usual at eight in the morning in Mexico City. A relentless chain of red brake lights and impatient horns crawled from the south toward the glass towers of Santa Fe. Yet inside Ricardo Landa’s armored Mercedes-Benz G-Class, the city’s frenzy played out like a muted film behind tinted glass.

Ricardo Landa—the “King of Data,” the man who climbed from a housing complex in Iztapalapa to become the youngest billionaire ever featured on the cover of Expansión magazine—straightened the knot of his Italian silk tie. He checked his reflection in the rearview mirror. Not a crease. Not a shadow beneath his eyes. Immaculate.

“Do you think there will be a lot of press?” Isa asked, cutting through the climate-controlled quiet of the cabin.

Ricardo turned to her. Isa Monroe. Twenty-six years old. Former PR intern at his own company. Now the woman for whom he was discarding fifteen years of marriage. She wore a blazing red pantsuit that cost more than what most employees earned in a year, touching up her lipstick while staring into the front camera of her iPhone 15 Pro Max.

“I paid for it to be there, my love,” Ricardo replied with a self-satisfied smile, squeezing her hand. “I want everyone to see this. I want them to see how one cycle closes and the true empire begins.”

Isa smiled—the practiced smile she had refined for her fifty thousand Instagram followers.
“It’s just… she makes me nervous. Camila. Do you think she’ll make a scene? You know how exes get when they realize they’ve lost.”

Ricardo gave a dry chuckle.
“Camila? Make a scene?” He shook his head. “You don’t know my wife… or rather, my ex-wife. Camila’s a pushover. She doesn’t have the backbone to fight. She’ll sit there, cry a bit, sign whatever they hand her, then run back to her parents’ place in Coyoacán. She’s predictable. Boring. That’s why I’m with you.”

The SUV stopped at the main entrance of the Superior Court of Justice of Mexico City. Just as Ricardo had promised, photographers and reporters swarmed the curb. These weren’t cheap entertainment tabloids—they were financial and society journalists. Ricardo Landa wasn’t a celebrity. He was an economic force. His divorce wasn’t gossip; it was market news.

The driver opened the door, and camera flashes detonated like a storm.
“Ricardo! Ricardo! Is it true you requested the DNA test?”
“Mr. Landa! What will happen to Lang Tech’s stock if the adultery is proven?”
“Isa! Isa, a picture over here!”

Ricardo moved forward, ignoring the questions while ensuring the cameras caught his best angle. He held Isa by the arm, displaying her like a trophy. Together they entered the courthouse lobby—an imposing hall of marble and echoes, heavy with the scent of floor wax, burnt coffee, and human despair.

They stepped into the private elevator reserved by his legal team. As the numbers climbed, Ricardo felt that familiar surge of adrenaline—the same rush he’d felt before sealing hostile takeovers or cracking supposedly unbreakable servers in his early days. The sensation of absolute control. He was going to crush Camila, not out of hatred, but because she represented the final trace of his ordinary past. She reminded him of the Ricardo who counted coins for the subway, the insecure version of himself. To become the god he imagined himself to be, every remnant of that man had to be erased.

When they arrived at Courtroom 7C, his legal team was already waiting. The best firm in Mexico: Castañeda & Associates. Five men in flawless gray suits, leather briefcases in hand, eyes sharp as predators.

“Everything is prepared, Mr. Landa,” said Castañeda, the senior partner—a bald man with a commanding baritone. “Judge Montiel is demanding, but he respects evidence. And the facts we fabricated—pardon me, presented—are airtight. The ‘unstable wife’ narrative has already taken hold in the media.”

“Excellent,” Ricardo said, taking his seat at the head of the plaintiff’s table. Isa sat beside him, crossing her legs as she discreetly checked comments on her latest post.

That was when the door on the opposite side opened.

The low murmur in the courtroom softened. Camila entered.

Ricardo expected her to look shattered. Dark circles. Rumpled clothes. Maybe that old sweater she wore during her depressive spells. He expected weakness.

What he saw made him blink.

Camila Landa walked in with measured calm. She wore a navy-blue dress—clean lines, modest cut, three-quarter sleeves. Simple, yet the fabric fell with a grace Isa’s red suit could never match. Her hair was pulled into a neat low bun, exposing the pale curve of her neck. No visible makeup, save for a hint of mascara highlighting her honey-colored eyes. Eyes that were not cast downward.

She wasn’t alone—but she wasn’t flanked by an army. One man accompanied her. Attorney Horacio Benítez. Ricardo vaguely recognized him and nearly laughed. Benítez was old-school—the kind of lawyer with an office above a pastry shop in the Historic Center. A “neighborhood disputes” attorney, Ricardo thought. Was that all Camila could afford after he’d cut off her allowance?

Camila took her seat without glancing at Ricardo or Isa. She removed a black Moleskine notebook and a fountain pen from her bag, placed her hands neatly on the table, and sat perfectly still.

“Poor thing,” Isa whispered, leaning toward Ricardo. “Look at her lawyer. He’s got dandruff on his jacket.”

Ricardo smiled faintly.
“This is going to be faster than I thought.”

The clerk announced the judge.
—Everyone please stand. The Honorable Judge Arturo Montiel is presiding.

Judge Montiel entered in black robes, his movements tired. He was a man seasoned by countless divorces, endless lies, and wealthy couples clawing over property in Valle de Bravo. He sat, adjusted his glasses, and scanned the files as though reviewing tedious homework.

—Alright, sit down —the judge muttered—. Case file 4405/2025. No-fault divorce and paternity suit. Ricardo Landa v. Camila Landa.

Castañeda immediately stood, projecting his voice across the room.

—Your Honor, we are not only here to dissolve a marriage that has long since lost meaning, but to expose a fraud. My client, Mr. Landa, has been the victim of prolonged deception. We have compelling reasons to believe that the minor children, Diego and Sofía Landa, are not his biological offspring. Ms. Camila has engaged in questionable behavior for years. We request an immediate DNA test and the provisional suspension of all child support until paternity is confirmed.

The atmosphere thickened. The accusation was savage—publicly branding a mother’s children as illegitimate was the ultimate humiliation.

Ricardo watched Camila, expecting tears. Outrage. A scream.
“You’re lying!” she should have been yelling.

But Camila remained motionless. Her gaze stayed on the judge, serene, almost indifferent—like a student listening to a lesson she already knew.

Judge Montiel turned to her.
“Defense attorney, do you have anything to say regarding these accusations?”

Licenciado Benítez rose. Short, wearing a slightly oversized suit, his mustache yellowed from tobacco. He adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. His voice lacked Castañeda’s thunder; it was calm, almost gentle.

“Your Honor,” Benítez said, ignoring Ricardo entirely, “we do not oppose the DNA test. In fact, Mrs. Landa insists upon it.”

Ricardo raised an eyebrow. A bluff?

—However —Benítez continued, reaching into his worn leather briefcase—, to avoid wasting the court’s time and public resources, my client independently obtained certified tests from a level-four genetic laboratory, with notarized chain of custody.

He produced a yellow envelope—plain manila, sealed with red security tape.

“Additionally,” the lawyer said, his voice suddenly edged with steel, “this envelope contains a second DNA test. One Mr. Landa did not request, but which is… essential to understanding this case.”

Ricardo felt his smile stiffen. A second test? That made no sense. Diego and Sofía were his children. There was no one else—

Isa’s hand suddenly clenched around his arm, her acrylic nails digging into his Zegna jacket. Ricardo glanced at her. She was pale—her Tulum tan drained away, leaving clammy, waxy skin.

“Ricardo…” she whispered. “Tell him no. Tell him they can’t accept outside evidence.”

Ricardo frowned.
“What are you talking about? It’s just a stalling trick.”

—Attorney Castañeda—Judge Montiel interjected, eyeing the envelope—. Do you object to my review of this preliminary evidence?

Castañeda hesitated, then looked to Ricardo. Ricardo nodded confidently. Let them perform their little act. They have nothing.

“No objection, Your Honor,” Castañeda said. “We are confident any scientific evidence will support our claim.”

Judge Montiel took the envelope, searched for a letter opener. The tear of paper echoed sharply in the deathly quiet courtroom.

For the first time that morning, Camila moved. She turned slowly toward Ricardo. Their eyes met.

And she smiled.

Not with warmth. Not with familiarity. It was cold. Surgical. The smile of a surgeon before cutting away infected flesh.

A chill crawled down Ricardo’s spine. In fifteen years, he had never seen her like this. This wasn’t his wife. This was a stranger—and she terrified him.

The judge removed two stapled document sets. He read the first in silence, nodding slightly.
“Hmm. I see,” he murmured.

Then he picked up the second.

He stopped. His eyes widened behind thick lenses. He frowned, reread, then lifted his gaze directly to Isa Monroe.

Isa lowered her head, hiding behind her blonde hair.

The judge looked back at the page, then at Ricardo. The neutrality vanished, replaced by disbelief—and contempt.

“Mr. Landa,” the judge said, his voice low as distant thunder.

—Tell me, Your Lordship—Ricardo replied, his tone higher than intended.

—You based this entire petition on “biological truth.” In your affidavit you stated, quote: “A man should not raise children who do not carry his blood, nor pay for the sins of a dishonest woman.” Is that correct?

“That’s correct,” Ricardo said, the room tilting.

“Good,” the judge said, removing his glasses. “Because the biological truth before me is certainly… enlightening.”

He lifted the first document.
—Paternity Test 1 and 2. Subjects: Diego Landa and Sofía Landa. Alleged father: Ricardo Landa. Probability of paternity: 99.999%.

