Chapter 12 - Alejandro's Choice
"Don't turn around, Mariana."
Verónica's voice came from directly behind me.
Every muscle in my body locked.
Across the table, Teresa stared past my shoulder.
Her face changed.
Not anger.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Fear.
Rafael whispered, "Verónica."
I turned anyway.
She stood in the doorway wearing a dark coat, her gray-streaked hair loose around her face.
No weapon.
No ledger.
Just my mother's blue folder tucked beneath one arm.
"I told you not to turn around," she said.
"I've spent six days being told what to do by this family. I'm finished listening."
Something almost like approval crossed her face.
"Good."
Teresa stepped forward.
"How did you get in?"
Verónica looked at her twin sister.
"The same way I used to when we were girls."
"You shouldn't be here."
"Neither should Rafael."
Rafael moved toward her.
"You took the ledger from Mariana's apartment."
"Yes."
"You frightened Luis."
"I didn't touch him."
"You broke into her home."
Verónica looked at me.
"I did."
"Why?"
"Because Sergio had someone following you. If I hadn't taken the ledger first, he would have."
Sergio laughed.
"Convenient."
Verónica ignored him.
I held up my phone.
"My mother's recording says the real forger was already inside this family before Renata was born."
Verónica's expression didn't change.
"Yes."
"Was it you?"
Silence.
Renata stared at her aunt.
Teresa whispered, "Answer her."
Verónica slowly placed the blue folder on the dining table.
"No."
"Then who?"
She looked at Rafael.
He shook his head.
"Don't."
That was enough.
Everyone understood.
I stared at him.
"Rafael?"
"No."
Verónica's eyes hardened.
"Tell them."
"I didn't forge those signatures."
"You taught the person who did."
My stomach tightened.
"Who?"
Rafael sat down as if his legs had failed him.
Verónica opened the folder.
Inside were practice sheets.
Pages covered with names.
Dozens of signatures repeated over and over.
Some awkward.
Some almost perfect.
Elena Vargas.
Lucía Herrera.
Other names from the ledger.
And at the bottom of one page:
Teresa Salgado.
Alejandro stared at his father.
"What is this?"
Rafael said nothing.
Verónica answered.
"Your father taught himself to imitate signatures when he worked in the family property office."
"For what?"
"At first? Convenience."
Teresa laughed bitterly.
"Convenience."
Verónica looked at me.
"Their father—our father—ran the business before any of us. Clients would forget forms. Signatures would be missing. Rafael learned to reproduce them."
"That's fraud."
"Yes."
"Then he was the forger."
"At first."
That phrase again.
At first.
I hated it.
"What changed?"
"Sergio discovered what Rafael could do."
Sergio leaned against the wall.
"You people love blaming me for your talents."
Rafael stood.
"Shut up."
"No. Six years pretending to be dead and suddenly you want morality?"
Rafael lunged.
Alejandro caught him.
"Stop!"
For one strange second, my husband was holding back the father he'd mourned for six years.
Then Rafael saw his son's face and stopped fighting.
Verónica continued.
"Sergio turned occasional forgery into a system. Templates. Property files. Signature samples. Pressure."
"And Rafael did the signatures?"
"Some."
"How many?"
"I don't know."
"Who did the rest?"
Verónica looked at Teresa.
Teresa closed her eyes.
I understood.
"You."
Teresa shook her head.
"No."
"Then why is your signature on the practice sheet?"
"Because mine was practiced too."
"By whom?"
Rafael whispered:
"My father-in-law."
Teresa's father.
The scheme was older than Sergio.
Older than Rafael.
Older than Renata.
A family business in the ugliest sense.
Sergio hadn't invented it.
He had industrialized it.
"Then my mother's recording—"
"Was talking about my father," Teresa said.
"He was already inside the family before Renata was born."
"Yes."
"But he was dead by the time my mother investigated."
"Yes."
"So who forged Elena's signature?"
Silence.
Verónica looked at Renata.
Renata shook her head.
"Don't."
I turned toward her.
"You knew."
"I knew part of it."
"Tell me."
Renata started crying.
"My grandfather taught Dad. Dad taught..."
She stopped.
Alejandro stared at her.
"Taught who?"
Renata looked at him.
"You."
The room disappeared around me.
Alejandro released Rafael.
"What?"
"You were seventeen."
"No."
"You used to help Dad in the office."
"Filing."
