Part 10
I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
Iván sat in the shadows wearing a dark coat, one ankle resting calmly over his knee like this was still our house and I had simply come home late.
Rain tapped softly against the apartment windows.
My pulse thundered so loudly I barely heard him say:
“You always leave curtains half open.”
My phone slipped from my hand onto the floor.
Lucía’s voice shouted faintly through the speaker:
“Daniela?! Daniela!”
Iván looked down at the phone.
Then calmly reached over and ended the call.
Fear hit differently now.
Not explosive.
Paralyzing.
Because suddenly every memory of intimacy became terrifying.
This man knew how I slept.
How I organized drawers.
What coffee I bought.
How to imitate comfort.
And now he was sitting ten feet away from me like a ghost that still had keys to my nervous system.
“How did you get in here?” I whispered.
He smiled faintly.
“You still hide emergency keys in predictable places.”
My stomach twisted.
He stood slowly.
And for one horrifying second, instinct almost betrayed me.
Because part of my body still remembered him as someone safe.
That’s the terrible thing about manipulation:
your fear and your memory fight each other.
Iván looked thinner now.
More exhausted.
But his eyes were the same.
Watchful.
Calculating.
“You shouldn’t be alone,” he said softly.
I almost laughed.
“You’re insane.”
“No,” he replied.
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
That sentence chilled me more than a threat would have.
Because he believed it.
Or wanted to.
“I know about the videos,” I said.
His expression changed instantly.
Tiny.
But enough.
Good.
Fear lived in him too.
“You don’t understand what you’re touching.”
“You forged documents.”
“That’s the least dangerous thing happening.”
I stepped backward slowly toward the kitchen counter where my pepper spray sat hidden inside my bag.
Iván noticed immediately.
Of course he did.
“You always shift your shoulders before reaching for something.”
I froze.
God.
How long does it take to untangle yourself from someone who studied you like a profession?
“Arroyo is missing,” I said carefully.
At that, something unexpected crossed his face.
Not satisfaction.
Worry.
Real worry.
“I told him to disappear.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“He didn’t listen.”
The room suddenly felt unstable.
“What does that mean?”
Iván ran a hand over his face tiredly.
“You think Villareal is the top of this?”
He laughed once.
Humorlessly.
“Daniela… Villareal is middle management.”
Cold flooded my veins.
No.
No.
This couldn’t get bigger.
But it already had.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
He stepped closer slowly.
“Your mother discovered property laundering tied to political campaigns, judges, hospitals, shell companies—”
“STOP.”
I couldn’t hear more.
Couldn’t survive more.
But Iván kept going anyway.
“Do you know why vulnerable people were targeted?”
I shook my head.
He answered quietly:
“Because dead or confused people create clean paperwork.”
I felt physically sick.
“They stole inheritances,” he continued.
“Properties. Insurance payouts. Entire accounts. Then the money moved through development projects.”
Suddenly every luxury tower rising across Mexico City looked monstrous in my mind.
Built on signatures.
Built on grief.
“And you participated.”
Pain flashed across his face instantly.
“I was useful.”
Useful.
Not innocent.
Never innocent.
“But not powerful enough to leave.”
Thunder shook the windows.
Outside, rain poured harder now.
I realized something terrifying then:
Iván wasn’t acting like a man trying to manipulate me anymore.
He was acting like a man already drowning.
“What happened to Arroyo?” I whispered.
He looked directly at me.
“I don’t know yet.”
Yet.
That word nearly stopped my heart.
Then suddenly my laptop screen lit up behind me.
An incoming video call.
Unknown ID.
Iván’s entire body went rigid.
Fear.
Real fear.
“Don’t answer that,” he said immediately.
The call kept ringing.
My pulse exploded.
“Who is it?”
“I said DON’T—”
I answered.
The screen flickered.
Darkness at first.
Then a dim room appeared.
A chair.
Concrete walls.
And tied to the chair…
Arroyo.
Bruised.
Bleeding.
Alive.
I gasped.
A figure stepped into frame behind him.
Not Villareal.
Not my uncle.
A woman.
Elegant.
Older.
Gray-haired.
And when she smiled at the camera…
every molecule of blood left my body.
Because I knew her.
Dr. Helena Fuentes.
My mother’s closest friend.
Part 11
For a second, I thought grief had finally broken my mind.
Dr. Helena Fuentes smiled calmly from the screen while Arroyo sat bloodied behind her under a hanging fluorescent light.
Impossible.
