Quietly.
You told no one except Verónica, who nearly drove to Esteban’s office herself with a baseball bat and a scanner. Together you built the file. Not to blackmail. Not even, at first, to destroy him. To survive him. You needed to know where the floor was before he finished selling pieces of it.
Then he died.
A heart attack at fifty-six, alone in a hotel suite in Polanco, expensive watch on, room-service whiskey half-finished, phone full of messages from Ximena asking whether he had told “that woman” about the future yet.
The future.
You had almost laughed when the lawyer called you with the location of the body.
Because even his death was in costume.
The funeral had been unbearable.
Men from business circles lying about his vision. Women from the club speaking of generosity. Teresa collapsing into everyone’s arms as if grief could wash reputation clean. And Ximena, two rows back in black satin, not crying like a hidden lover but sitting with her chin raised like a widow awaiting legal confirmation. She met your eyes once across the church and gave the slightest nod, the kind women give each other when they believe they have already won.
