Chapter 6 - CheckmateShe mentioned my daughter. She put my Sofia's life in her dirty mouth again. In that exact instant, all the pretense, all the feigned fear and submission I had accumulated over a year, evaporated from my body. I stood completely straight, lifting my chin. My shoulders relaxed, and I looked her directly in the eyes with a stare so cold and sharp that Doña Victoria took a step back, confused by the sudden change in my demeanor.
"What are you laughing at, you idiot?" she asked, noticing a slight, macabre smile beginning to form on my lips.
"I'm laughing at you, Doña Victoria," I replied, and my voice was no longer that of the frightened chauffeur; it was the voice of a man who had nothing left to lose because they had already taken everything from him. "I'm laughing at how stupid you are to think you still have the power to decide anyone's fate in this room."
Bernardo de la Vega straightened up immediately, sliding a hand into his suit jacket pocket with a tense posture.
"What's wrong with you, boy? Watch your tone or you're going to regret it," the man warned, advancing toward me.
"I won't regret anything, Don Bernardo," I said, taking my hands out of my pockets. In my right hand, I held my primary cell phone. The screen was on, showing a live broadcast that had been streaming for the last ten minutes through a social media account with thousands of followers, which the investigative journalist had linked in real time. "Everything your wife just said... the offer of two million pesos, the threat to frame me with the jewelry, the confession that your son Mauricio was the one who ran over the child and then ordered the car cleaned... all of it is being listened to by over fifty thousand people right now. Including the reporters who are already on their way here."
Bernardo de la Vega's face went completely white, the color of chalk. Doña Victoria dropped her glass of cognac; it shattered against the wooden floor, splashing the liquid everywhere.
"Turn that off! Turn it off right now, you damn stray cat!" she screamed, lunging at me with her hands extended, fingers curled like claws, her furious face distorted by panic. "I will destroy you! You don't know who you're messing with!"
I didn't move. I didn't need to. The study door burst open before she could touch me. Mauricio ran in, eyes wild, pointing toward the window.
"Dad! Mom! There are patrol cars outside!" the junior shrieked, his voice broken by crying, his cowardly fear oozing from his pores. "There are tons of Civil Force and Federal Police cars at the gate! They have search warrants! The reporters are broadcasting live from the street! They found us out, Dad! They found us out!"
Chaos took over the room. Bernardo paced back and forth, frantically trying to call his contacts, but no one answered; the power they flaunted had vanished the exact moment the truth went public and viral. The political rats were already abandoning ship so they wouldn't sink with them.
Doña Victoria stood paralyzed in the middle of the study, staring at the television screen Mauricio had turned on in the corner. The images showed the iron gates of her own home being pushed open by law enforcement officers, surrounded by a crowd demanding justice for the boy who had been run over. The De la Vega name was being dragged through the mud on national television, exactly as she had feared.
I walked slowly toward the fireplace, ignoring the family's screams and desperation. I stopped in front of the marble statue. I lifted it by the base with both hands, feeling the weight of the fifteen kilos of stone that had destroyed my life. I turned it toward Doña Victoria, forcing her to look at the rough bottom.
"Do you know what this is, señora?" I asked with a soft voice that sliced the air like a butcher's knife.
She looked at me, confused, her eyes bloodshot.
"It's a damn statue from my house... What the hell do you care about that now?"
"It's not just a statue," I replied, and I felt a hot tear roll down my cheek—a tear that washed away the pain of so many months of silence. "This is the stone you used to hit my wife Elena's womb three years ago. This is the stone that caused my wife's death and my daughter Sofia's illness."
Doña Victoria's eyes widened to an impossible degree. The gray color of her face turned almost blue. The air seemed to leave her lungs as she finally understood the magnitude of the trap she had walked into.
"You... you are..." she articulated with difficulty, taking a step back until she collided with the edge of the desk.
"I am Mateo. Elena's husband. The father of the little girl you called a curse," I said, my hands gripping the marble tightly. "I spent an entire year erasing my past, forging papers, and washing your SUVs just to get to this moment. I didn't want your money, Doña Victoria. I wanted to see you fall from the very top. I wanted you to experience the fear, humiliation, and despair that my Elena felt on that dark staircase."
The pounding on the mansion's front door echoed throughout the entire structure. The voices of the federal officers demanding immediate entry could be heard with total clarity. Mauricio threw himself on the floor, covering his head with his hands, crying like the spoiled, cowardly child he always was, knowing his fate was a cold cell in the penitentiary.
I carefully placed the statue on the mahogany desk, right in front of Doña Victoria.
"The evidence of my wife's blood is still on the base of this stone," I told her, holding her gaze for the last time. "The forensics team is going to find it tonight, right along with the blood samples of the child your son left on the car's headlight. Your money isn't going to be able to buy the judges this time, señora. The whole world is watching you."
I turned around and walked toward the exit of the study. Bernardo de la Vega didn't even try to stop me; he was dumbfounded, staring at the papers of his bank accounts as if the paper could save him from prison. Doña Victoria remained standing, staring blankly at the marble statue, her face confused and her posture rigid, destroyed by the weight of her own past.
I left the mansion through the front door. The police officers cleared a path for me when they saw me walking out with my hands up, identifying me as the anonymous witness who had leaked the coordinates and the evidence for the case. The flashes of the reporters' cameras blinded me for a second, but I didn't stop to give statements. It wasn't necessary anymore. The fire was already burning the fortress down.
I took the last bus of the night back to the outskirts. The ride was long, but for the first time in three years, the air entering my lungs felt clean. The weight of the chauffeur's uniform no longer hurt my skin.
I arrived at my cinderblock house at three in the morning. I pushed the metal door open and went to the back room. The moonlight filtered through the tin window, illuminating the face of my little Sofia. She was asleep, her breathing—though still forced—seemed a little more peaceful that night.
I knelt next to her bed. I stroked her pale hair and kissed her forehead.
May you like
"It's over, my princess," I whispered in her ear, while tears blurred my vision. "I've collected their debt. Your mom can finally rest in peace... and we are going to leave this place. I promise I will take care of you every second of the time we have left together."
I looked toward the window, seeing the starry sky above the mountains of Monterrey. The empire of the De la Vegas had fallen, brought down by the weight of their own arrogance and by the memory of a hardworking woman they thought they could throw away like garbage. Justice had taken its time, but that night, in the humblest neighborhood of the city, a father could finally sleep with a peaceful heart.