Absolutely impossible.
She had attended my mother’s funeral.
Held my hands.
Cried with me.
She was the one who prescribed my sleeping pills after the burial.
I whispered before I could stop myself:
“No…”
Iván went pale beside me.
Not shocked.
Terrified.
Which meant he already knew.
Dr. Fuentes tilted her head slightly.
“Daniela,” she said softly,
“you’ve become very difficult.”
Her voice was warm.
Motherly.
That made it infinitely worse.
I stared at the screen, unable to process what my eyes were seeing.
“You…”
She smiled sadly.
“Yes.”
Behind her, Arroyo tried weakly to lift his head.
One eye swollen shut.
His mouth bloodied.
Rage detonated through me instantly.
“What did you do to him?!”
Helena sighed like a disappointed teacher.
“That depends entirely on what happens next.”
Iván stepped toward the laptop.
“What the hell are you doing?” he snapped.
Helena’s eyes moved to him.
Cold now.
Sharp.
“Oh, Iván,” she murmured.
“You always panic too early.”
Something shifted in the room.
Power.
Real power.
And suddenly I understood the hierarchy completely.
Villareal frightened people.
But Helena controlled them.
Even Iván.
Especially Iván.
She looked back at me.
“Your mother forced all this, Daniela.”
The fury inside me turned white-hot.
“My mother tried to stop criminals.”
“No,” Helena corrected calmly.
“She tried to expose a system she benefited from for years.”
I froze.
“What?”
Helena walked slowly around Arroyo’s chair.
Elegant.
Precise.
Like giving a lecture.
“Do you think your family became wealthy through honesty alone?”
My stomach turned.
“No.”
“Your grandfather signed development acquisitions during the eighties. Entire neighborhoods displaced quietly. Your uncle continued the relationships. Your mother inherited the protection.”
I shook my head violently.
“She hated all of you.”
“Eventually,” Helena replied softly.
Eventually.
That word shattered something inside me.
Because it implied the worst possibility:
maybe my mother didn’t discover corruption suddenly.
Maybe she escaped it.
Helena continued:
“By the time your mother grew a conscience, too many people were already connected.”
Rain hammered against the apartment windows.
No one moved.
No one breathed normally.
“She wanted to burn everything down before she died,” Helena said quietly.
“And that made her dangerous.”
Arroyo lifted his head weakly.
“Don’t listen to her…”
Helena struck him across the face so fast I screamed.
Iván flinched visibly.
Fear again.
Not of violence.
Of her.
That terrified me most.
Helena looked directly into the camera.
“You have something that belongs to us.”
“The videos?”
A small smile touched her mouth.
“Smart girl.”
My chest tightened.
“And if I refuse?”
Helena’s expression didn’t change.
“That would be emotionally unfortunate.”
Then she gently touched Arroyo’s shoulder.
And suddenly I realized something horrifying:
she wasn’t bluffing.
Not even slightly.
Iván spoke sharply:
“Helena, stop this now.”
She turned toward him slowly.
“You disappoint me.”
The room went silent.
Helena stepped closer to the camera now.
“Do you know why Iván was selected for your family, Daniela?”
Every nerve in my body froze.
Selected.
Not chosen.
Selected.
I looked slowly toward Iván.
His face emptied completely.
Oh my God.
Helena smiled faintly.
“Your uncle introduced him years ago after reviewing certain… personality traits.”
I felt sick instantly.
“What traits?”
Helena answered simply:
“Need.”
My chest constricted painfully.
“He was charming, observant, financially ambitious, emotionally adaptive… and most importantly—”
She looked directly at Iván.
“Hungry.”
The silence afterward felt monstrous.
I stared at him.
All those years.
Every kiss.
Every promise.
Every apology.
Screened.
Evaluated.
Positioned.
Like placing a tool into a locked door.
Iván looked at me desperately now.
“Daniela—”
“Don’t.”
My voice came out broken.
Not angry anymore.
Destroyed.
“You were sent to me?”
Pain crossed his face instantly.
“It wasn’t supposed to become real.”
Helena laughed softly.
“They always say that.”
I couldn’t breathe.
Because somewhere deep inside the ruins of everything…
a tiny part of me still needed to know.
Had any of it been real?
Any touch?
Any laugh?
Any night he held me after my mother died?
I looked at him with tears burning down my face.
“Did you ever love me?”
For the first time since I met him…
Iván Morales looked completely defenseless.
And that frightened him more than death ever could.