Ricardo exhaled. He knew it. At least that much was settled. Camila hadn’t betrayed him. So why the setup? The smile?

—However —the judge continued, holding up the second document as if it were contaminated—, this is a Non-Invasive Prenatal Test, performed on fetal samples from the pregnancy Miss Isa Monroe is currently carrying.

Ricardo’s heart stopped. Literally—his chest seized.
Isa let out a strangled sob.

—Comparative sample: Mr. Ricardo Landa —the judge read coldly—. Paternity result… 0.0%. Total exclusion.

The silence lasted three seconds. For Ricardo, it lasted an eternity.

Zero percent.
Total exclusion.

The child. The “son who would resemble him.” The heir he’d destroyed his family for.

Ricardo slowly turned to Isa. She was sobbing now, mascara streaking down her flawless face.
“Ric, let me explain… it’s just that… we were going through a weird time and… my ex-boyfriend showed up and…”

“Miss Monroe, silence!” the judge snapped, slamming his gavel.

Ricardo heard none of it. Only a shrill ringing filled his ears. He glanced toward the reporters. Fingers flew across screens. Cameras flashed again—but these weren’t flashes of admiration. They were the flashes of scavengers.

Then he looked at Camila.

She sat perfectly still. No smile. Just watching him with terrifying calm. She had known everything. From the start. She had let him humiliate himself, summon the press, accuse her children—just to watch him fall from the peak of his own ego.

Ricardo Landa—the genius, the titan, the man who believed he controlled everything—understood in that instant he was never the player.

He was the pawn.

And the queen had just delivered checkmate.

CHAPTER 2: The Fall of the Titan and the Anatomy of a Lie

The silence that followed Judge Montiel’s revelation was not a peaceful silence; it was the kind of silence that precedes a bomb blast in an enclosed space. It was a physical void, a suction of air that left everyone breathless, until reality hit with the force of a freight train.

“That’s a lie!” Isa Monroe’s shout shattered the atmosphere. It wasn’t an elegant cry. It was a sharp, desperate shriek from a woman watching her lottery ticket burn before her eyes.

Isa stood up so quickly that her ergonomically designed chair clattered backward. She grabbed Ricardo’s arm, digging her nails through his suit.
“Ricardo, listen to me! That paper is fake! She forged it! You know she hates you!” Isa pointed at Camila with a trembling finger, her perfect French manicure now resembling ridiculous claws. “It’s a setup!”

But Ricardo Landa didn’t move. He was catatonic. His mind, that brilliant mind that could process terabytes of bank security data in seconds, was experiencing a critical system error.
Zero percent.
The number flickered in his brain like a neon sign in a cheap motel in Tlalpan.
Zero percent.

Slowly, as if waking from general anesthesia, Ricardo lowered his gaze to his arm, where Isa was clinging. He saw her hand, that hand he had kissed so many times in Polanco restaurants while promising her the world, and felt such a violent physical repulsion that he wanted to vomit.

With a sudden, cruel movement, Ricardo shook himself. He shoved Isa. It wasn’t a gentle push. It was a sharp blow with his forearm that made her stumble. Isa, losing her balance in her twelve-centimeter heels, crashed into the lawyers’ table and fell to the floor, a mess of red fabric and tanned limbs.

“Don’t touch me,” Ricardo growled. His voice sounded guttural, unfamiliar even to himself. “Don’t you ever lay a hand on me again.”

The courtroom erupted.
The journalists, forgetting all judicial protocol, surged against the wooden railing separating the public.
“Mr. Landa! Are you going to sue Miss Monroe?
” “Isa! Who is the real father?
” “Mr. Landa! What do you have to say about your legitimate children now?”

Judge Montiel pounded his gavel repeatedly, his face red with anger.
“Order! Order in the courtroom or I’ll have you all arrested! Bailiffs, clear that area!”

In the midst of the chaos, the deafening noise, Isa crying on the floor while Ricardo’s lawyers tried to lift her up (more to avoid a lawsuit than out of chivalry), there was a point of absolute stillness.

Camila.

She hadn’t moved. She hadn’t celebrated. She hadn’t taken out her phone to record. She simply watched Ricardo. She watched him crumble. She watched as the “Iron Man,” the technology visionary, turned into a petulant, humiliated child. And for the first time in two years, since the nightmare of infidelity began, Camila felt she could breathe deeply. The air filled her lungs, and it felt weightless.

“Attorney Benítez,” Camila said quietly, without looking at her lawyer. “I think we’re done here.”

Benítez, who was putting the documents away with a small, satisfied smile beneath his mustache, nodded.
“Not yet, Mrs. Landa. The judge has to issue the orders. Enjoy this. You’ve earned it.”

Judge Montiel finally managed to get the bailiffs to push the press back. He took a deep breath, straightened his robe, and looked at Ricardo, who was still standing there, staring into space, his face pale and sweaty.

—Sit down, Mr. Landa —ordered the judge.

Ricardo obeyed mechanically. Isa, sobbing, was helped to sit in a chair in the corner, away from him. Ricardo didn’t even look at her. His eyes were fixed on the yellow envelope on the judge’s desk.

“What has happened in this courtroom today,” Judge Montiel began, his tone icy, “is a mockery. Mr. Landa, you used the Mexico City judicial system, resources paid for by taxpayers, as a stage for your personal vendetta. You defamed the integrity of the mother of your children based on…” The judge looked at Isa with disdain, “…the lies of a third party and your own arrogance.”

Ricardo opened his mouth to speak, to say something, anything that would save his image, but nothing came out.

“In view of the irrefutable results of the DNA tests,” the judge continued, “I hereby rule as follows: First, the paternity challenge regarding the minor children Diego and Sofía Landa is dismissed. You are the father, whether you like it or not, and you will assume all legal and financial responsibilities. Second, due to the evident procedural bad faith, I order Mr. Ricardo Landa to pay 100% of Ms. Camila Landa’s legal expenses, as well as a fine for contempt and obstruction of justice by presenting false evidence of moral conduct.”

Attorney Castañeda stood up, trying to salvage the furniture from the fire.
“Your Honor, my client acted under the mistaken belief that…”

“Sit down, lawyer!” thundered the judge. “Your client acted out of vanity. And regarding the divorce… Mrs. Landa, do you still wish to dissolve the marriage?”

Camila stood up. Her voice was clear and soft, but it resonated throughout the courtroom.
“Yes, Your Honor. And I request full custody of my children, with supervised visits for their father. I don’t want my children anywhere near that toxic environment until Mr. Landa demonstrates psychological stability.”

Ricardo jerked his head up.
“Supervised?” he spat. “They’re my children! I’m Ricardo Landa!”

“You’re a man who just tried to deny your children in public to please a mistress who was cheating on you,” Camila replied, looking him straight in the eye. There was no fear in her. Only a crushing truth. “You’re not a father figure, Ricardo. You’re an emotional risk.”

The judge nodded.
“Granted. Full temporary custody for the mother. The visitation schedule will be determined after a psychological evaluation of the father.” The session is adjourned.

The final blow of the sledgehammer sounded like a gunshot.

THE MEMORY: SIX MONTHS EARLIER

As the room dissolved into murmurs and shouts, Camila’s mind traveled back in time. To the exact moment when sadness became a strategy.

It had been a rainy Tuesday in Santa Fe. Ricardo hardly slept at home anymore. He said he had “night audits.” Camila knew the audit had a name, surname, and 26 years old. But that afternoon, Ricardo had stopped by the house to change clothes before an event. He left his jacket on the living room sofa while he went upstairs to shower.

Camila, out of habit, picked up her jacket to take it to the dry cleaners. As she did so, she felt something in the inside pocket. It wasn’t her cell phone. It was a folded piece of paper. A receipt.

Curiosity, that old painful friend, made her unfold it.

It was a receipt from a private clinical laboratory in Polanco. “Comprehensive Gynecology and Obstetrics.” Date: Three days prior. Description: “Structural Ultrasound – 12 weeks.”
Up to that point, everything matched the story Ricardo had thrown in her face: Isa was pregnant. She was going to give him a child.

But something about the date bothered Camila.
“12 weeks.”
She did the math in her head. Twelve weeks ago, Ricardo had been on a business trip to Japan for three full weeks. “The Lang Tech Asian Tour.” There were photos on his social media: Ricardo in Tokyo, in Kyoto, having dinner with investors. He’d been away for almost a month.
If Isa was exactly 12 weeks along… conception had happened right in the middle of Ricardo’s trip.

Unless Isa had traveled to Japan with him.
Camila rushed to his office. She opened her laptop. She had access to Ricardo’s American Express Centurion credit card statements (he never changed that password because it was his late mother’s birthdate, a rare sentimental gesture).
She reviewed the charges for those dates.
Flights: Only one. First class. Aeromexico. Mexico City – Narita. In the name of Ricardo Landa.
Hotel: The Ritz-Carlton Tokyo. Single room.
Additional charges: Dinners for six (business), room service for one.

There was no trace of Isa in Japan.
So, he searched Isa’s social media. He scrolled down until he found posts from three months ago.
There it was. Another photo, two days later: Isa in Valle de Bravo, on a yacht. In the reflection of her sunglasses, he could see the silhouette of a man. A young man, with a backwards cap and tattoos on his arm. Ricardo hated Valle de Bravo (“too many nouveau riche,” he said) and he hated tattoos.
Isa in a photo at a trendy nightclub in Roma Norte. “Girls’ night out… and something more .”

