I didn’t do it.
Paredes put a hand on my arm.
—Don’t waste energy on physical anger. It serves us better cold.
We continue.
At 2:20 we found emails forwarded to a new address created with an absurd, almost childish name: proyectoscr.mkt@gmail .
The signature on the foot said something else.
Rivas Montiel Consulting.
Rivas.
Like Elvira Rivas.
Montiel.
Her father’s maiden name.
A family-owned shell company.
I saw her very clearly in my head: the woman who mocked my independence by using my deliverables to sell them behind my back while calling me provincial every time I wanted to take care of money.
At three in the morning we sent preventive summonses to banks, intrusion notices to affected clients, a notary block of delegated powers and an expanded complaint.
Paredes was in his element.
I was in ruins and, at the same time, clearer than ever.
I didn’t cry.
Not yet.
At 4:10, while we were drinking stale machine coffee and reviewing bank statements, the piece of information appeared that finished destroying what little air my marriage had left.
The mortgage on the apartment hadn’t been “adjusted” for four months, as Rodrigo kept telling me.
It had been partially covered for eight months by a line of credit opened in the name of my agency with a digital signature authorized from my business token.
My token.
The one that only I was supposed to use.
“How could he?” I whispered.
Paredes didn’t take a second.
—Because someone took your keys, your laptop, or your phone. And because you trusted them in your most intimate moments.
I then remembered an April night.
I fell asleep at the dining room table while correcting a proposal.
Rodrigo picked me up in his arms, carried me to bed, and the next day boasted about having “taken care of me” while I slept.
What a tender gesture it seemed to me then.
Now I understood something else.
I wasn’t taking care of myself.
He was watching me.
Dawn found us with two printed folders, a lawsuit ready for urgent action, and a list of clients who needed to hear the truth from my mouth before he tried to sell them another one.
I called the first one at seven ten.
The marketing director of the interior design firm answered me in a sleepy voice.
I apologized for the time.
I told him the whole truth.
There was silence.
Then a phrase that changed my spine.
—Mariana, I also suspected something strange had happened. The proposal we received had your structure, but it was presented by a man who couldn’t defend a single idea.
It wasn’t just me.
She wasn’t crazy.
I wasn’t exaggerating.
They were robbing me and on top of that trying to tame my reaction with public humiliation.
By mid-morning the matter was already circulating among agencies, suppliers, two large clients and half the corporate circle that Rodrigo always wanted to impress with the label of “strategist”.
Now they were calling him for something else.
Parasite.
The police did not formally arrest him that night, but he was summoned.
His mother too.
