Chapter 7: The Return to the Origin and the Dust of Justice
The return trip from San Pedro Garza García to our lands in Coahuila was a silence full of promise.
I was sitting in the back seat of the armored Suburban, still wrapped in my father’s enormous trench coat. The smell of new leather from the vehicle and the aroma of Don Esteban’s tobacco made me feel, for the first time in two years, that I was in safe territory. Outside, the Monterrey rain was receding as we drove toward the highway to Saltillo, replaced by the dense mountain fog and, eventually, by the dry, honest air of the desert.
“Are you alright, my daughter?” my father asked without taking his eyes off the road, even though he wasn’t the one driving. His large hand, full of work scars, squeezed mine with a tenderness that only a man of his character could show.
“I’m alive, Dad,” I replied, looking out the dark window. “And for the first time in a long time, I feel awake.”
“That’s what matters. Money comes and goes, Elena. Empires are built and fall in an afternoon. But dignity… that’s not negotiable. And those wretches tried to take it from you. They didn’t know that the Álvarez blood doesn’t kneel before anyone, least of all clowns who live off appearances.”
Upon arriving at Rancho “El Renacer,” the headquarters of the AgroÁlvarez Group, the entrance lights illuminated the walnut-lined driveway. It wasn’t a cold, marble mansion like the Montenegros’; it was a warm, imposing, and authentic stone and wood house. My mother, Doña Martha, was waiting for us on the porch with a blanket, her eyes filled with worry that turned to fire when my father told her, over the phone, what had happened.
The following weeks were intensive training, not only for my soul, but for my career. I stopped being “Alejandro’s wife” and became what I was always meant to be: the heiress.
I immersed myself in the ledgers, the export contracts, and the board meetings. My father put me in charge of the international division. “If you want justice, Elena, don’t use guns,” he told me one day while we were overseeing the loading of three thousand tons of grain. “Use the banks. Those people’s hunger for power is their own undoing. We just have to tighten it.”
Meanwhile, in Monterrey, the name Montenegro was becoming synonymous with “outcasts”.
The news of the video leaked (with a little help from our PR department). In high society WhatsApp groups, at clubs, and in gossip columns, it was the only topic of conversation: the “royal family” of San Pedro had tried to frame the daughter of the most powerful man in the north for a robbery.
But the final blow wasn’t social. It was financial.
Don Esteban kept his word. In less than a month, the Montenegro construction company lost the three largest bids in the state. The banks, fearing reprisals from the Álvarez Group, began demanding immediate repayment of the credit lines that Alejandro and his father had overdrawn to maintain their lifestyle.
I received a call from Alejandro at three in the morning, on a Tuesday. He sounded drunk, with a slurred voice and full of snot.
—Elena… please… convince your dad. They’re taking everything from us. The bank wants to foreclose on the mansion. My mom’s in the hospital with a nervous breakdown… Camila can’t go outside because everyone yells “thief” at her… Forgive me, let’s go back to how things were before.
“Before?” I asked, feeling an absolute emptiness where love had once been. “Before I was dragged naked down your hallway while you drank whiskey? No, Alejandro. The Montenegro mansion isn’t a house, it’s a theater set. And the play is over.”
I hung up. I blocked his number. That night I slept like a baby.
