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.