Camila’s heart began to pound. Not from pain, but from the revelation.
Isa hadn’t been with Ricardo when she conceived that baby.

Camila didn’t confront Ricardo that night. She didn’t yell at him when he stepped out of the shower smelling of her expensive cologne. She smiled at him, handed him his jacket, and let him go.
The next day, she hired a private investigator. Not a cheap one. She hired Robles, a former federal police commander who charged in dollars and guaranteed absolute discretion.

“I want everything about Isa Monroe,” Camila told him in a dimly lit café in Coyoacán. “But specifically, I want to know who the guy on the yacht is.”

A week later, Robles handed her an envelope.
The guy on the yacht was Javier “El Javi” Méndez. A CrossFit instructor at the gym where Isa went every morning. Young, handsome, broke, but with plenty of free time.

“And the baby?” Camila asked. “
We got this,” Robles said, swiping a copy of an intercepted WhatsApp chat (Robles had shady methods).
It was a conversation between Isa and “Javi Gym.”
Isa:  “Dude, I’m pregnant. I think it’s yours.”
Javi:  “No way, Isa. I can’t even pay my rent. What are you going to do?”
Isa:  “Don’t worry. I’m going to tell Ricardo it’s his. He’s dying for a son. This way I’ll get alimony for life and a divorce from that old woman. Relax, baby.”

Upon reading that, Camila felt ice engulf her heart. “That old woman.” That’s what he called her.
But the worst part wasn’t the insult. It was the certainty that Ricardo, in his narcissistic blindness, was going to abandon his real children, Diego and Sofía, for a lie. He was going to disinherit them, humiliate them, for the son of a gym instructor.

At that moment, Camila decided that a divorce wasn’t enough. Ricardo had to fall. He had to fall so low that he could never rise again to hurt his children.

And so the yellow envelope plan was born.

BACK TO COURT: THE EXIT

The memory faded when Camila felt her lawyer’s hand on her shoulder.
“Let’s go, Camila. Through the back door to avoid most people, although I think you want to be seen today.”

Camila nodded. She stood up, smoothing down her dress.
Ricardo was still sitting, staring blankly. Isa was still crying in the corner, but now she was on the phone, probably yelling at Javi.

Camila started walking toward the exit. Her footsteps were firm and deliberate.
When she passed Ricardo’s table, he seemed to wake up. He jumped up, knocking his chair over again.

“Camila!” he shouted.

The deputies tensed, but didn’t intervene yet.
Camila stopped. She didn’t turn completely, just enough for him to see her profile.

Ricardo ran towards her, ignoring his lawyer who was telling him, “No, Ricardo, shut up!” He reached her, panting, his eyes bloodshot and filled with madness.

“You knew it,” Ricardo hissed, lowering his voice so only she could hear him. “You knew that bastard wasn’t mine. How long did you know?”

Camila turned slowly. She looked at him with a calmness that he found terrifying.
“I’ve known for four months, Ricardo. Since before you filed the lawsuit.”

Ricardo turned red. The veins in his neck bulged.
“And you didn’t tell me? You let me make a fool of myself! You let me risk my name, my company, my reputation over a damn lie! Why didn’t you stop me? I’m your husband, damn it!”

Camila let out a soft, sad laugh.
“My husband? Ricardo, you stopped being my husband the day you told our children you were moving into a hotel because you ‘needed space,’ when in reality you were going to live with her. You stopped being my husband when you started spending her college trust money on Chanel bags for her.”

“I can replace that money!” he interrupted. “But this… this is treason! You humiliated me in front of all of Mexico!”

Camila took a step toward him, invading his personal space for the first time in years.
“No, Ricardo. I didn’t humiliate you. I just let you be yourself. You requested the DNA test yourself. You called the press yourself. You said that Diego and Sofía didn’t look like you because they were ‘too soft.’”
Her eyes shone with unshed tears, but with fury.
“You wanted to erase my children, Ricardo. You wanted to deny your blood because they were an obstacle to your new life as a millionaire bachelor. I will never forgive you for that. You could have cheated on me with a thousand women, you could have squandered the fortune… but to deny your children? That makes you less than a man.”

“Cami, please…” Ricardo’s voice broke. Suddenly, the anger vanished, replaced by panic. He realized he was alone. Isa was a fraud. His lawyers looked at him with pity. And Camila… Camila was leaving. “We can fix this. We can talk at the house. I’m going to get rid of Isa. I’m going to destroy her. But don’t do this to me. Don’t take the children away from me.”

Camila shook her head.
“The house is no longer your house, Ricardo. The judge granted me exclusive use of the marital home until the division of assets is finalized. You have 24 hours to remove your belongings. And I suggest you send someone, because if I see you there, I’ll call the police.”

Camila turned around and continued walking.

Ricardo tried to follow her, but two constables blocked his path.
“Mr. Landa, keep your distance.”

Ricardo watched as the woman he had ignored for years, the woman he considered a boring accessory, walked out of the double mahogany doors.
And then he realized something worse.
The journalists were broadcasting live.
Everything that had just happened, every gesture, every shout, every pathetic plea… it was all already on Twitter, on TikTok, on Facebook.

He pulled out his phone with trembling hands. He opened Twitter (X).
Trending number 1 in Mexico:  #LordADN .
Trending number 2:  #CamilaLandaReina .
Trending number 3:  #TheBabyIsNotHis .

There was a video circulating. A video of Isa on the floor and him screaming. The comments were brutal.
“Hahaha, good thing he got what was coming to him for being such a jerk.”
“His wife is a lady, he’s a lout.”
“The whole charade of the entrepreneur of the year fell apart.”

Ricardo Landa slumped down on a bench in the hallway. Isa was still crying in the background, but he couldn’t hear her anymore. He only heard the sound of his empire crumbling.

THE MEDIA OUTBREAK

Camila left the building through a side door that opened onto Niños Héroes Street. Her lawyer had ordered an Uber Black to avoid the press van, but some journalists, like sharks that smell blood from miles away, were already there.

“Mrs. Landa! Mrs. Landa!” shouted a reporter from a popular morning show, running up with a microphone in her hand. “Just one question. How do you feel knowing that your husband… that your ex-husband, fell into his own trap?”

Benítez tried to block the way.
—No comment, please. Let us through.

But Camila stopped.
The air outside was polluted, but she felt free. She looked at the camera. Her face, without heavy makeup, looked radiant in the harsh midday sun.
She thought of Diego, who was 14 and would surely see this online. She thought of Sofía, 12, who had cried so many nights asking why her father didn’t love her anymore.

“What do I feel?” Camila repeated, looking directly into the camera lens. “I feel that the truth is always cheaper than a lie. My husband paid millions to build a lie. It only cost me a yellow envelope to prove the truth.”

“Do you regret anything?” another reporter asked.

Camila smiled. That slight, enigmatic smile that would become a meme of female empowerment in the coming hours.
“Yes. I regret taking so long to realize that I was worth more than his money.”

He got into the car and closed the door.

As the car drove away from the city center, heading for the safety of Las Lomas, Camila took out her cell phone.
She had 150 missed calls. From her mother, from her friends who had abandoned her when Ricardo “invited” them to stop talking to him, from Ricardo’s business partners.
She turned off her phone.

She looked out the window. The city was rushing by. The Angel of Independence gleamed in the distance.
She felt strange. She wasn’t happy. There was no joy in destroying the father of her children. There was pain, a deep, dull pain. But beneath the pain, there were foundations. New foundations on which she could rebuild.

She had reclaimed her name. She was no longer “Ricardo Landa’s wife.” She was Camila.
And for the first time in a long time, the future didn’t frighten her.

Meanwhile, in the courtroom, Ricardo Landa remained seated on the bench. His lawyer, Castañeda, approached him, his face serious.
“Attorney Landa, we have a problem.
” “More?” Ricardo murmured.
“Lang Tech’s stock has fallen 12% in the last hour. Investors are calling an emergency meeting. They say your ‘erratic behavior and lack of judgment’ are jeopardizing the company’s safety.”

Ricardo burst into hysterical laughter.
“Lack of judgment? I’m a genius.”
“He was a genius, sir,” Castañeda said coldly, packing his things. “Now he’s a meme. And if you’ll excuse me, I have to go write my resignation. I can’t represent someone who lies to me about biological evidence. Excuse me.”

Ricardo stood alone in the empty courtroom hallway, under the flickering fluorescent light, while the echo of his wife’s footsteps receding into the distance continued to resonate in his head.

CHAPTER 3: The Trial of Public Opinion and the Board of Wolves

The departure from the Superior Court of Justice was not a retreat; it was a media bloodbath. If Ricardo Landa thought the building’s security could contain the press, he underestimated Mexico City’s hunger for scandal.

The moment he stepped onto the outside steps, the world came crashing down on him. It wasn’t just reporters; it was  TikTokers ,  gossip YouTubers  , and ordinary people who happened to be passing by and stopped when they saw the chaos. The flashes of cameras were relentless, blinding and disorienting him.

“Ricardo! Is it true that the gym instructor’s son is his?
” “Mr. Landa! What do you think of the memes comparing you to Soraya Montenegro?”
“Family killer!” shouted a woman selling candy on the sidewalk, waving a bag of potato chips like a weapon.

Ricardo tried to keep his composure. He straightened his jacket, lifted his chin, and scanned the area for his armored SUV. But the vehicle was blocked by a sea of ​​people. His driver, Beto, a loyal former soldier, was honking the horn desperately, but no one moved.

