Chapter 6 - Desperation and Masks Off
By Friday afternoon, the facade of the Mendoza family had completely dissolved into pure, ugly savagery.
Having nowhere else to go, Rodrigo had walked three miles in the humidity to his mother's house. When he arrived, his shoes caked in dust and his shirt soaked in sweat, he found the front iron gate padlocked from the inside.
He banged on the bars with his fists. "Mom! Open up! It’s me!"
The curtains of the second-floor window twitched. A moment later, Beatriz appeared on the balcony, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen.
"Go away!" she screamed down at him. "You don't live here! You don't have a mother anymore!"
"Mom, please! I don't have anywhere to sleep! My cards are cancelled, they took the truck, I don't even have money for food!"
Fernanda stepped out onto the balcony beside Beatriz, holding a kitchen knife in one hand and her phone in the other.
"Get away from the gate, Rodrigo!" Fernanda shrieked. "The bank sent an appraiser this morning! They’re putting this house on the auction block next month because of the papers you forged! Mom had an actual panic attack! The paramedics were here an hour ago!"
"I did it for the family!" Rodrigo yelled back, his voice cracking, passersby on the residential street stopping to stare at the spectacle. "I did it so we could expand the business! You were happy enough when I bought you that new laptop with the company card, Fernanda! You were happy enough when I paid for your trip to Cancún!"
"You paid for it with stolen money, you idiot!" Fernanda spat. "And now we're going to be evicted because you wanted to play the big boss for that plastic gold-digger! If you don't get away from this gate right now, I'm calling the police and telling them you're trespassing!"
"Mom!" Rodrigo cried, reaching through the bars, his face pressed against the cold iron. "Mom, please! Just let me in! Just five hundred pesos for a room!"
Beatriz looked down at her only son—the boy she had spoiled, the boy whose arrogance she had nurtured, the boy she had urged to discard me for a wealthier prospect—and she spat over the railing.
The spit landed on the concrete right at Rodrigo’s feet.
"You aren't my son," she said, her voice trembling with cold rage. "A son provides for his mother. A son doesn't steal the roof from over her head. Go find your mistress. Let her feed you."
The balcony doors slammed shut. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn.
Rodrigo stood on the sidewalk, completely alone, as the neighborhood dogs began to bark at his pathetic display.
Meanwhile, across town, Valeria Ramos was discovering that my net was far wider than she had anticipated.
She was currently sitting in the lobby of an upscale gym in San Jerónimo, where she had spent the last two hours trying to figure out which of her former targets she could contact for an emergency loan. Her designer luggage was crammed into the trunk of a rented compact car she couldn't afford to renew.
Suddenly, two men in dark civilian suits walked into the gym lobby, flanked by an officer from the federal fiscal investigation division.
"Valeria Ramos?" the lead investigator asked, flashing a gold badge.
Valeria stood up instantly, smoothing her skirt, instinctively turning on the charm that had served her for years. "Yes? Is there a problem, officer? If this is about a parking violation—"
"We have a warrant for your arrest issued by the State Attorney General’s Office," the officer stated loudly, loud enough for the gym receptionists and wealthy patrons to turn and gawk. "Charges include commercial fraud, identity theft, tax fraud via shell corporate entities, and falsification of mercantile documents totaling over 2.4 million pesos."
Valeria’s face drained of color. "What? That's ridiculous! I'm an employee! I was just the office manager at Verde Norte!"
"We aren't just talking about Verde Norte, Señorita Ramos," the investigator replied, pulling a pair of steel handcuffs from his belt. "We are also talking about *Constructora San Marcos* in 2021, and *Inmobiliaria del Centro* in 2022. It turns out when Licenciada Morales and Mateo Salgado started pulling your bank records from *Val-Tex*, they found transactions matching open warrants from two other corporate fraud cases."
Valeria backed away, her heel catching on the carpet. "No... wait! Rodrigo Mendoza signed those checks! He authorized everything! He wanted to buy me gifts! He’s the one who wanted to hide money from his wife!"
"You can explain all of that to the judge," the officer said, stepping forward and grabbing her wrist with a grip of iron.
Within seconds, the handcuffs clicked shut around her manicured wrists. Valeria began to scream, kicking and thrashing as the patrons pulled out their phones to record the scene.
"Get your hands off me! I have rights! Do you know who my father is?"
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"Yes," the investigator said as he marched her toward the double glass doors. "He’s currently serving time in a federal penitentiary in Sonora for wire fraud. Now move your feet."
***
