Chapter 3 - The Hit and RunThe ticking of the wall clock in the De la Vega mansion kitchen sounded like a time bomb.
Months passed, and with every week left behind, I felt like I was walking on a tightrope. Maintaining the facade of Mateo Sánchez—the submissive, quiet, and efficient chauffeur—was costing me what little sanity I had left. Every day I woke up with my stomach tied in knots, knowing I had to go back and look my wife's murderers in the face, open doors for them, clean the dirt off their tires, and endure their humiliating comments.
But the worst part wasn't the exhaustion or the anger lodged in my chest. The worst part was returning home at night and seeing that the second hand on my daughter Sofia's life was ticking much faster than mine.
Having just turned four, my little girl no longer had the strength to run in our small dirt courtyard. Her cough had become a constant echo in the cold nights on the outskirts of the city, and every bottle of medicine I bought seemed to have less of an effect. The doctors at the general hospital had told me straight out: her lungs, damaged from the womb by the negligence of that cursed family, were slowly shutting down.
"All we can do is make sure she doesn't suffer, Mateo," the doctor had told me last Tuesday, giving my shoulder a pitying pat. "Keep her comfortable. Give her her medications. That's all we can do."
Comfortable, I thought with rage as I drove the Suburban back to San Pedro. How was my daughter going to be comfortable in a room where the cold seeped through the cracks in the tin roof, while the people responsible for her illness slept in beds with Egyptian cotton sheets and central heating? God's justice wasn't arriving, so mine had to hurry up.
The cracking of the De la Vega's foundation started where empires always begin to fall: through the excesses and arrogance of the children.
Mauricio de la Vega believed his last name made him immune to gravity. To him, the streets of Monterrey were his private racetrack, and common people were just obstacles in his way. His routine was almost mathematical: he'd wake up at noon with a raging hangover, go out in the afternoon in his sports car to eat with other trust-fund kids of his kind, and at night he'd disappear into the most exclusive clubs in Centrito Valle, spending on bottles of champagne what a working-class family earned in an entire year.
But one Thursday afternoon, things changed. I was in the service courtyard cleaning the air filters of the SUVs when I heard a violent door slam that rattled the kitchen windows. It was Mauricio's car. He had parked terribly, almost on top of the planters the cleaning staff took such care to maintain.
Mauricio got out of the car with a pale face, wide eyes, and hands trembling in a way that wasn't normal. He wasn't holding his phone, which was incredibly rare for him. He ran through the service door, tripping over a trash can and muttering a curse under his breath.
"Rosa! Rosa, get over here right now!" he yelled, his voice cracked and hysterical.
Doña Rosa came out of the pantry with a rag in her hands, startled by the young master's tone.
"What's wrong, young Mauricio? Do you need something?"
"Where is my mom? Is she back from the Red Cross board meeting yet?" he asked, grabbing her arm with far too much force. I watched the poor woman flinch in pain, but she didn't dare complain.
"No, young master. Señora Victoria said she was going to stay for lunch at the club with the other ladies from the board. She won't be back until five."
Mauricio let out a loud insult and ran his hands through his hair, desperate. He paced back and forth across the kitchen like a caged animal. At that moment, he saw me standing near the door. His gaze, which had always been full of contempt, shifted completely. There was fear in his eyes. Pure, cowardly fear.
"You... Mateo, right?" he pointed a finger at me, his voice shaking. "Come here. Close that damn door."
I walked slowly, keeping my posture tense but submissive, and closed the kitchen door leading to the patio.
"How can I help you, young Mauricio?" I asked, modulating my voice to sound concerned and helpful.
"I need you to go to the parking lot of the mall on Gómez Morín Avenue. The car... my car has a dent on the front bumper. I want you to take it right now to a body shop. But not the dealership, understand? Take it to one of those mechanics in your neighborhood, the ones who don't ask for receipts or ask questions. Pay him triple, whatever it takes, but I want that car painted and fixed by tomorrow morning before my mom sees it."
My internal alarms went off immediately. Mauricio never took his car to shops that weren't authorized by the brand in San Pedro. He hated working-class neighborhoods and would never let a mechanic from the outskirts touch his "toy"—unless there was a very dark reason behind it.
"Of course, sir," I replied, lowering my gaze so he wouldn't see the glimmer of suspicion in my eyes. "If you give me the keys, I'll take care of taking it right away."
"They're in the ignition. Move, now. And if my mom calls you, tell her you're checking some noises on her SUV at a mechanic downtown. If you open your mouth, Mateo, I swear to God you're going to regret it."
"Don't worry, young master. My job is to serve you and Señora Victoria. I don't know anything," I said, turning around to leave.
When I walked toward Mauricio's sports car, my heart was racing at a thousand miles an hour. I felt the ground shifting beneath my feet. I knew this was the opportunity I had been waiting months for. The loose end. The mistake that all the wealth of the De la Vegas wouldn't be able to cover up so easily.
I got into the car. The smell of stale alcohol, tobacco, and cheap perfume flooded the interior. I started the engine and drove out of the residential neighborhood at a moderate speed so as not to attract the attention of the security guards at the gate. But as soon as I crossed the main avenue, instead of going to the shop Mauricio had ordered, I detoured toward an isolated industrial zone near the train tracks, where I knew no one would look for me.
I parked the car behind an abandoned warehouse and got out to inspect the front bumper.
The dent wasn't huge, but it was obvious. The white paint of the sports car was scraped and dented on the passenger side. But what made my blood run cold and made me hold my breath wasn't the damage to the metal. It was what I found wedged between the crack of the headlight and the fender.
There were scraps of fabric. A navy blue, rustic fabric, identical to the school uniforms worn by children in public elementary schools in Nuevo León. And right below the headlight, on the white paint, were dried drops of a dark red, almost brown color.
It was blood.
Mauricio de la Vega hadn't crashed into a pole or another car. He had run someone over. And given the height of the impact and the color of the uniform, I knew perfectly well the kind of victim he had left lying on some avenue in the city before fleeing like the cowardly rat he was.
I froze for a few seconds, staring at the evidence. The rage I felt for what they had done to my Elena mixed with a new, profound, and overwhelming fury for the innocent child that wretch had hurt that afternoon. History was repeating itself. The De la Vegas destroying the lives of humble people and using their money to wash the stains off their hands.
But this time it wasn't going to be the same. This time, I was here.
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I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. My hands were shaking from adrenaline, but I forced myself to stay calm. I took over twenty photographs from every possible angle: the dent on the bumper, the exact spot where the uniform fabric was stuck, the bloodstains on the paint, the VIN number on the dashboard, and the license plates. I made sure the photos had the exact date and time of day visible in the metadata.
Then, very carefully, I used a handkerchief to pull the piece of blue fabric from the headlight. I stored it in a small plastic bag I kept in my driver's backpack. That piece of fabric was my life insurance. It was the entry ticket to the hell of the De la Vega family.
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