Chapter 7 - THE WIFE BEFORE ME
Camila Fuentes lived in Atlixco.
She was thirty-nine years old and ran a small flower shop near the town center.
Lucía did not want me to contact her directly, so investigators approached first.
Camila agreed to meet after learning my name.
When she entered Lucía’s office, I recognized fear in the way she checked the hallway before closing the door.
She was slender, with tired eyes and a pale scar beside her chin.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she placed a wedding photograph on the table.
Diego stood beside her, younger but unmistakable.
Graciela smiled in the background.
“I wondered when he would do this to someone else,” Camila said.
Diego had married her when she was twenty-eight.
At first, he was charming.
Generous.
Protective.
Then he began controlling her money.
Her clothing.
Her friends.
When Camila inherited a piece of farmland from her grandfather, the Fuentes family pressured her to transfer it to their company.
She refused.
Diego broke her jaw.
Graciela told the hospital she had fallen down the stairs.
Camila attempted to file a complaint, but Diego apologized, promised treatment, and convinced her to return.
Three months later, he forced her to sign property documents while two of his cousins stood beside the door.
The land was sold.
Camila received nothing.
“How did you escape?” I asked.
“I disappeared.”
She moved to another state, changed her number, and avoided every place connected to Diego.
She had initiated divorce proceedings through an attorney, but the process was never completed. Documents had vanished. Notices were sent to false addresses. Eventually, Camila stopped fighting because she believed survival mattered more than a legal certificate.
“I thought he would forget me,” she said. “Instead, he used my identity whenever he needed a hidden account.”
The stolen savings had been transferred through a company created with Camila’s information.
She had no idea it existed.
Investigators now had evidence linking Diego to identity theft, fraudulent accounts, forged documents, and a second marriage entered into while the first remained legally unresolved.
My marriage had been built on a lie before the first anniversary.
Camila reached into her bag.
“There’s something else.”
She placed a small digital recorder on the table.
“After I left, Diego found me once. He wanted the remaining documents for my grandfather’s land. I recorded the conversation.”
Lucía played the file.
Diego’s younger voice filled the office.
“You can’t hide forever.”
Camila answered, “I don’t want anything from you.”
“You already took something.”
“My own life?”
“My family’s reputation.”
Then Graciela’s voice appeared.
“You should be grateful we did not have you declared unstable.”
The same strategy.
The same threat.
The same family.
Camila had been the rehearsal.
I had been the next target.
News of the second marriage reached the press within days. Diego’s carefully constructed image collapsed completely.
His attorneys claimed he believed the divorce from Camila had been finalized.
Camila’s former lawyer produced letters proving Diego had interfered with the process.
Ernesto began blaming Graciela.
Graciela blamed the accountant.
Rodrigo blamed Diego.
Their united family began devouring itself.
Then Don Ernesto requested a private meeting with me.
Lucía refused at first.
But he offered something important: full accounting records and testimony against Diego and Graciela in exchange for consideration in his own case.
The meeting took place in a controlled office with attorneys present.
Ernesto looked twenty years older than he had at the dinner.
His shoulders had collapsed.
His expensive suit hung loosely around him.
“You caused all of this,” he said when I entered.
Lucía immediately stood.
“We are leaving.”
“No,” I said. “Let him speak.”
Ernesto stared at me.
“You could have accepted the arrangement. Graciela would have lived comfortably. The company would have survived. Everyone would have benefited.”
“Except me.”
“You were married to my son.”
“I was his target.”
He looked away.
I placed both hands on the table.
“Why twenty-four thousand pesos?”
His expression changed.
That number mattered.
“It was the monthly interest payment on a private loan.”
“Whose loan?”
He hesitated.
Then he answered.
“Diego’s.”
The family company had financial problems, but Diego had created a much larger disaster.
He had been secretly gambling through private clubs and illegal online accounts.
He owed millions.
When lenders threatened to expose him, he promised them my apartment as security.
Graciela had not invented the scheme to save the family company.
She had invented it to save her favorite son.
“And my stolen savings?” I asked.
“An emergency payment.”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know he was already married?”
Ernesto closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The admission was almost a whisper.
“Then why did you attend our wedding?”
“Graciela said the first marriage would be resolved.”
“You all watched me promise my life to a man who was legally married to someone else.”
No one answered.
Ernesto pushed a folder across the table.
It contained handwritten ledgers, account passwords, and property records.
“This can prove where the money went.”
I did not touch it.
“Why give it to me now?”
“Because Graciela is planning to leave Mexico.”
Lucía leaned forward.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“With what money?”
Ernesto’s face became gray.
“Valeria’s.”
Graciela had not transferred all my stolen savings to Diego’s creditors.
May you like
She had kept half.
And she already had a plane ticket under another name.
