Chapter 6 - BEATRIZ’S REAL SECRET
Lucía Fernandez was alive.
That fact took our investigators fourteen hours to confirm.
She lived outside Guadalajara under a different surname.
When Alejandro contacted her attorney, Lucía initially refused to speak.
Then she learned Horizonte had uncovered the payments.
She changed her mind.
We met three days later in a private conference room at a hotel.
Lucía was fifty-two.
Elegant.
Reserved.
Nothing about her matched the dangerous seductress I had unconsciously imagined from Beatriz’s hatred.
She placed an old leather folder on the table.
“Ernesto told me this day would eventually come.”
“Then why continue taking payments?” I asked.
Her expression hardened.
“I wasn’t taking them.”
I looked at Alejandro.
Lucía opened the folder.
Inside were birth certificates.
Bank statements.
Photographs.
The first showed Ernesto twenty-seven years younger, holding a baby.
“The child?” Alejandro asked.
“My son.”
I stared.
“Ernesto’s son?”
“Yes.”
That explained the apartment.
The money.
But not eighty-four million pesos.
Lucía continued.
“Ernesto and I had an affair. I’m not proud of it.”
“Did Beatriz know?”
“Eventually.”
“And the companies?”
“They were created later.”
“By Ernesto?”
Lucía shook her head.
“By Beatriz.”
That answer stunned me.
“She controlled the shell companies?”
“Some.”
“Why?”
“To hide money from Ernesto.”
I leaned forward.
Lucía explained.
Years after discovering Ernesto’s affair, Beatriz confronted her privately.
She threatened to expose Lucía, ruin her career, and make sure her son never received anything from his father.
Then she made an offer.
Payments would continue.
But through companies Beatriz controlled.
Part would support Ernesto’s secret son.
The rest would become Beatriz’s private reserve.
“Why would Ernesto agree?”
“He didn’t understand the full structure. He believed he was paying me.”
“How much did you actually receive?”
“Over eight years? Approximately nine million.”
Only nine.
More than seventy million remained unexplained.
Lucía pushed another paper toward me.
A list of account transfers.
“Beatriz took most of it.”
I felt physically cold.
Mauricio’s mother had spent my wedding night lecturing me about a wife’s duty while secretly siphoning millions from her husband’s company.
“Did Mauricio know?”
Lucía hesitated.
“Not initially.”
“Later?”
“Yes.”
My heart sank.
“When?”
“About three years ago.”
Exactly when his payments began.
Lucía continued.
“Beatriz brought him into it because she feared Ernesto would eventually discover the accounts.”
“Why involve her son?”
“To move money through procurement contracts.”
Alejandro leaned back.
“So Mauricio wasn’t simply stealing independently.”
“He was helping her.”
I thought about the way Beatriz had defended him.
The way she demanded his loyalty.
It had never merely been emotional control.
They were financially tied together.
“What about Ricardo?” I asked.
“Nothing that I know of.”
I believed her.
Ricardo had looked genuinely shocked at every discovery.
Lucía removed one final envelope.
“Ernesto wrote these.”
Letters.
Dozens.
Some to her.
Some to their son.
Some never sent.
One line caught my eye.
Beatriz says she forgives me, but I know she does not. She has turned the boys against everyone she believes might take something from her.
The tragedy became clearer.
Ernesto had betrayed Beatriz.
Beatriz had chosen revenge instead of leaving.
Then she spent decades teaching her sons that controlling women was strength.
Mauricio had learned well.
That afternoon, authorities opened a formal investigation into financial misconduct at Ortega Urban Foods.
The news broke before dinner.
Ernesto called an emergency family meeting.
Ricardo invited me.
I declined.
Then he called again.
“You need to hear this.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother is blaming you.”
I almost laughed.
“Of course she is.”
“No. I mean she says you fabricated the accounts.”
“Ricardo—”
“She’s trying to convince Dad to sign documents saying Horizonte planted evidence to seize the company.”
That was serious.
“Is he going to?”
“I don’t know.”
I went.
Not alone.
Alejandro came with me.
So did an independent corporate counsel and two auditors.
The Ortega dining room looked very different from the night of my wedding.
No flowers.
No champagne.
No music.
Just exhausted people surrounded by documents.
Beatriz stood when I entered.
“You!”
I stopped at the doorway.
“Yes. Still me.”
“You destroyed this family.”
“No, Beatriz.”
I walked toward the table.
“I simply turned on the lights.”
Ernesto looked twenty years older.
Mauricio sat at the far end.
Our eyes met.
He looked away.
Ricardo remained standing beside the window.
Beatriz pointed at me.
“She was planning this from the beginning! She married Mauricio because Horizonte wanted our company.”
Alejandro placed the investment records on the table.
“Horizonte acquired its position five years before Ms. Cruz met your son.”
Beatriz ignored him.
“You lied to us!”
“So did you.”
Her face changed.
I placed Lucía’s statements on the table.
Ernesto saw the name.
He went completely still.
“What is that?”
“Ask your wife.”
Beatriz backed away.
Ernesto opened the file.
His hands began shaking.
“Beatriz?”
She said nothing.
He looked at account after account.
Then at Mauricio.
“You knew?”
Mauricio whispered, “Dad…”
“You knew?”
“It wasn’t—”
Ernesto lunged to his feet.
Ricardo stepped between them.
I moved backward.
This was not my family battle.
But then Beatriz screamed.
“I did it because of her!”
She pointed at Lucía’s photograph.
“You humiliated me! You made me raise your children while you paid another woman!”
Ernesto stared at her.
“So you stole seventy million?”
“I took what belonged to me!”
That sentence sounded painfully familiar.
Mauricio had said almost the same thing.
Ernesto’s face collapsed.
“You used the boys?”
“I protected them!”
“You taught them to steal from me.”
“No. I taught them never to depend on a man!”
The hypocrisy was almost breathtaking.
Then Beatriz turned toward me.
“And you think you’re different? You hid money from your husband!”
“Yes,” I said.
The room fell quiet.
“I did.”
She seemed startled by my admission.
“I hid who I was because I was afraid.”
Her mouth opened.
“But the difference between us is what happened after fear.”
I looked directly at her.
“You were betrayed. You could have left. You could have rebuilt. Instead, you made cruelty into a family tradition.”
Her face crumpled with rage.
“You know nothing about marriage.”
“Maybe not.”
I looked at Mauricio.
“But I know when one should end.”
Then police sirens sounded outside.
Beatriz’s face went pale.
Mauricio stood.
“What did you do?”
I hadn’t done anything.
Alejandro looked equally surprised.
Ricardo swallowed.
“I called them.”
Everyone turned toward him.
He looked at his mother.
May you like
“And I gave them the original account files.”
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