“Move it, damn it!” Ricardo shouted, his cold demeanor momentarily slipping. “Beto, move along!”

“I can’t, boss. There are too many people,” Beto’s voice came through the earpiece, tense.

At that moment, a cup of coffee—probably a  cold, sticky latte  from some convenience store—flew from the crowd and landed directly on the immaculate lapel of his  three-thousand-dollar Zegna suit  . The brown liquid stained the gray silk and splashed onto his white shirt.

The “Titan of Technology” froze. He stared at the stain. Then he looked at the crowd. They were laughing. They weren’t afraid of him. They weren’t admiring him. They were laughing at him. In Mexico, power protects you from the law, but nothing protects you from ridicule. Being corrupt is tolerable; being a public “cuckold” who tried to humiliate a mother is unforgivable.

The bodyguards finally managed to force their way in. Ricardo squeezed into the truck like a rat fleeing a shipwreck. He closed the door and the armored vehicle’s impenetrable silence enveloped him, but the noise in his head was deafening.

“To the office,” he ordered, taking off his stained jacket in disgust and throwing it on the floor. “Take me to the tower on Reforma. Now.”

Isa Monroe didn’t get into the truck. Ricardo didn’t even bother to check where she was. In his mind, she no longer existed. She was a miscalculation, a toxic asset that had been liquidated.

While Ricardo’s truck struggled to cross the traffic on Avenida Juárez, Camila entered her home in a penthouse in Lomas de Chapultepec.

The house was silent. It was a modern mansion, made of concrete and glass, designed by a renowned architect who hated curtains. It had always seemed cold to her, more of a museum than a home. But today, as she closed the heavy cumaru wood door, she felt the building exhale.

“Madam?” It was Magda, the housekeeper, who had been with them for ten years. Magda’s eyes were red. She had been crying.

“Hi, Magda,” Camila said, dropping her bag in the doorway. She felt exhausted, as if she’d run a marathon in heels. “Are the children home?”

—Yes, ma’am. They got home from school an hour ago. Young Diego is locked in his room. Little Sofi is in the garden with the dogs.

Camila nodded.
“Did you see… did you see the news?”

Magda lowered her gaze and twisted her apron.
“Ma’am, young Diego has an iPad. At school… well, you know how kids are. It seems everyone saw him at recess.”

Camila’s heart sank. That was the part she feared most. She could deal with Ricardo, she could deal with the lawyers, but her children’s pain was a minefield.

—Thank you, Magda. Prepare them something to eat, please. Some breaded cutlets with mashed potatoes, whatever they like. I’ll go talk to them.

Camila ascended the floating staircase. She passed the master bedroom, the one she had shared with Ricardo. The door was open. She saw the king-size bed, the minimalist nightstands. She entered and, with methodical calm, took the pillows from Ricardo’s side and threw them on the floor. Then she went to the dressing room. She saw the rows of suits, the shoes perfectly aligned.
Tomorrow she would burn all of it. Or donate it. Or simply let the lawyers send it to him in boxes. But today, she needed to purge the air.

She went to Diego’s room first. She knocked softly.
“Diego? It’s Mom.”

There was no answer. Camila turned the doorknob and went inside.
The room was dark, lit only by the glow of a  gaming computer screen . Fourteen-year-old Diego sat in his chair, headphones around his neck, staring at the screen.

Camila approached. There wasn’t a video game on the monitor. There was Twitter.
The trending topic  #ElHijoDelGym  was in first place. There were memes of Ricardo with moose antlers. There were photos of Diego and Sofía with black bars over their eyes, but clearly recognizable, under sensationalist headlines:  “Heirs or Victims? ”

—Diego, turn that off —Camila said gently, but firmly.

Diego turned around. His face was swollen. Adolescence was hard enough, with hormones and insecurity, without adding a national scandal.
“Is it true?” Diego asked. His voice broke. “Did Dad say we weren’t his children?”

Camila felt her heart break. She sat on the edge of the bed next to him.
“Your dad… your dad was angry, my love. And when people are angry and scared, they say stupid and cruel things.”

“He wasn’t ‘angry,’ Mom,” Diego said, pointing at the screen. “He demanded a DNA test! He said I didn’t look like him! My friends sent me the video of the judge reading it! They say my dad’s an idiot.”

Camila took her son’s hands. They were cold.
“Listen to me carefully, Diego. Your father made a terrible mistake. A mistake he’ll have to pay for the rest of his life. But the test came back positive. You are his son. You have his blood, you have his intelligence… but you have my heart. And that’s what matters. You are not him. You are you.”

“I hate him,” Diego whispered, his anger frightening Camila. “I wish he wasn’t my dad. I wish he was the guy at the gym, or whoever. He embarrasses me.”

“Don’t say that,” Camila said, hugging him tightly and letting him cry against her shoulder. “It’s okay to be angry. You have a right to be furious. But don’t let his shame become yours. He’s the one who messed up. We didn’t do anything wrong. We won today, Diego. The truth won.”

They remained like that for a few minutes, mother and son, in the dimness of a room full of superhero posters, while outside the digital world was destroying their family.

Meanwhile, on the 45th floor of the Torre Reforma, the atmosphere was freezing, even though the air conditioning was turned off due to a failure in the building’s smart system.

Ricardo walked into the Lang Tech boardroom  . He expected to find his crisis team: lawyers, publicists, people he paid to clean up his messes.
Instead, he found the entire Board of Directors.

Seated at the head of the table, in the chair Ricardo used to occupy, was Don Eugenio Garza, the principal investor, a seventy-year-old from Monterrey with a reputation for being as tough as the steel from his foundries. Beside him were the representatives of the investment funds from New York and London, connected via Zoom on the giant screen on the wall.

“Ricardo,” said Don Eugenio, without getting up. His voice was deep and dry. “You’re late. And you smell like cheap coffee.”

Ricardo stopped dead in his tracks.
“Eugenio. What are you all doing here? I didn’t call a meeting.”

“We called it,” said Laura Méndez, a woman in a gray suit and representative of the  BlackRock fund  in Mexico. “According to the company’s bylaws, Article 45, section B: ‘The Board may hold an emergency meeting if the CEO’s actions compromise the company’s financial or reputational viability.’”

Ricardo let out a nervous laugh and walked over to an empty chair.
“Please. Reputational viability? It’s a divorce, folks. A personal matter. There’ll be another story tomorrow and this will all be forgotten. The stock will go up as soon as I announce the new cybersecurity software next week.”

“The stock has fallen 18% in three hours, Ricardo,” Don Eugenio interrupted, tapping the table with a gold pen. “Eighteen percent! We’ve lost four hundred million dollars in market capitalization while you were playing your soap opera in court.”

“It’s a temporary fix!” Ricardo shouted, slamming his fist on the table. “I am this company! I wrote the codebase! Without me,  Lang Tech  is nothing!”

Don Eugenio stood up slowly. He was a tall, imposing man.
“You wrote the code ten years ago, Ricardo. Since then, all you’ve done is spend corporate money on travel, ‘image consulting’ for your mistresses, and scandals. We’ve reviewed the books, Ricardo.”

That sentence froze Ricardo’s blood.
“What books?”

“The ones your wife, or her lawyer, sent us an hour ago,” Laura Méndez said, sliding a black folder across the table toward him. “It seems Mrs. Camila wasn’t just investigating your DNA. She was tracing the money.”

Ricardo opened the folder. His hands trembled so much he almost dropped the papers.
There it was. Everything.
The transfers to the shell LLCs in Panama.
The monthly payments of 150,000 pesos to “Consultora Monroe SA de CV” for nonexistent services.
The purchase of the apartment in Miami in the name of a company where Isa was the beneficiary.
The diversion of funds from the “National Cybersecurity” project to pay off his gambling debts in Las Vegas (a vice no one knew about, except Camila).

“This… this has an explanation,” Ricardo stammered.

“Yes, it’s called embezzlement. It’s called fraudulent administration,” Don Eugenio said with disgust. “And in the United States, where we’re publicly traded, it’s called a federal crime.”

Ricardo felt his legs give way. He slumped back in his chair.
“You can’t do this to me. I’m the founder.”

“You were the founder,” Don Eugenio corrected. “The Board voted ten minutes ago. We’ve decided to activate the morality clause in your contract. You’re fired, Ricardo.”

“Fired?” Ricardo blinked, unable to process the word. “They can’t fire me! I own 40% of the voting shares!”

“We had an agreement with the minority shareholders,” Laura said. “And your wife—well, your soon-to-be ex-wife—controls a significant portion of the preferred stock through the family trust. Her lawyer called us. She voted for your removal.”

Camila. Camila again. She hadn’t just taken away his children and his dignity. She was taking away his crown.

“You have one hour to get your things out of the office,” said Don Eugenio, glancing at his  Rolex watch . “And I suggest you hire a good criminal lawyer, Ricardo. Because the forensic audit starts tomorrow, and if we find one more peso missing, we’re going to sue you until you can’t even afford the subway.”

Ricardo sat alone in the boardroom as the board members left one by one. No one shook his hand. No one looked him in the eye. On the Zoom screen, the connection cut out, leaving a black screen.
He stared out the floor-to-ceiling window. Mexico City stretched out below him, gray, immense, indifferent. Just a few hours ago, he had felt the city was his. Now, the city seemed like a monster ready to devour him.

Far from the skyscrapers, in a boutique hotel in the Roma neighborhood that used to be “chic” and now seemed like a prison, Isa Monroe was trying to save her life.

