CHAPTER 3: THE WOMAN WHO KNEW EVERYTHING
Jimena did not cry when the police questioned her.
She sat in the formal parlor with perfect posture, diamond necklace still around her throat, acting like the victim of a misunderstanding.
Alejandro watched from the doorway.
She was good.
Too good.
Every answer was polished.
Every tear appeared at the right moment.
“She’s exhausted,” Jimena said softly. “The girls have always been dramatic. Their mother spoiled them before she died.”
Alejandro’s jaw tightened.
His first wife, Lucia, had died three years earlier.
Cancer had taken her slowly.
But she had loved their daughters with a softness the house had never recovered from.
Hearing Jimena use her name made something dark rise in him.
Then the security chief entered.
“We found Marta Ruiz.”
Alejandro turned.
“Where?”
“At a church shelter in Puebla.”
Jimena’s eyes flickered.
There it was.
Fear.
By morning, Marta stood in Alejandro’s office, thinner than he remembered, clutching a paper cup of coffee with both hands.
“I tried to tell you,” she said. “I called your Monterrey office. I emailed. I came to the gate twice.”
Alejandro lowered his eyes.
“I never got anything.”
“I know,” Marta whispered. “Jimena controlled your assistant.”
Alejandro looked up.
“My assistant?”
Marta nodded.
“Daniela. She was paid to filter calls, messages, medical notices—anything involving the girls.”
The betrayal widened.
It was not just Jimena.
It was a system.
A beautiful machine built to keep a father blind.
Marta pulled a small flash drive from her pocket.
“I kept copies.”
Alejandro took it.
“What’s on this?”
“Everything.”
The next few hours revealed the full horror.
Jimena had not simply been cruel.
She had planned.
She had changed the girls’ tutors.
Fired their doctor.
Replaced staff with people loyal to her.
Forged Alejandro’s digital signature.
Moved millions through fake childcare foundations.
And then came the final document.
A petition.
Prepared but not yet filed.
It claimed Alejandro was emotionally unstable and neglectful, absent for months, unfit to raise four daughters.
Jimena had planned to divorce him, take custody of the girls, and seize control of their trust funds.
Alejandro read it twice.
Then he looked at his attorney.
“She was going to take them from me.”
“Yes,” the attorney said quietly.
From the doorway came a tiny sound.
Alejandro turned.
Valeria was standing there.
She had heard enough.
“Daddy,” she whispered, “are we going away?”
Alejandro walked to her and knelt.
“No.”
“Is she going to come back?”
The question nearly destroyed him.
He took her small hands.
“Not to you.”
Valeria stared at him for a long moment.
Then she said, “She told us if we were bad, you would send us to a house with no windows.”
Alejandro closed his eyes.
When he opened them, his voice was steady.
“Listen to me carefully. You are not bad. You were never bad.”
Valeria’s lip trembled.
“We tried to be pretty.”
“You don’t have to be pretty to be loved.”
Behind Valeria, Camila, Regina, and Sofía appeared in the hallway, holding hands.
Alejandro opened his arms.
All four girls ran to him.
For the first time since he came home, they did not flinch.
That afternoon, Jimena was arrested.
Not in a dramatic scene.
Not with screaming.
She was taken quietly through the front entrance while reporters gathered outside the gates.
But as she passed Alejandro, she stopped.
Her eyes were cold.
“You think this is over?” she whispered. “You still don’t know who helped me.”
Alejandro stared at her.
May you like
Then Jimena smiled.
“Ask your brother.”
