Chapter 9 - VALERIA'S FATHER
Alejandro replayed the sentence.
Valeria Mendoza's father once saved my life.
He called Valeria from the bank.
"Who was your father?"
She sounded confused.
"You know who he was."
"Javier Mendoza."
"He restored paintings and antiques."
"Did he know my father?"
Silence.
Then Valeria whispered.
"My mother said they worked together once."
Alejandro closed his eyes.
"There's more."
That evening, he returned to the hospital with Tomás.
Valeria recognized Tomás more clearly in daylight.
He looked at her with sadness.
"You have your father's eyes."
She stared.
"You knew him?"
Tomás nodded.
"Very well."
Javier Mendoza had not only been an art restorer.
Years earlier, Don Rafael Aranda had hired him to inspect several valuable paintings purchased through foundation money.
Javier discovered inflated invoices.
Millions hidden inside fake art transactions.
He confronted Rafael privately.
Instead of firing him, Rafael began investigating.
Doña Esther discovered it.
Soon afterward, Javier died in what police called a robbery.
Valeria went still.
"My father was killed for this?"
Tomás looked away.
"I can't prove who ordered it."
"But Rafael believed it was connected."
Valeria began crying silently.
Alejandro felt shame spread through him.
His family had not simply humiliated his wife.
They had taken something from her family long before she ever entered their mansion.
Valeria whispered.
"Did your father know I was Javier's daughter?"
"Yes."
Alejandro answered.
"He recorded your name."
She stared at him.
"Then why did he never tell me?"
Tomás spoke.
"Because he died before he could."
Valeria covered her mouth.
Suddenly, her marriage to Alejandro felt surrounded by ghosts neither of them had known were there.
Then Tomás revealed something else.
"Doña Esther recognized Valeria's name the first night Alejandro brought her home."
Alejandro looked at him.
"What?"
"That is why she hated her immediately."
Valeria remembered the cold smile.
I hope you know how to live up to our standards.
It had never been about class.
It had been fear.
Doña Esther was not afraid Valeria was beneath the Arandas.
May you like
She was afraid Valeria might uncover what her father had died trying to expose.
And now Valeria was carrying the next Aranda heir.