"He showed you how signatures were copied."
"That was a game."
Rafael closed his eyes.
Alejandro turned on him.
"You told me it was handwriting practice."
"I know."
"You gave me checks and contracts."
"Old canceled ones."
"You told me to copy the signatures."
"I never let you use them."
Verónica spoke quietly.
"Not then."
Alejandro looked at her.
"What does that mean?"
She removed one final sheet from the folder.
A signature.
Elena Vargas.
Below it was a handwritten note.
A.S. — closest match.
My stomach dropped.
Alejandro stared at it.
"No."
I couldn't breathe.
"You forged my mother's signature?"
"No."
"You practiced it."
"I don't remember this."
Rafael stepped forward.
"He didn't know whose signature it was."
I looked at him.
"Stop protecting him."
"I'm not. Alejandro was seventeen when that sheet was made."
"And my mother was alive."
"Yes."
"But she hadn't even met your family yet."
"No."
That didn't make sense.
"Then why was her signature there?"
Verónica answered.
"Because Elena had signed documents years earlier at a bank that used the Salgado office for property processing."
My mother had crossed their path long before she knew it.
Alejandro sat heavily.
"I was a kid."
I looked at him.
"Did you forge documents?"
"No."
"Think."
"I copied signatures Dad gave me."
"Did you know they were real people's signatures?"
"I thought they were samples."
"Did you ever sign an actual contract?"
"No."
Rafael said, "I swear he didn't."
I didn't know what to believe anymore.
Then Verónica placed another page beside the first.
Recent.
My name.
Mariana Vargas.
Practice attempts.
Five.
Ten.
Twenty.
Alejandro stood so quickly his chair fell backward.
"I didn't do that."
I stared at the signatures.
They were nearly perfect.
One matched the forged authorization.
"Whose handwriting?"
Verónica looked at Sergio.
He smiled.
"Don't look at me."
Then she looked at Teresa.
Teresa shook her head.
Finally Verónica pointed to the bottom corner.
Tiny initials.
R.S.
Rafael Salgado.
Alejandro's father.
The room went silent.
I looked at Rafael.
"You practiced my signature."
His face collapsed.
"Yes."
Alejandro stepped toward him.
"When?"
"Three months ago."
"You were supposedly dead."
"I was watching Sergio."
"That's not what I asked."
Rafael looked at me.
"I believed Sergio was preparing to target you. I needed to know whether the forged documents came from his system."
"So you forged my signature to investigate a forgery?"
"I practiced it. I never filed anything."
"Where did you get the sample?"
No answer.
"Rafael."
"Your wedding paperwork."
My blood went cold.
"The wedding hadn't happened three months ago."
"Not the marriage certificate. The venue contract."
Alejandro looked at his father.
"How did you get that?"
Rafael's silence told us.
Teresa.
"You two were working together."
"No," Teresa said.
"Then how?"
She looked at Rafael.
"We met twice."
Alejandro laughed.
A broken, disbelieving sound.
"My dead father and my mother were secretly meeting while both pretending they didn't know where the other was."
"We were trying to stop Sergio," Teresa said.
"Everyone keeps saying that!"
Alejandro slammed both hands onto the table.
"Everyone lies. Everyone steals. Everyone hides things. And every time you're caught, you say you were protecting someone."
Nobody answered.
He looked at Rafael.
"You abandoned us."
Then Teresa.
"You controlled us."
Renata.
"You knew Mariana was targeted and stayed quiet."
Finally, he looked at me.
"And I married you while hiding a debt and the fact that Sergio had mentioned your apartment."
His voice broke.
"I became exactly what they taught me to be."
I said nothing.
He pulled off his wedding ring.
My heart stopped for half a second.
He placed it on the table.
Not dramatically.
Carefully.
"I love you."
I closed my eyes.
"Alejandro—"
"No. I'm not saying it so you'll stay."
He looked at me.
"I'm saying it because for the first time since this started, I'm going to make a choice without deciding what you should do afterward."
He turned toward Sergio.
"What do you want?"
Sergio smiled.
"Finally."
"What do you want from me?"
"The ledger."
"No."
"Then we have nothing to discuss."
Alejandro picked up the fake ledger.
Sergio's eyes followed it.
"What if I give you this?"
"Alejandro," Renata warned.
He ignored her.
"In exchange, you give Mariana every copy of her documents."
Sergio laughed.