She sat on the bed, her makeup smeared and her red dress wrinkled. Her phone had 3% battery. She’d tried calling Ricardo twenty times. Every call went straight to voicemail.
She’d tried using her credit cards to order room service (a bottle of vodka, she needed to forget). Declined. Declined. Declined. Ricardo had canceled her American Express
extensions   before she’d even left the courthouse.

“Damn cheapskate,” Isa sobbed, throwing the phone onto the bed.

Her only option was Javi. The baby’s father.
Javi didn’t have money, but at least he had an apartment in the Del Valle neighborhood. He could hide there until the storm passed. He could sell the exclusive story to some cheap magazine, claim he was Ricardo’s victim, and start over.

He plugged his phone into the charger and dialed Javi’s number.
One ring. Two rings.
“Hello?” Javi’s voice sounded distant, and there was gym noise in the background. Electronic music and weights hitting the floor.

—Javi! It’s me, Isa. Baby, you have to help me. Everything went wrong. Ricardo… that crazy old woman had proof. They know about the baby.

There was silence on the other end of the line.
—I know, Isa. Everyone knows. You’re  trending . They’re calling you “Lady Horns.”

“I don’t care what those hicks say. Listen, I need to go to your apartment. Ricardo blocked my cards. I have nowhere else to go. And… well, he’s your son, isn’t he? We’re going to be a family, like we said before.”

Javi let out a cruel laugh.
“Family? Isa, come on. You told me you were going to stay with the millionaire and that I was just a ‘fling.’ You told me that if the baby was born fair-skinned, nobody would notice.”

—I was confused! Javi, please. I’m alone.

“Well, stay alone. Don’t come to my house. My girlfriend saw the news, and if she sees you, she’ll kill you. And another thing, Isa…” Javi’s tone turned serious. “If you try to ask me for child support, I’m going to request a DNA test too. Maybe it’s not even mine. With how ‘sociable’ you are.”

Javi hung up.

Isa stared at her phone as if it were an alien object.
She was alone.
She had a designer dress, a  Prada bag  , and was four months pregnant. And zero money in her account.
She opened Instagram. Her account, her precious account with 50,000 followers, was flooded with hateful comments. Emojis of snakes, clowns, vomit.
“Home wrecker”
“Gold digger”
“Karma”

Isa felt a panic attack. She couldn’t breathe. She ran to the hotel bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. The woman staring back at her was no longer the queen of Polanco. She was a frightened little girl who had played at being grown-up and had gotten burned by the fire.

Back at the mansion in Las Lomas, night had fallen.
Sofia, the youngest daughter, twelve years old, was sitting at the kitchen island, silently eating cereal. Camila came in, already dressed in comfortable clothes: yoga pants and a cotton t-shirt.

“Is the dinner good?” Camila asked, trying to sound normal.

Sofia nodded, but didn’t look up from her bowl.
“Mom…”

—Tell me, darling.

—Is Dad going to jail?

Camila paused as she poured herself a glass of water. The question was so direct, so innocent, that it physically hurt her.
“I don’t know, Sofi. Maybe. She did things… with her work money that she shouldn’t have done.”

—Why did he buy things for us?

“No, my love. Because he bought things for himself and for… other people.” Camila came closer and stroked her hair. “But listen to me carefully. Whatever happens with Dad, we’re going to be okay. This house is ours. Your school isn’t going to change. I have my savings and I’m going back to work at the gallery. We won’t lack anything.”

—But he’s not going to live here anymore, is he?

Camila shook her head.
—No. Not anymore.

Sofia put the spoon down in the bowl.
“That’s good,” she said softly. “Because I didn’t like how he yelled at us when he lost his keys. Or how he talked to you. I prefer that we’re alone.”

Camila kissed her daughter’s forehead, fighting back tears. She had feared her children would be devastated by Ricardo’s absence, but she realized that, in reality, they had been living with his emotional absence for years. His physical departure was just a formality.

The doorbell rang. It was ten o’clock at night.
Camila tensed. Ricardo? No, the guards at the booth wouldn’t let him in.

He went to the door and looked at the security camera.
It was Attorney Benítez. And he was carrying a pizza box.

Camila opened the door.
“Lawyer? At this hour?”

Benítez smiled, looking more like a friendly uncle than the legal shark who had torn Ricardo apart hours earlier.
“Sorry for the hour, Camila. But I thought you wouldn’t have had time to cook with all the commotion. And besides…” Benítez pulled a blue folder from under the pizza box. “I needed you to sign this before midnight.”

“What is it?” Camila asked, letting him in.

They sat down in the living room. Benítez opened the folder.
“This is the request for a precautionary seizure of Ricardo’s personal assets. Houses, cars, art collection. If we don’t file it today, his creditors will be all over him first thing tomorrow morning. The bank, the company, the tax authorities… everyone will want a piece of him. If we sign this, we’ll secure Diego and Sofía’s assets first. We’ll put ourselves at the front of the line.”

Camila looked at the document. It was the final blow. If she signed it, Ricardo would be left, literally, on the street. Without a house, without cars, without anything.

She remembered Ricardo when they were dating, eating tacos on the street, full of dreams. She remembered the Ricardo who cried when Diego was born.
And then she remembered the Ricardo who walked into the courthouse with Isa, laughing, ready to have his children declared illegitimate.

“Where do I sign?” Camila asked.

Benítez pointed to the dotted line.
Camila signed with a steady hand.

“Perfect,” Benítez said, closing the folder. “With this, we’ll block your personal accounts tomorrow at 9:00 AM. When you try to pay for your breakfast, you won’t be able to.”

—Thank you, Horacio. Really.

“Don’t thank me. You did the hard work. You held out.” Benítez stood up. “Well, I’m off. The pizza is pepperoni, I hope the kids like it.”

When Benítez left, Camila went upstairs with the pizza box.
She went into Diego’s room. Sofía was already there, watching a movie on TV with her brother.
“Guys,” Camila said. “Late-night pizza.”

Diego’s eyes lit up for the first time that day. Sofia jumped out of bed.
The three of them sat on the floor, eating pizza straight from the box, laughing at a silly comedy on TV.
Outside, the storm raged. Ricardo was alone, Isa was ruined, and the Landa empire was burning.
But inside that room, for the first time in years, there was peace.

And Camila knew, as she watched her children laugh with their mouths full of cheese, that the true victory wasn’t money, nor revenge.
The true victory was that the three of them were still standing.

CHAPTER 4: Denied Credit and the Renaissance in Rome

The morning after the trial didn’t dawn; it simply exploded. For Ricardo Landa, waking up was a disorienting experience. He opened his eyes and didn’t recognize the ceiling. It wasn’t the Venetian plaster of his mansion in Las Lomas, nor the industrial finish of his bachelor pad in Santa Fe. It was a generic white ceiling, with a smoke detector flashing an annoying red light.

He sat bolt upright, his head throbbing as if a drill were inside it. He was in a suite at the  St. Regis Hotel . He vaguely remembered arriving there the night before, after being fired from his own company, with a bottle of whiskey he’d stolen from the boardroom minibar.

She reached for her phone on the nightstand. It was off. When she turned it on, the device vibrated continuously for a full three minutes. Hundreds of notifications. WhatsApp messages from business partners, emails from lawyers, Google News alerts.
But one notification stood out from the rest. An alert from her banking app:  American Express Centurion: Card Blocked by Court Order.

Ricardo felt a chill in his stomach. “It must be a mistake,” he thought. “Benítez isn’t that fast.”

She got up, showered with ice-cold water to try and wash away the smell of failure, and dressed in the same clothes she’d worn the day before. She had no luggage. Nothing. She went down to the lobby intending to order a hearty breakfast before going to yell at someone.

The hotel restaurant was full of executives having breakfast. Ricardo noticed several heads turn as he walked in. They no longer looked at him with respect or envy. They looked at him with the morbid curiosity one has of a car crash on the highway. He heard murmurs.
“It’s him… the one with the DNA test.”
“They say he’s bankrupt.”
“What a shame.”

Ricardo clenched his jaw and sat down at a secluded table. He ordered black coffee and eggs Benedict. When he finished, he asked for the check.
“Charge it to room 402,” he said in his usual commanding voice.

The waiter, a friendly young man, returned two minutes later with a look of deep discomfort.
“Excuse me, Mr. Landa. The system won’t let us charge your room. Apparently, the card you left as a guarantee when you checked in was declined this morning.”

“Impossible,” Ricardo said with a nervous laugh. “It’s an unlimited card. Try again.”

—We’ve already tried three times, sir. Code 05: Deny. Hold card.

Ricardo felt the blood rush to his face.
“Here,” he said, taking out his crocodile-skin wallet and pulling out a Visa Platinum card from another bank. “Use this one.”

The waiter left and returned even faster.
“I’m very sorry, sir. Also declined. ‘Funds frozen.'”

The silence in the restaurant grew heavier. People at nearby tables had stopped eating to watch the spectacle. The great Ricardo Landa, the man who graced the covers of business magazines, couldn’t afford three hundred pesos worth of eggs.

“This is ridiculous,” Ricardo said, standing up and throwing away his napkin. “It’s a bank mistake. I’m going to call right now.”

“Sir,” the restaurant manager appeared out of nowhere, gently blocking his path. “We understand there may have been an administrative error, but hotel policy is strict. We need you to settle your breakfast and last night’s stay before you leave. It’s eighteen thousand pesos.”

Ricardo searched his pockets. He pulled out a crumpled five-hundred-peso bill and some coins. It was all the cash he had. He always lived on credit, relying on the magic plastic that opened every door.
“I don’t have any cash. Let me go to my office and I’ll send you a check.”

