Chapter 3 - THE 5.4-MILLION-PESO LIE
The promissory note had been signed eighteen months earlier.
Andrés told me he needed 5.4 million pesos to purchase land for a small residential development outside San Miguel de Allende. He claimed it was his chance to prove he could build something without his mother’s influence.
I loaned him the money through Horizonte.
I wanted to believe in him.
No land had ever been purchased.
Elena traced the transfer to a company called Legado Villaseñor Holdings. Patricia controlled it through two relatives and a former employee.
Three days after receiving my money, the company paid the overdue mortgage on Patricia’s home, settled Andrés’s gambling debts and financed the hacienda banquet.
The celebration where my daughters were treated like leftovers had been paid for with money stolen from me.
“There’s more,” Elena said.
Legado Villaseñor had recently applied for a commercial loan using projected revenue from the hacienda.
“They told the bank they owned it?”
“Yes.”
“But they rented it for one night.”
“They submitted a forged purchase agreement.”
The seller’s signature was mine.
Andrés had forged it.
That afternoon, he requested an emergency custody hearing.
His petition described me as emotionally volatile, secretive and frequently absent because of work. He claimed he had recently discovered that I controlled numerous businesses without informing him.
According to his filing, my financial independence was evidence of dishonesty.
Patricia submitted a sworn statement claiming I had caused the banquet confrontation by throwing food myself.
Several relatives supported her version.
Even Andrés’s cousin Mariana, who had wiped sauce from Valentina’s chair, wrote that Patricia had behaved “with dignity.”
I expected their lies.
What I did not expect was the statement from my own mother.
She wrote that I had always been ambitious, emotionally distant and capable of using my daughters to punish Andrés.
I drove to her apartment that evening.
“Why did you sign this?”
She would not look at me.
“Andrés said he only wants temporary custody until you calm down.”
“You saw what happened at the hacienda.”
“I saw a family argument.”
“You saw Patricia humiliate your granddaughters.”
She folded her hands.
“The Villaseñors are powerful, Lucía. Fighting them could destroy your girls’ lives.”
“No. Teaching my daughters to accept cruelty would destroy them.”
My mother began to cry.
Then she admitted Patricia had visited her that morning.
She had threatened to reveal an old debt my late father owed the Villaseñor family.
I asked how much.
My mother whispered the amount.
Five hundred thousand pesos.
Patricia had purchased her silence for less than one-tenth of what her son had stolen from me.
As I left, my mother called after me.
“There was someone filming at the banquet.”
I stopped.
“Who?”
“A young server. Patricia ordered him to erase it.”
“Did he?”
May you like
My mother shook her head.
“I don’t think so.”
