CHAPTER 4
I returned to the De la Vega mansion by bus, entering again through the back door as if nothing had happened. When Mauricio saw me walk into the kitchen, he jumped up from the dining room table.
"Well? Is that shit done?" he asked in a low voice, making sure Doña Rosa was far away.
"It's in the shop, young Mauricio. Tomorrow at seven in the morning I will deliver it right here in the garage, flawless. No one will notice absolutely anything," I told him, keeping my face completely serious, unflappable.
The junior let out a long sigh of relief and gave me a pat on the shoulder that made me want to break his fingers.
"You really came through, Mateo. You came through, man. I knew I could trust you. Here, buy yourself some sodas," he handed me a five-hundred-peso bill.
I took it, lowering my head.
"Thank you, Señor Mauricio. That's what I'm here for."
That night, when I got home, I didn't turn on the lights so as not to wake Sofia. I sat directly at the plastic table with my old computer—one I had built with used parts just for this purpose. I started checking local Monterrey news portals, looking for reports of accidents or hit-and-runs in the last few hours.
It didn't take long to find it.
On a local crime Facebook page, there was a live broadcast from Morones Prieto Avenue, one of the fastest and most dangerous arteries in the city. The camera showed the red and blue flashing lights of an ambulance and a municipal police patrol car cordoning off the area. The reporter, with a sensationalist tone that turned my stomach, spoke into the microphone:
"We are here, viewers, where tragically a couple of hours ago a minor of approximately nine years of age was struck by a luxury vehicle traveling at high speed. Witnesses claim the driver, a young man who did not stop, fled the scene heading in an unknown direction, leaving the minor lying on the asphalt. The boy, who was returning from afternoon school, is reported to be in critical condition at the Metropolitan Hospital with a severe traumatic brain injury. Authorities are already reviewing the area's C4 cameras to find the responsible party..."
I turned off the screen. The silence of my house became deafening, broken only by the forced wheeze of my little Sofia's lungs from the back room.
I looked at the plastic bag on the table, the one containing the navy blue uniform fabric from Mauricio's headlight. The pieces of the puzzle were complete. I had the car, the photos of the damage before it was repaired, the cook's testimony that the young man arrived home hysterical, and the physical proof that his car was at the scene of the accident.
Any normal person would have gone to the police station to turn in the evidence at that very moment. But I knew Monterrey. I knew perfectly well how the system worked for people like the De la Vegas. If I handed this over to a regular prosecutor, the very next day the evidence would mysteriously disappear from the file, the body shop would suffer an arson fire, and I would end up in a clandestine grave or accused of extortion by the family's lawyers. The De la Vegas had uncles who were magistrates, cousins in the state government, and enough money to buy the conscience of an entire police force.
No. The police weren't going to solve this. If I wanted the De la Vegas to truly fall, I had to use their own weapons against them. I had to make the fall public, resounding, and so destructive that no judge or politician would dare stick their hands in to help them for fear of getting dirty themselves.
On Friday morning, I delivered the sports car to the mansion's garage exactly as promised. The Santa Catarina mechanic had done a perfect job; the white paint gleamed under the morning sun, and there wasn't the slightest trace of the impact or the child's blood.
Mauricio came down to check it in his pajamas, his eyes still swollen from alcohol and fear. He walked around the car twice, running his fingers over the front bumper. When he saw that everything was in order, he looked at me with a wide smile, full of that fake gratitude the rich show when a servant solves a dirty problem for them.
"You killed it, Mateo. You're the man. If my mom asks anything about this car, you know the drill: it hasn't left the house all week."
"Understood, young Mauricio. Your secret is safe with me," I replied, holding his gaze for the first time with an intensity that seemed to make him uncomfortable for a second, before he turned around to go back to his room.
Enjoy your last hours of peace, you wretch, I thought as I walked toward the Suburban to prep it for Doña Victoria's itinerary.