The manager shook his head, maintaining a professional but firm smile.
“I’m afraid we can’t do that. If you can’t pay, we’ll have to call security… or the police.”

The word “police” hit Ricardo like a slap in the face. Him? Arrest him for not paying for breakfast?
He looked around, searching for a friendly face. He saw Luis, a former partner at  Lang Tech , sitting two tables back.
“Luis!” Ricardo called. “Luis, brother. I’m having trouble with my cards. Can you cover for me? I’ll transfer it to you in an hour.”

Luis looked down at his plate of fruit. He didn’t answer. He didn’t move. He simply pretended Ricardo didn’t exist. It was social death on live TV.

Finally, Ricardo had to do the unthinkable. He took off his watch. A  rose gold Patek Philippe Nautilus  , valued at over one hundred thousand dollars.
“Here,” he said, handing it to the manager. “This is worth more than your entire miserable hotel. Keep it as collateral.”

The manager glanced at his watch, then looked at Ricardo with pity.
“Sir, we’re not a pawn shop. But… I’ll accept this as a temporary deposit until 2:00 PM. If you don’t return with the money, we’ll call the authorities.”

Ricardo ran out of the hotel, without looking back, his bare wrist feeling light and free. No watch, no money, no dignity. He stepped onto Paseo de la Reforma and the sun burned his eyes. For the first time in his adult life, he had to walk. Walk among ordinary people, among office workers on their way to work, amidst the noise and smog.
He headed to his “bachelor” apartment in Polanco, the place where he and Isa had taken refuge so many times. There he kept a safe with cash. Dollars, euros, gold coins. His emergency fund.

He arrived at the luxury building on Tres Picos Street. The concierge, Don Beto, who always greeted him with a bow, this time stood in the way of the glass door.

“Good morning, Don Beto. Open up,” Ricardo ordered, panting from the walk.

—I’m sorry, Engineer Landa. I can’t let it go.

—What are you talking about? It’s my apartment! I own the penthouse!

“It was, engineer,” Don Beto said, pointing to a piece of paper taped to the glass door. An official seal from the Attorney General’s Office and the Tax Administration Service. “They came this morning at six. Precautionary seizure. They changed the locks and put seals on the door. They said no one is allowed in, not even you. Especially not you.”

Ricardo read the paper. “Property Seizure. Criminal Case: Generic Fraud and Fraudulent Administration. Complainant:  Lang Tech Solutions  and  Landa Family Trust .”
Camila. And Eugenio. They had joined forces. They had hunted him down like an animal.

Ricardo banged his fist on the glass.
“My things! My clothes! My money!”

“I’m sorry, engineer. If you keep shouting, the neighbors are going to complain and I’ll have to call the police.”

Ricardo backed away. He was cornered on Mexico’s most expensive street, penniless. He sat down on the sidewalk next to a perfectly manicured planter. He took out his phone. He had to call someone. Anyone.
He dialed Isa’s number. He knew it was pathetic, but maybe she had some cash he’d given her.

—The number you dialed is unavailable or outside the service area.

Isa had changed her number. Of course. Rats are the first to abandon ship.

While Ricardo was living his descent into hell in Polanco, Camila was walking along a tree-lined street in the Roma Norte neighborhood, ten kilometers away, but in a completely different reality.

The air smelled of roasted coffee and freshly baked bread. Camila was wearing jeans, white sneakers, and a linen shirt. She felt light. She had slept eight hours straight for the first time in years.

He stopped in front of an old, French-style mansion, its paint a little faded but with a magnificent structure. Large windows, high ceilings, wrought-iron balconies.
On the facade was a small, discreet sign:  “For Rent” .

Camila took some keys out of her purse. She hadn’t rented them that day. She had rented the place three months ago, secretly, using money she had inherited from her grandmother, money that Ricardo could never touch because it was in a joint account with his mother.

He opened the heavy wooden door and stepped inside.
The space was empty, filled with dust and light. The sun streamed in, illuminating the dust particles that danced in the air. It smelled of old wood and turpentine.

“Hello,” Camila said to no one in particular. Her voice echoed off the empty walls.

This was going to be her refuge. No, not a refuge. Her trench.
“Hartwell Gallery.” She would use her maiden name. Camila Hartwell. The art expert who had abandoned her promising career to raise the children of a man who didn’t deserve her.

She took out her phone and dialed a number.
“Javier? Hi, it’s Camila… Yes, Camila Hartwell. I’m ready. Yes, I already have the space. I want to start the remodeling on Monday. No, nothing fancy. I want white walls, perfect lighting, and polished wood floors. I want the art to speak for itself, not the decor.”

She hung up and walked around the space, imagining the paintings. She didn’t want to bring in the trendy artists Ricardo bought just to show off prices. She wanted to bring in real artists. Forgotten women, young talents from Oaxaca, sculptors who worked with recycled trash. Art with pain, with history. Art like her life.

Her phone rang again. It was Benítez.
“Camila, good morning. How did you sleep?”

—Very well, Horacio. Any news?

“Several. And very effective,” Benítez’s voice sounded pleased. “The seizure was executed perfectly. Ricardo tried to pay for his breakfast with the watch at the St. Regis. The manager called me to confirm if the watch was also under seizure. I told him that technically it’s marital property, so they held it.”

Camila let out a small laugh. Not cruel, but incredulous.
“Is she out on the street?”

—Technically, yes. His personal accounts are empty. The company accounts are frozen for him. And I’ve heard from the Prosecutor’s Office. The complaint for fraudulent administration filed by the  Lang Tech Board  is progressing quickly. It seems Ricardo wasn’t very good at covering his tracks. He used his home IP address to make transfers to Isa’s accounts.

“How clumsy,” Camila murmured.

“Arrogance makes intelligent people foolish, Camila. They think no one will dare to investigate them. Anyway, I’m calling to tell you that they’ll probably try to contact you. Him, or some public defender if he can’t get a private one. My advice: don’t answer. Do everything through me.”

—Don’t worry, Horacio. I have nothing to say to him.

She hung up. She stared at the phone for a moment.
A part of her, the part that had loved him for fifteen years, felt a pang of pity. She remembered young Ricardo, the one who had been afraid of failing. Now that fear had come true.
But then she remembered Bella asking if she was still Daddy’s favorite. She remembered Ricardo walking into the courthouse with Isa, laughing.
The pity evaporated.

Camila left the mansion and double-locked the door. She walked to a nearby café, sat at an outside table, and ordered a cappuccino. She took out her notebook and began sketching the gallery’s floor plan.
“Inaugural Exhibition:  What Remains After the Fire .”
It would be a success. She knew it.

Meanwhile, Ricardo’s situation went from desperate to humiliating.
After being turned away from his building, he tried to go to his mother’s house in the Del Valle neighborhood. His mother, Doña Tere, was a simple woman who had never fully understood her son’s world, but who adored him.

He arrived by taxi (he’d managed to get a taxi driver to take him by promising to pay him upon arrival—another lie). When he got to the small, cozy house where he grew up, he saw a car parked outside.
Camila’s SUV.

Ricardo froze. What was she doing there?
He crept up to the living room window.
There was Camila, sitting on the sofa with Doña Tere. They were both drinking coffee. Doña Tere was crying, and Camila was holding her hand tenderly.

Ricardo strained his ears.
“I’m so sorry, Tere. I didn’t want you to find out on television,” Camila said.

“Oh, my child,” her mother sobbed. “I always knew he was changing that money. He became hardened. He forgot where he came from. But to deny his children… that is unforgivable. Those children are my grandchildren.”

—And they always will be, Tere. You will always be their grandmother. Ricardo may cease to be my husband, but you will never cease to be my family. I promise you will lack nothing. I will take care of your medicines and the house.

—Thank you, daughter. You’re an angel. I don’t know what got into my son.

Ricardo felt a stab in his chest, more painful than the embargo. His mother. His own mother was on Camila’s side. She wasn’t even defending him.
He wanted to go inside, wanted to shout, tell them it was a misunderstanding. But he saw his reflection in the windowpane.
He saw a sweaty, disheveled man, his suit stained with coffee, his eyes wild. He looked like a vagrant. He looked like his father when he used to come home drunk thirty years ago.

Terror paralyzed him. He had become what he hated most.
He didn’t have the courage to ring the doorbell.
He turned and ran. He ran until he was breathless.

FINAL SCENE OF THE CHAPTER: THE UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER

Night fell on Mexico City. Ricardo ended up sitting on a bench in the Alameda Central, in the city center. It was a democratic place, where tourists, lovers, and homeless people mingled. Ricardo fit dangerously well into the last category.

He was hungry. Very hungry. He hadn’t eaten anything since the failed breakfast.
He saw a street vendor selling esquites. The smell of corn, epazote, and mayonnaise made his stomach churn with craving. He approached.
“How much is a cup?” he asked.
“Thirty pesos, young man,” the woman said.

Ricardo searched his pockets. He had twenty-five pesos in coins.
“I only have twenty-five. Will you give it to me like this?”
The lady looked at him. She saw the expensive but dirty suit. She saw his desperation.
“Okay then. But without cheese.”

Ricardo took the warm glass. The first bite tasted heavenly. He sat back down on the bench, eating eagerly.
Suddenly, he sensed a presence in front of him. Someone was standing there, blocking his view of the Torre Latinoamericana.

He looked up.
It was Isa.