"You think this is a movie?"
"No."
Alejandro's voice was calm.
"I think you're scared."
Sergio stopped laughing.
"My father is alive. Verónica has recordings. Daniel has copies. Police already have evidence. The only thing you still care about is the ledger because you don't know whether it contains something worse."
Sergio's jaw tightened.
Alejandro continued.
"So take it."
He held it out.
"Walk away."
I stared at him.
The ledger was fake.
Sergio didn't know.
He reached for it.
Then stopped.
"Too easy."
"Maybe."
"Open it."
Alejandro did.
Sergio inspected several pages.
His expression shifted.
Recognition.
Greed.
He believed it.
"Give it to me."
Alejandro closed the ledger.
"Mariana's documents first."
Sergio reached into his jacket.
Daniel moved.
So did Rafael.
But Sergio pulled out a flash drive.
He placed it on the table.
"Everything."
"Cloud copies?"
"Access credentials are there."
"Paper?"
"Storage locker."
"Where?"
"File on the drive."
Alejandro looked at me.
He wasn't asking permission.
He was giving me the choice.
Finally.
I nodded once.
He handed Sergio the fake ledger.
Sergio grabbed it.
Then sirens sounded outside.
His face changed.
"You called them."
Daniel answered.
"I told you I did."
Sergio ran toward the back door.
Rafael moved to stop him.
"Let him go!" I shouted.
Nobody understood.
But I did.
Because Sergio was holding exactly what we wanted him to hold.
A fake ledger containing a tiny tracking device Daniel had placed inside the spine.
Sergio disappeared through the kitchen.
Police vehicles stopped outside.
Teresa stared at me.
"You planned that."
"Yes."
For once, she had underestimated the daughter-in-law.
Again.
Renata almost smiled.
Then Rafael looked toward the window.
"Sergio won't go home."
"Where will he go?"
"To the only place he thinks Teresa doesn't know about."
Teresa's face changed.
"I know about it."
Rafael looked at her.
"The warehouse?"
She nodded.
Daniel immediately called the officers outside.
Within minutes, the house was full of police.
Statements.
Questions.
Evidence bags.
Phones collected.
The blue folder sealed.
The flash drive photographed.
Nobody was arrested immediately.
Not yet.
There were too many claims to verify.
Too many years of documents.
But Sergio was being tracked.
And for the first time, he didn't know we were watching him.
I stepped outside.
The night air felt cold against my face.
Alejandro followed but stayed several feet away.
"Mariana."
I turned.
He held his wedding ring.
"I don't expect forgiveness."
"Good."
He nodded.
"I'll cooperate with everything."
"You should."
"I'll give them my financial records. Emails. Messages. Everything."
"Good."
"And I'll sign whatever you need to make it clear I have no claim to your apartment."
"You never had one."
"I know."
That mattered.
Not because it repaired anything.
Because he finally said it without qualification.
My apartment.
My decision.
My life.
His phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
Police.
He answered.
"Yes?"
His expression changed.
"What?"
I stepped closer.
Alejandro put the call on speaker.
An officer's voice.
"We located Sergio's vehicle."
"Where?"
"Industrial property near Naucalpan."
Rafael and Teresa came outside.
The officer continued.
"The tracking signal is inside the building."
"So you found him?"
Pause.
"No."
My stomach tightened.
"What did you find?"
"Documents. Computers. Property files."
Daniel stepped outside behind us.
"Anything else?"
Another pause.
Then the officer said:
"We found a room containing personal files on seventeen women."
Seventeen.
R-17.
Me.
"We also found photographs of Mariana Vargas dating back six years."
I stopped breathing.
Six years.
Before Alejandro.
Before my apartment.
Before everything.
"There's something else," the officer said.
"What?"
"One of the computers was still running."
"And?"
"A video call was open."
My skin prickled.
"With who?"
"We don't know. The other person disconnected."
Rafael looked at Teresa.
Teresa looked at Verónica.
Nobody spoke.
Then my phone vibrated.
A new message.
Not from Sergio.
Not from Lucía.
Not from any number I'd seen before.
A photograph loaded.
My mother.
Alive.
Taken less than an hour ago.
I stared at the timestamp.
Impossible.
Underneath it were seven words.
Elena Vargas never died in that hospital.
My hands started shaking.
May you like
Then a second message appeared.
If you want to see your mother, come alone.
