Chapter 5 - The Life He Thought I Needed Him For
Lucía remembered the conversation clearly.
Mauricio and Beatriz were in the kitchen.
She was upstairs packing things for the wedding.
Beatriz said:
“Don’t let her keep acting independent once you’re married.”
Mauricio laughed.
“She’ll calm down.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“She has nowhere else.”
Those three words bothered me more than I expected.
Nowhere else.
Mauricio believed my modest apartment was rented month to month.
He believed my parents were dead and had left me little.
True enough.
He believed my salary barely covered expenses.
False, but consistent with the identity he knew.
He believed I had no close family nearby.
Mostly true.
He believed marriage would turn his family into my financial and emotional safety net.
Therefore leaving him would be difficult.
That was what he meant.
Not romance.
Leverage.
Isabel listened to the recording Lucía had provided.
The slap sounded louder through headphones.
I removed them after once.
Evidence did not require self-punishment.
At seven in the morning, Isabel sent the divorce petition for service.
At eight, she filed for a protective order based on the assault and threats.
At nine, my chief of staff arrived.
Camila Reyes hugged me without asking questions.
Then looked at my bruised cheek.
“Do I need to kill someone?”
“Legally?”
“Preferably.”
I laughed for the first time since the wedding.
“No.”
Camila had helped me build Horizonte from the early days.
She knew the entire Mauricio experiment.
Not because she approved.
She had warned me.
“You cannot hide your life forever and call the result trust.”
I had ignored her.
Now she handed me a tablet.
“Written recusal.”
I signed.
“The Ortega financing committee meets Monday without you.”
“Good.”
“There’s another issue.”
Of course.
“Compliance flagged something Friday.”
“What?”
Ortega Hospitality Services had submitted a revised revenue forecast.
Numbers jumped dramatically.
Enough to improve the company’s debt-service ratio.
“Is that unusual?”
“The supporting contracts are.”
Three large customer agreements supposedly guaranteed future income.
One client denied signing.
Another contract was expired.
The third client did not exist at the listed address.
My anger disappeared.
This was separate.
Serious.
“Was this flagged before my wedding?”
“Yes.”
“Then keep me out.”
“Already done.”
Good.
If Ortega financing failed, nobody could claim I had destroyed them for revenge.
Their own documents would do that.
My phone rang again.
Mauricio.
Blocked.
Then Beatriz.
Blocked.
Then Ernesto.
I almost ignored him.
Camila said:
“Your choice.”
I answered.
Ernesto’s voice was cold.
“What did you do?”
“For clarification?”
“Lawyers came to my house.”
“They came for Mauricio.”
“You don’t destroy a marriage because a husband lost his temper once.”
“Apparently I do.”
He inhaled sharply.
Then:
“You have no idea what you’re throwing away.”
I looked around the executive suite of a private medical residence Horizonte itself partly owned.
“No, Ernesto.”
“I think that problem belongs to your son.”
He hung up.
An hour later, Mauricio was formally served.
But according to Lucía, the papers that frightened him most were not the divorce documents.
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They were the ones bearing Isabel Serrano’s law firm logo.
What name had Mauricio finally searched online—and what did he discover about the lawyer he thought his penniless wife could never afford?
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