But this wasn’t the glamorous Isa from the courtroom. She was wearing ripped jeans (not designer), an oversized gray sweatshirt, and her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. She wasn’t wearing makeup, and deep dark circles were visible under her eyes.
They looked at each other in silence. Two castaways on the same deserted island.

“You look like shit, Ricardo,” Isa said, her voice hoarse.

“You don’t look very good either, Isa,” he replied, wiping a kernel of corn from the corner of his lips.

Isa sat at the other end of the bench, keeping her distance.
“Javi wouldn’t let me into his house. He told me that if the baby wasn’t his, he’d kill me. And if it was his, he had no way to support it. I’m sleeping in a seedy hostel nearby.”

“They seized everything,” Ricardo said, looking at his empty glass. “I don’t even have enough for a taxi.”

—I know. I saw it on Twitter. You’re the national laughingstock.

They remained silent for a few minutes, watching people pass by. The irony was brutal. Just 48 hours earlier they had been planning trips to Europe and shopping sprees at Chanel. Now they were sharing a bench in the Alameda.

“You know what the worst part is?” Isa said suddenly, with tears in her eyes. “That Camila was right.”

Ricardo turned his head.
“What are you talking about?”

—She warned me about it once. A year ago, at a party. I ran into her in the bathroom. I thought she was going to yell at me. But she just looked at me and said, “Be careful what you wish for, girl. Ricardo is a man who loves the glitz, but when the glitz fades, he doesn’t know what to do with the darkness.”

Isa wiped away a tear.
“I wanted your sparkle, Ricardo. I wanted your money, your trips, your power. But now that you’re faded… you’re a very small man. And I’m stupid for having believed you were a prize.”

Ricardo felt his anger rise again.
“I made you, Isa. You were nobody before me.”

“And I’m nobody now,” she retorted. “But at least I know I’m a gold digger. You… you thought you were a god. And look where you are now. Eating corn on the cob on credit.”

Isa stood up.
“I’m leaving. I’m going to my parents’ house in Toluca. I’m going to tell them the truth. That I messed up. That I’m pregnant by a gym instructor and that I wasted two years of my life with a ridiculous old man. I’d rather have their scolding than your company.”

“Wait!” Ricardo stood up. “Are you leaving? Are you going to leave me here? I’m cold! I have nowhere to go!”

Isa looked at him with a coldness that painfully reminded him of Camila.
“Well, call your wife, Ricardo. Oh, wait… she’s not your wife anymore. Good luck with that.”

Isa turned around and walked toward the Bellas Artes metro station, disappearing into the crowd.
Ricardo was alone again.
It started to rain. A cold rain, typical of Mexico City, that chilled him to the bone.
Ricardo Landa covered himself with his coffee-stained jacket, curled up on the bench, and closed his eyes, wishing with all his might to wake up in his bed in Las Lomas.
But he knew that awakening would never come. The nightmare was real. And it was only just beginning.

CHAPTER 5: The North Prison and the Ghosts of Rome

Rain in Mexico City has the power to clear the smog, but also to wash all the trash into the sewers. Ricardo Landa, huddled on a bench in the Alameda Central park, felt exactly like that: debris swept along by the current, stuck in a rusty grate.

Four hours had passed since Isa left him. Four hours of shivering under his  ruined Zegna jacket  , four hours of watching patrol cars drive by with the fear of a novice criminal. He was no longer the CEO. He was a homeless man in expensive clothes.

At 2:00 AM, a blinding light hit his face.
“Pull over, young man!” a voice distorted by a loudspeaker broke his lethargy.

Ricardo covered his eyes. A patrol car from the Secretariat of Citizen Security had stopped in front of him. Two officers got out. One was fat, with his uniform improperly tucked in, and the other younger, with his hand on his baton.

“You can’t sleep here, guys,” said the senior officer, shining a flashlight on them. “Now move along or we’ll take you away for an administrative offense.”

Ricardo tried to stand, but his legs were numb.
“Officer… officer, I’m Ricardo Landa,” he stammered, trying to pull out his empty wallet to show identification. “I’m a businessman. I was robbed. I need help.”

The young officer approached and sniffed the air.

“It smells like alcohol, Commander. And his uniform’s covered in vomit. He’s an office drunk.”

“I’m not drunk!” Ricardo shouted, his voice growing aggressive with desperation. “I’m Ricardo Landa! Google me, you idiots!”

The senior officer frowned. In Mexico City, insulting a police officer is the fastest way to disaster.
“Oh, so cheeky? Are you insulting our authority?” The officer grabbed his arm with unnecessary force. “Let’s go to the Civic Center, for disturbing the peace and public indecency.”

“Let me go! You don’t know who you’re messing with!” Ricardo struggled. It was a mistake.

In seconds, he was face down on the wet pavement, a knee on his back, the handcuffs clicking shut on his wrists with a   painful, metallic sound . “You have the right to remain silent,” the officer mocked as they shoved him to his feet. “And to sober up in the cage.”

They put him in the back of the patrol car. The seat was hard plastic and smelled of urine and cheap disinfectant. As the siren wailed and the car sped off, Ricardo watched through the barred window as the Torre Latinoamericana receded into the distance. The city he thought he owned was now devouring him.

But the Civic Court was only the first stop.
Upon arriving at the Cuauhtémoc delegation, while they were registering him as “NN” (because he had lost his INE card during the race), the system displayed a red alert on the screen of the Public Prosecutor’s old computer.

The secretary, a grumpy-looking man eating a tamale sandwich at three in the morning, stopped chewing.
“Hey, guys,” he said to the police officers. “Did they say this dude’s name is Ricardo Landa?”

—That’s what the drunk says.

The secretary typed something quickly. His eyes widened.
“Holy shit. It’s true. There’s an arrest warrant issued six hours ago. Serious financial crimes, fraud, and fraudulent administration. The Financial Crimes Prosecutor’s Office is searching high and low for him.”

The police officers looked at each other. They had caught a shark thinking it was a minnow.
“Is this the one from the DNA scandal?” the young man asked.
“The same one. ‘Lord Cuckold.'”

Ricardo, sitting on a metal bench, heard everything. He felt the floor open up.
“I want my lawyer,” he said, his voice trembling. “I have a right to a phone call.”

The secretary laughed.
“You have the right to remain silent, sir. The Investigative Police are coming for you right now. You’re going straight to the North Prison. You better start praying to your saint, because they don’t take kindly to rich kids who steal money in there.”

THE RENAISSANCE: COLONIA ROMA, 9:00 AM

While Ricardo was being transported in an armored convoy to the north of the city, Camila Hartwell (no longer Landa) stood in the middle of a cloud of white dust.

“Mrs. Camila, the load-bearing wall is very damp,” said Don Chuy, the master bricklayer in charge of the gallery’s renovation. “We’re going to have to scrape everything and re-plaster it. That’s going to delay us by two days.”

Camila adjusted her face mask and looked at the wall.
“It doesn’t matter, Don Chuy. I want it done right. If we have to postpone the opening, we’ll postpone it. I don’t want a patch job. I want the foundation to be sound.”

“I don’t want any half-measures.” That was her new philosophy of life. For years, she had patched up her marriage, smiling in photos, ignoring messages, pretending everything was fine. No more. Now, if something was rotten, she would pull it out by the roots.

Her phone rang. It was Benítez.
Camila dusted herself off and answered.
“Tell me, Horacio.”

—They caught him, Camila.

The world stopped for a second. The noise of the drills and hammering seemed to fade away.
“Where?” she asked.

—In the Alameda. He was sleeping on a bench. He was detained for minor offenses, but an arrest warrant was issued for the fraud against the company. He has already been transferred to the North Prison. The initial hearing is at 11:00 AM.

Camila closed her eyes and exhaled. She felt no joy. She felt an enormous weight, like lead, lifting from her shoulders. The physical threat was gone. Ricardo could no longer go to the house and shout. He could no longer try to take the children. He was locked in.

—What’s going to happen now?

—The judge is going to order justified pretrial detention. He has no ties to the community, no fixed address (thanks to the asset freeze), and he has (or had) the means to flee. He’s going to stay in jail for the entire trial, Camila. At least a year, maybe two, before sentencing.

—Do children need to know?

—They’re going to find out, Camila. It’s already on the news:  “The Titan falls: Ricardo Landa arrested as a homeless person downtown .” You’d better tell them before they see it on TikTok.

“Thank you, Horacio.” Camila paused. “Did he… ask about me?”

—According to the Public Prosecutor’s report, he shouted your name as they were putting him in the transport van. He said you could explain everything.

Camila felt a pang of old pain, but she quickly crushed it.
“There’s nothing to explain. Thank you, lawyer.”

He hung up. He looked at the damp wall that Don Chuy was chipping away at with a chisel.
“Don Chuy,” he said firmly, “tear it down. Tear down the whole wall. We’re going to make a window. I want more light in.”

THE GOLDEN CAGE (WHICH WAS NOW MADE OF IRON)

The North Men’s Preventive Prison is a place where hope dies at the entrance, right where they take your shoelaces off.

Ricardo Landa, dressed in a worn beige uniform two sizes too big, walked down the entrance hall. The smell was a mixture of creosote, stale sweat, and rotten food. It was cold. Very cold.

They had put him in the intake area, in a 3×3 meter cell that he shared with five other men. There were no beds, only concrete slabs. There was no toilet, just a hole in the floor.

“Look who’s here,” said one of the cellmates, a man tattooed up to his neck with a vacant stare. “The guy from TV. The millionaire.”

