Chapter 3: The Fall of Santiago Rivas
By morning, Santiago’s empire was already collapsing.
The board suspended him before breakfast.
Sponsors withdrew from his foundation before lunch.
By evening, the prosecutor had opened an investigation into domestic abuse, coercion, medical fraud, and conspiracy.
But Santiago did not disappear.
Men like him rarely do.
They return when they believe no one is watching.
Three nights later, I woke to the sound of glass breaking.
I was staying at my father’s estate under private security, but fear still found a way into my body before reason did.
The baby kicked hard.
I sat up, breathless.
Then I heard shouting downstairs.
Not my father’s voice.
Santiago’s.
“You think you can keep my son from me?”
My blood turned cold.
He had forced his way through a side entrance with two men I recognized from his company security team.
By the time I reached the top of the staircase, my father’s guards had already surrounded him.
Santiago stood in the foyer below, soaked from the rain, eyes wild.
He looked nothing like the man from magazine covers.
He looked desperate.
Broken.
Dangerous.
When he saw me, his expression changed.
“Valeria,” he said. “Come down.”
I did not move.
“You ruined me,” he said.
“No,” I answered. “You finally got caught.”
His face twisted.
“That child is mine.”
My father stepped into the foyer wearing a dark robe, his silver hair still damp from sleep.
“That child is protected,” he said.
Santiago laughed bitterly.
“You think money makes you God?”
My father looked at him without blinking.
“No. But evidence makes you accountable.”
Police sirens wailed outside.
For the first time, Santiago looked afraid.
Truly afraid.
He turned toward the door, but there was nowhere left to go.
The police entered moments later.
Santiago shouted my name as they restrained him.
He cursed my father.
He threatened lawsuits.
He promised revenge.
But as they dragged him through the rain, his voice grew smaller and smaller.
Until finally, it was gone.
I thought I would feel victory.
Instead, I felt empty.
My father found me gripping the stair railing.
“Valeria.”
“I loved him,” I whispered, ashamed of the words.
My father came up the stairs slowly.
“I know.”
“How can I still hurt for someone who tried to destroy me?”
“Because your heart was real,” he said. “His wasn’t.”
Two weeks later, Beatriz tried to flee Mexico with jewelry, cash, and several confidential company files.
She was stopped at the airport.
The same woman who once told her son not to leave visible marks was photographed covering her face as federal agents escorted her away.
The Rivas family name became a warning instead of a crown.
And me?
I learned to sleep again.
Not all at once.
Not easily.
Some nights I still woke reaching for danger.
But each morning, my son moved inside me, reminding me that life was still choosing us.
Then one rainy afternoon, three weeks before my due date, I felt the first pain.
Sharp.
Deep.
Too early.
My father rushed me to the hospital himself.
May you like
He held my hand the entire way.
This time, when fear came for me, I was not alone.
