PART 2
Valeria left the office with Diego asleep and her legs trembling. She didn’t cry in the elevator. She didn’t cry in the parking lot. She didn’t cry when she arrived at her small apartment in Narvarte, where there was barely a borrowed crib, two suitcases, and an old coffee maker.
She cried when she saw Santiago’s message.
“If you want war, you’ll get it.”
She placed her cell phone on the table as if it were burning hot.
During her pregnancy, Valeria had learned to keep quiet. When Santiago arrived smelling of someone else’s perfume, she remained silent. When her mother-in-law, Doña Mercedes, told her that “an intelligent woman doesn’t scare her husband away,” she remained silent. When magazines published photos of Santiago at gala dinners with Fernanda, she remained silent.
But it wasn’t weakness.
It was preparation.
She had saved invoices, emails, notarized documents, screenshots. She had opened her own bank account. She had left the house in Las Lomas one early morning, seven months pregnant, without taking jewelry or furniture, only her clothes, her papers, and what little dignity she had left.
But she didn’t know the worst.
Three days after the meeting, she received