At eleven in the morning, the lady of the house climbed into the back seat. She wore a large hat, designer dark glasses, and a white linen dress that smelled of lavender and money. That day she had a meeting with the organizing committee of a charity gala for children with chronic illnesses at the Country Club. The irony of the situation burned my throat; the woman who had condemned my daughter to an early grave was going to spend the afternoon planning how to raise funds to show off in front of her high-society friends.
During the drive, I pulled out my second phone—a prepaid cell phone I had bought at an Oxxo downtown using a fake name, which I never connected to my home network. Taking advantage of the traffic on Lázaro Cárdenas Avenue, I placed the phone on the dashboard mount and, using an anonymous email account I had created the night before, I sent a message with four of the photographs of Mauricio's car to the most incorruptible and influential investigative journalist on local Monterrey television. A man known for not bending to the pressure of San Pedro's powerful families.
Along with the photos, I added a brief but devastating text:
"The white car in the photos belongs to Mauricio de la Vega, son of socialite Victoria De la Vega. Yesterday at four in the afternoon, this vehicle ran over the afternoon school boy on Morones Prieto and fled the scene. The car was clandestinely repaired last night at a body shop in Santa Catarina under the family's orders to erase the evidence. The license plates and VIN match the records of the De la Vega mansion in San Pedro. If you check the C4 security cameras at the intersections around that time, you'll see this car pass by with a broken headlight. Don't let money cover up another life."
I sent the email. I turned off the prepaid phone and stored it in the SUV's glove compartment. The fuse was already lit. Now all that was left was to wait for the fire to reach the gunpowder.
I dropped Doña Victoria off at the entrance of the Country Club. She gave me the usual instructions to come back for her at three in the afternoon and walked toward the terrace where the other ladies were already waiting for her amid glasses of white wine and refined laughter.
I returned to the De la Vega mansion to pass my hours of waiting. Upon entering the kitchen, I noticed a tense atmosphere, different from other days. Doña Rosa was sitting in a chair, her hands wedged between her legs, staring intently at the small television they kept above the refrigerator for the staff. The local news channel was on.
I approached slowly, feigning calmness.
"What's wrong, Doña Rosa? Is there some news?" I asked, pouring myself a glass of water.
The old woman looked at me with a distorted face, filled with a mixture of sadness and horror.
"It's the boy who was run over yesterday, Mateo... The one on TV. The reporter says they just got a video from a private security camera near the avenue. You can clearly see the car that hit him. It's a white sports car... identical to young Mauricio's."
I looked at the television screen. The news anchor, with a serious face and firm voice, was presenting the breaking news:
"...sources from the Prosecutor's Office inform us that they have identified the vehicle involved in the tragic accident of the minor on Morones Prieto. The characteristics match a high-end car registered to a well-known company owned by the De la Vega family. We are waiting for the authorities to issue a summons for the driver, who is allegedly a member of Monterrey's high society..."
At that exact moment, Mauricio's hurried footsteps echoed down the main hallway of the house. He burst into the kitchen like a madman, phone pressed to his ear, screaming profanities at whoever was on the other end of the line. He was sweating cold, and his face had turned a grayish, cadaverous color.
"I'm telling you they already know about the car, Dad!" Mauricio yelled into the phone, completely ignoring our presence. "I don't know how the fuck they got that video! You have to talk to the attorney general right now, do something... I'm not going to rot in the Apodaca prison for some street rat! Do something!"
Hearing those words, seeing the total lack of remorse from that miserable excuse for a human being calling the child he had just destroyed a "street rat," made the blood boil in my veins. I had to grip the glass in my hand so tightly I was afraid it would shatter in my fingers.
Your money isn't going to save you this time, idiot, I thought, feeling a dark and cold satisfaction growing in my chest.
Mauricio slammed the phone down and looked at Rosa and me with uncontrolled fury.
