Chapter 4: The King of the North Reclaims His Territory
We walked together toward the main entrance. I clutched my father’s trench coat to my chest; it was so big on me that the hem dragged in the puddles, but I didn’t care. My bare feet no longer felt the cold of the cobblestones. I walked escorted by a force of nature.
Upon arriving at the immense solid oak doors, my father did not ring the bell. He did not announce his arrival.
He simply made a slight nod.
Two of his most burly escorts stepped forward and, with brutal force, shoved the heavy double doors wide open. The wood creaked violently, striking the interior marble walls with a crash that echoed throughout the house like a cannon shot.
The visual impact of our entrance was immediate.
We entered the lobby. Behind us, the storm wind swept in water, wet leaves, and a frigid air that swept through the main hall in a matter of seconds, colliding head-on with the artificial heat, the smell of expensive perfume, and the empty laughter of the guests.
The string orchestra playing in a corner of the hall tripped over their own instruments. The cellist released his bow, producing a dreadful screech. The music stopped abruptly.
The silence that fell over the Montenegro mansion was absolute, suffocating, and terrifying.
The fifty richest people in San Pedro Garza García froze, champagne glasses halfway to their mouths. All eyes turned toward the entrance.
And what they saw was a Renaissance painting of pure revenge.
I stood there, covered in a giant man’s coat that dripped rainwater onto its immaculate Persian rugs, my face pale and defiant. And beside me, Don Esteban Álvarez. Tall, imposing, his hat never removed, surrounded by four men in dark suits who exuded danger.
Doña Graciela was the first to react.
She stood in the middle of the room, still holding the remnants of my emerald dress in one hand and a glass in the other. Her face contorted with indignation. She didn’t recognize my father. In her classist mind, she saw only an older man, wearing a cowboy hat and boots, who had just ruined her exclusive evening and was accompanied by that “thieving ranch girl.”
“What audacity!” Graciela shrieked, hurrying towards us, her heels clattering furiously on the marble floor. “Guards! Security! What kind of idiots let these people in?”
Camila cowardly hid behind the back of one of the businessmen, staring at the bodyguards with wide eyes of fear.
“You… whoever you are!” Doña Graciela continued, pointing at my father with a finger trembling with anger. “This is private property belonging to the Montenegro family. You are trespassing in our home. Leave right now, taking that criminal with you, or I will immediately call the police to arrest you all!”
My father didn’t blink. His expression didn’t change. He didn’t even look at her directly; he looked her up and down as if she were a particularly annoying insect he’d just found on the sole of his boot.
He took three slow, deliberate steps toward the center of the room. The sound of his light spurs and the heels of his boots echoed in the deathly silence of the hall.
“And who the hell do you think you are?” Graciela spat, red with anger at being ignored.
My father stopped three meters away from her. He brought his hands to the edges of his nonexistent trench coat, adjusted the silver buckle of his belt, and finally raised his face so that the light from the candelabras illuminated his stone features.
“I am Esteban Álvarez,” he said. His voice was not a shout. It was deep, resonant, filling every corner of the mansion with unquestionable authority.
The name hit the room like an atomic bomb.
For a second, nothing happened. But then, the domino effect began.
A frantic murmur instantly swept through the room. The suited businessmen, politicians, and bankers who had been mocking me just minutes before began to pale and whisper desperately in each other’s ears. They weren’t ignorant like Graciela; they knew the world of real money.
“Álvarez? The one from the north?”
“Good heavens, it’s Don Esteban. The owner of Grupo AgroÁlvarez.”
“The man who controls the borders… what is he doing here?”
They recognized the name. They knew exactly who he was. They were standing before the man who quietly financed half of the country’s agricultural exports. The main supplier to the largest supermarket chains nationwide. The corporate phantom who could raise or lower the prices of basic foodstuffs in a matter of days with a simple signature. The man the banks borrowed from.
Alejandro, my cowardly husband, emerged from the crowd near the fireplace. His face was so pale it looked as if all the blood had been drained from his body. His glass of whiskey slipped from his hands, shattering on the marble floor and scattering glass and alcohol everywhere.
He swallowed, walking awkwardly forward.
“Álvarez…?” Alejandro stammered, looking at me, then at my father, feeling the ground open up beneath his feet. “Like… like the AgroÁlvarez Group conglomerate?”
My father slowly turned his face toward him. His eyes fixed on Alejandro with the utter contempt of a wolf looking at a wounded mouse.
—Exactly, boy —replied Don Esteban with brutal coldness.
Silence once again took over the place, but this time, it was a silence born of absolute terror.
My father slowly raised his right arm, a strong and heavy arm, and pointed towards where I stood, wrapped in his immense coat, still dripping with rainwater.
—And that “thief” they just humiliated… —he paused tactically, letting the word hang in the air and burn the eardrums of everyone present— …is my only daughter.