Ricardo pressed himself against the wall, hugging himself.
“I don’t want any trouble,” he whispered.

“Nobody wants trouble here, dude,” another one said, laughing. “But trouble comes on its own. Hey, is it true your old lady screwed you over with the DNA test?”

Ricardo didn’t answer.
“I’m talking to you, you bastard,” the man said, getting up and shoving him.

“Leave me alone!” Ricardo shouted, trying to maintain a shred of dignity. “My lawyer will come and get me out of here in a few hours! And when I get out, I’m going to have them transferred to a maximum-security prison!”

The five men burst out laughing.
“Oh, how scary.” The boss got angry. The tattooed man approached and spat in his face. “You’re nobody here, blondie. Your money’s worthless here if you don’t have it in your hand. And from what they say on the news, you’re even more broke than we are.”

Ricardo wiped the spit from his mouth, trembling. He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the dirty floor. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine he was in his office, that the smell was his espresso, and that the noise was the printers. But reality was inescapable.
He was in hell. And he’d bought his own ticket.

At 11:00 AM, they took him out for the hearing. They led him to a courtroom through an underground tunnel. They placed him behind bulletproof glass.
On the other side, he saw the prosecution: three young, aggressive lawyers.
He saw the plaintiff:  Lang Tech ‘s lawyer .
And he saw his defense attorney. It wasn’t Castañeda. It wasn’t any famous lawyer. It was a public defender, a tired-looking man who was reviewing the case file five minutes before the hearing began.

“Where is my legal team?” Ricardo asked into the microphone.

The public defender didn’t even look at him.
“They resigned, Mr. Landa. Non-payment. And a conflict of interest. I’m Attorney Gómez. I’ll be taking your case. I recommend you don’t speak unless I tell you to.”

The hearing was a massacre.
The judge heard the charges: embezzlement of 45 million pesos, tax evasion, document forgery. The evidence was overwhelming. The proof Camila had gathered—the receipts for Isa’s “consulting” services, the private flights disguised as logistical support—was irrefutable.

“Your Honor,” said Gómez, the defense attorney, without much conviction, “we request that my client be released pending trial. He has no criminal record.”

“Objection,” the prosecutor said. “The defendant has no fixed address, his accounts are frozen, and he has dual (American) citizenship, which makes him an imminent flight risk. Furthermore, he attempted to bribe the officers who arrested him.”

The judge nodded.
“The defendant is hereby formally charged. Pretrial detention is ordered. Three months are granted for the completion of the supplementary investigation. Take him away.”

Ricardo banged on the glass.
“No! You can’t leave me here! I’m innocent! It was her! It was my wife! It’s revenge!”

No one paid him any attention. The guards dragged him back into the tunnel. Back into the darkness.

THE DIFFICULT CONVERSATION

That afternoon, Camila picked up Diego and Sofía from school.
The atmosphere in the car was tense. Diego was sitting with his head down.

“Mom,” Sofia said. “At recess, some girls said my dad is in jail. Is that true?”

Camila stopped the car on a quiet street in Las Lomas, before reaching the house. She turned off the engine and turned to face them.
She wasn’t going to lie to them. Not again.

—Yes, my loves. It’s true.

Diego slammed his fist on the front seat in fury.
“Damn it! What a disgrace! Now we’re the convict’s kids!”

“Diego, look at me,” Camila said in an authoritative voice. “You are not the children of a prisoner. You are the children of Ricardo and Camila. What your father did were his decisions. His mistakes. Not yours.”

“But we have their last name!” Diego shouted, crying with rage. “Everyone’s going to think we’re the same!”

“Your last name doesn’t define you, Diego. Your actions define you.” Camila took a deep breath. “Your father committed crimes. He took money that wasn’t his. And the law is the same for everyone, even if you have money. He has to pay for what he did.”

“Are we going to see him?” Sofia asked in a small voice.

Camila thought for a moment.
“Not right now, Sofi. Jail isn’t a place for children. And I think your father needs time to think about what he did without an audience. But if he calls, and you two want to talk, you can. I’m not going to stop you.”

“I don’t want to talk to him,” Diego said, crossing his arms. “Never. As far as I’m concerned, he’s dead.”

—It’s your decision, son. And I respect it.

Camila started the car again. She knew Diego’s road to healing would be long. The idol had fallen from his pedestal and shattered into a thousand pieces, and those pieces cut.

CONJUGAL VISIT (WITHOUT SPOUSE)

Two weeks later.
Ricardo had lost ten kilos. He had dark circles under his eyes and an unkempt beard. He had quickly learned the rules of prison: don’t look anyone in the eye, pay for protection (with the little money his mother deposited for him), and keep his mouth shut.

It was visiting day.
Ricardo sat in the common area, staring at the door. He had this absurd, childish hope that Camila would come in. That she would come in wearing her blue dress, scold him, but then drag him out. She always fixed his problems. She always found the keys when he lost them.

The door opened.
Attorney Benítez entered.

Ricardo felt such a sharp disappointment that his chest ached.
Benítez sat down opposite him. He didn’t wear a mocking smile. He wore a serious, professional expression.

—Hello, Ricardo.

“Where is she?” Ricardo asked, his voice raspy.

—She’s not coming, Ricardo. Not today, not ever.

—She has to come. We need to talk. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her… that I was wrong. Tell her Isa was a mistake. That I miss her.

Benítez pulled out a folder.
“Ricardo, listen to me carefully. That doesn’t matter anymore. The damage is done. And I’m not talking about the emotional damage, which is irreparable. I’m talking about the legal damage.”

Benítez opened the folder.
—I’ve come to bring you the final divorce agreement.

“I’m not going to sign anything,” Ricardo said. “If I don’t sign, we’re still married. And she has to help me.”

“If you don’t sign,” Benítez replied evenly, “the no-fault divorce proceedings will continue, and the judge will issue a ruling in a month anyway. But if you don’t sign this marital property settlement agreement, Camila will not drop the personal charges she has against you for defrauding the children’s trust fund.”

Ricardo went pale.
“Do you have any other charges?”

“The fraud against the company is a federal matter. That’s no longer in our hands. But the theft of the three million pesos from Diego and Sofía’s university fund… that’s a private civil and criminal case. If you sign this, relinquishing full parental rights and waiving any claim to the house and remaining assets, Camila will withdraw that specific lawsuit. You’ll save yourself an extra five years in prison.”

Ricardo stared at the documents. They represented total surrender. He was giving up his children. He was giving up his home. He was giving up the life he once knew.

“She hates me,” Ricardo whispered.

“No, Ricardo,” Benítez said, setting his pen aside. “The worst part is that she doesn’t hate you. If she did, she’d come to see you and spit on you. Camila doesn’t feel anything for you anymore. You’re indifferent to her. You’re a stranger with whom she shares memories, nothing more. She’s already let you go. Now it’s your turn to let go.”

Ricardo took the pen. His hands shook.
He looked at his signature—the same signature that once moved millions of dollars in international contracts. Now it was worth nothing more than the promise of parole (someday).

He signed.
Slowly, he slid the papers across the table toward Benítez.

“Tell my children…” Ricardo stopped. His voice cracked. He broke down, crying for the first time in years—raw, loud, unrefined sobs. “Tell my children I’m sorry. That their father is lost.”

Benítez nodded as he gathered the documents.
“I’ll tell them. But I suggest that when you leave here in a few years, you try to be a man they won’t be ashamed of. Start over, Ricardo. Like when you lived in Iztapalapa. Maybe there you’ll find the man Camila once loved.”

Benítez stood and walked out.
Ricardo remained seated at the metal table.

He looked out into the courtyard. The sun was bright, but it carried no warmth.
“Start over.”

He had no money. No family. No reputation.
Yet somehow, after signing those papers, he felt a faint sense of relief. He no longer had to pretend to be the Titan. The Titan was gone.

Now he was simply Ricardo, inmate 4055. And for the first time in a long while, that was the only truth he had.

EPILOGUE TO THE CHAPTER: THE INAUGURATION

A month later,
the Hartwell Gallery opened its doors.

There were no gossip magazines. Only art critics, serious collectors, and genuine friends.
The space was stunning: white walls, reclaimed wood floors, and warm lighting that wrapped gently around the artwork.

The exhibition, “What Remains After the Fire,” showcased sculptures formed from charred wood and twisted metal, casting shadows that resembled dancing human figures.

Camila stood at the center of the gallery, wearing a simple yet refined cream-colored dress. She held a glass of wine but didn’t drink from it. She was deep in conversation with a curator from the Museum of Modern Art.

“The honesty of the pieces is brutal,” the curator said. “You can feel the pain, but also the reconstruction.”

—That’s what art is— Camila said with a soft smile. —It’s taking what’s broken and finding a new purpose for it.

Diego and Sofía were there. Diego wore a neatly pressed shirt and helped pass around canapés, feeling useful, included. He no longer hid behind a screen. Sofía moved quickly through the room, explaining the works with the same passion her mother had.

Camila watched them. They were okay. They were healing.

She walked to the window overlooking Orizaba Street. Below her, the Roma neighborhood glowed with life—music, movement, people walking freely through the night.

She thought of Ricardo. She knew it was his birthday today. Forty-two years old. He was probably marking the day with beans and rice on a plastic tray.

She felt no bitterness. Only deep peace.
She lifted her glass toward the moon in a silent toast.

“Goodbye, Ricardo. Thank you for the children. Thank you for the lesson. And thank you for leaving.”

Then she turned back to the celebration.
Her life—her real life—was just beginning.

(THE END OF THE STORY)