"Both of you shut your damn mouths!" he pointed a finger at us, his voice coming out in a hysterical screech. "If anyone comes asking for me or the car, I haven't left this house in three days, understand? If either of you says a single word, I swear I'll bury you in jail as accomplices!"
Doña Rosa began to tremble, nodding her head with tears in her eyes, gripped by the panic that family had always instilled in their staff. I, on the other hand, kept my head down, mimicking fear, but inside I was smiling. The trap was closing in on them, and they were cooperating to put the noose around their own necks.
At two-thirty in the afternoon, the phone in the Suburban rang. It was Doña Victoria. Her voice, usually controlled and icy, sounded frantic, with a note of urgency I had never heard in her before.
"Mateo, come pick me up from the club immediately. Do not wait until three. Move, now," she ordered before hanging up abruptly.
I drove back to the Country Club. When I arrived at the main ramp, Doña Victoria was already waiting outside, stripped of her usual slow elegance. She got into the SUV, slamming the door, and took off her sunglasses, revealing eyes filled with contained rage and desperation.
"To the house, Mateo. To the house quickly, and avoid the main avenues where there might be traffic or patrol cars," she ordered in a tone that pretended to be firm but betrayed the panic she was feeling.
As I drove back through the secondary streets of San Pedro, Doña Victoria's phone didn't stop ringing. I heard the conversations perfectly through the hands-free system that, in her rush, she forgot to deactivate. It was her husband, the patriarch of the family, calling from his offices in Mexico City.
"Victoria, the situation is getting out of hand," the man said through the SUV's speakers, his voice distorted by interference. "The video of the accident has already gone viral on social media. There are reporters outside the office, and a group of people is already protesting at the boy's hospital. The governor called me directly; he says the media case is too heavy and that he can't stop the arrest warrant against Mauricio without causing a political scandal for himself, too."
"Then pay it, Bernardo! Pay whatever it takes!" Doña Victoria screamed, completely losing her composure, her face twisted in fury. "I will not allow our family's name to be dragged through the mud because of a traffic accident! Get Mauricio out of the country tonight! Send him to the Houston house or the one in San Antonio, but move now!"
"I'm working on it, but the prosecutor's office has already issued a preventive immigration alert," the husband replied grimly. "We need to clean the car before the forensics team gets access to it. Mauricio told me he had the new chauffeur fix the bumper... What's his name? Mateo? Is that guy trustworthy?"
Hearing my name come through the speaker sent a chill down my spine, but I kept my eyes fixed on the road, controlling my movements with millimeter precision.
"Yes, Mateo took it to a body shop," Doña Victoria replied, looking forward through the rearview mirror, fixing her eyes on the back of my neck. "The boy is quiet, submissive—the kind who doesn't cause problems. Don't worry about him, Bernardo. We'll give him a few thousand pesos for his silence, and if things get difficult, we'll force him to take the blame for the hit. After all, that's what we pay these starving nobodies for. To serve us."
A heavy silence fell inside the cabin of the Suburban. Doña Victoria kept looking at me through the rearview mirror, searching for any reaction on my face, any change in my posture that would give away that I had heard her.
But I didn't move. I didn't accelerate the car, I didn't clench my fists on the steering wheel visibly, I didn't make a single gesture. I maintained the same empty, professional expression I had practiced in front of my bedroom mirror for months. Inside, however, a cold, macabre laughter echoed in my mind.
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You're going to pay me for my silence, Doña Victoria, I thought, feeling the weight of the small plastic bag with the school uniform fabric in my backpack. You're going to pay me with every peso of your fortune, with every piece of your pride, and with your cursed son's freedom. And when you realize who I am, it will be too late to change history.
We arrived at the De la Vega mansion. The iron gates closed behind us with a heavy, definitive sound, like the doors of a prison. The fortress that had once been the stage of my wife Elena's suffering was now turning into the death trap of its own masters. And I was the one tasked with turning the lock from the inside.
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