PART 2
I arrived at the Salgados’ house an hour later, my makeup smeared, my throat dry, feeling as if I were entering not a family home, but a crime scene.
The house, which usually smelled of freshly brewed coffee and polished furniture, reeked of fear that night.
Patricia sat in the living room, her face twisted with worry. Don Ernesto paced back and forth, cell phone in hand. On the coffee table lay printed bank statements, open folders, a laptop powered on, and a sheet of notebook paper folded into quarters.
—We found it in her apartment—said Don Ernesto, pointing to the note. —It doesn’t explain much, but she left this.
I unfolded it with trembling fingers.
“I’m sorry. It’s the only way to fix it.”
Nothing else.
A void opened in my stomach.
Until that moment, part of me had clung to the hope that it was all just brutal cowardice—fear of commitment, another woman, a last-minute panic. Something humiliating, yes, but understandable in the context of human frailty.
No.
This was something else entirely.
Don Ernesto showed me transfers, charges, loans, cash withdrawals. Absurd sums. Dates repeated over a year. Transactions to unknown accounts. And amidst it all, a pattern emerged like an old disease: online casinos, betting sites, gambling apps, payday loans, minimum payments, sky-high interest rates.
Diego hadn’t taken the wedding money in a moment of desperation that week.
Diego had been falling for a long time.
—We realized it because the accountant called an hour ago—Don Ernesto said, voice breaking with anger. —He thought I had authorized an extraordinary expense. When I checked the account… it was too late.
Patricia began to cry softly, without elegance, without control.
—I asked him months ago if he was having problems—she whispered. —I saw him looking distant, strange, thinner… and he swore it was just work stress.
Then I remembered something Diego had said a few days earlier while we were arranging souvenir boxes for the guests.
“If you discovered something terrible about someone you love, would you rather know it before getting married… or after?”
I had laughed.
Told him it sounded like a cheap game show question.
He smiled—but not with his eyes.
At that moment, I hadn’t understood anything.
Now everything made sense.
Fernanda, who had stayed with me, scrolled through her social media in the armchair. She suddenly looked up.
—Camila… Diego hasn’t logged into his accounts for hours. But someone sent me this.
It was a screenshot of a conversation between Diego and an alleged loan shark. Threats. Pressure. Deadlines. A sentence Diego had written two days earlier sent chills down my spine:
“I’ll pay them everything after the wedding.”
After the wedding.
As if the money from gifts—or some other fraud—would save him.
Shame transformed into something else: horror.
I wasn’t the jilted bride in a sad story. I had almost married a man who planned to use our wedding as a desperate attempt to cover up a web of lies.
—There’s more—said Don Ernesto, handing me his phone.
It was from Diego’s office. A brief, formal message. Cold.
They needed to speak with the family urgently about “internal irregularities.”
Fraud.
The word hung in the air without being written.
Patricia covered her face.
—My God… who was my son?
No one answered.
Minutes later, Don Ernesto’s phone rang. He listened silently, closed his eyes.
When he hung up, he leaned back on the sofa as if aging suddenly.
—They found him.
I stopped breathing for a moment.
—Where?
—In his car. Outside a pharmacy on the road to Chapala. He’s alive… but he took pills. He managed to call for help.
The room fell silent.
Part of me felt relief. Another part knew the truly unbearable was only just beginning. Because Diego was still alive, yes… and with him, the whole truth he hadn’t yet revealed was still alive.
That night, as the sirens faded and the wedding dissolved into paperwork, bank transfers, and calls to lawyers, I knew the worst was yet to come.
And when I finally learned who else Diego had dragged into this mess, I understood that the end would be far more brutal than anyone could imagine.
