Chapter 8 - ELENA'S LAST YEAR
Diego read Paulina’s message alone.
Then he read it again.
His mother had died after a long battle with ovarian cancer.
That was the truth he had lived with for ten years.
There was no mystery.
No scandal.
No secret.
Or so he had believed.
He showed the message to Marisol.
She became quiet.
“The locked drawer.”
“What about it?”
“There were other folders.”
They returned to Elena’s study.
Under the letters lay medical records.
Not of Elena’s cancer.
Psychiatric evaluations.
Prescription logs.
Notes from private physicians.
Diego’s face tightened.
“My mother had depression.”
Marisol waited.
He turned pages.
The records began one year before her cancer diagnosis.
Elena had suffered severe anxiety.
Insomnia.
Episodes of panic.
She repeatedly described feeling monitored.
Controlled.
Isolated.
One doctor wrote:
Patient expresses persistent belief that spouse intercepts correspondence and limits independent contact.
Another:
Patient fears disclosure will result in financial retaliation against friends and staff.
Diego sat down heavily.
“She wasn’t paranoid.”
“No,” Marisol whispered.
“She was describing him.”
At the bottom of the drawer, they found a small recorder.
Old.
Battery dead.
Santiago’s technicians recovered the audio.
Elena’s voice filled the study.
Quiet.
Tired.
“If anything happens to me, I need Diego to understand that Rafael does not believe he is cruel.”
“He believes he is correct.”
“That makes him more dangerous.”
Diego closed his eyes.
The recording continued.
“I am ill.”
“I know that.”
“But illness has given Rafael another excuse to decide what I can see.”
“Who can visit.”
“What information reaches me.”
“I do not know whether Diego receives my messages anymore.”
Diego whispered, “Mom.”
Marisol reached for his hand.
Then stopped.
He noticed.
After a second, he took hers.
The recording ended with a sentence neither expected.
“Teresa has copies.”
“If Rafael ever does this to Diego, she knows what to do.”
Diego looked at Marisol.
Elena had predicted everything.
Not the exact people.
The pattern.
Later that day, Paulina released a different version.
A medical report showing Elena’s depression.
Anonymous sources claimed Diego had hidden a history of severe mental illness in the family.
The insinuation was disgusting.
That perhaps Diego’s accusations against Rafael were emotional instability.
That grief had distorted his judgment.
Diego’s attorneys urged restraint.
Marisol did not.
“She is counting on shame.”
He looked at her.
“What?”
“Your family hid Nicolás.”
“They hid your mother’s depression.”
“Now Paulina believes you will hide it too.”
Marisol stepped closer.
“Don’t.”
So Diego did something no Villaseñor had ever done.
He spoke openly.
At a press conference, he acknowledged Nicolás’s addiction.
His mother’s depression.
The family’s history of concealing pain to protect appearances.
“My brother was not weak because he needed help.”
“My mother was not unreliable because she suffered depression.”
“And no family becomes stronger by hiding every wound behind expensive doors.”
The speech spread rapidly.
But the response was not what Paulina expected.
People did not reject Diego.
Many praised him.
Employees began sharing stories of Nicolás quietly paying rehabilitation costs for workers’ families.
Former staff spoke warmly about Elena.
The scandal stopped looking like a weakness.
It started looking like a family culture Rafael could no longer control.
Inside the mansion, Marisol watched the coverage.
Diego entered behind her.
“You were right.”
“I will write down the date.”
He smiled.
Then his expression became serious.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not letting me become him.”
Marisol looked at him.
“You’re not your father.”
“I spent half my life trying to become exactly like him.”
“You built companies like him.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
He considered that.
“No.”
“It isn’t.”
They stood close now.
Too close.
Four years disappeared for one dangerous second.
Diego looked at her lips.
Marisol felt it.
She stepped backward.
“Don’t.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Yes, you were.”
He smiled faintly.
“Okay.”
Her voice softened.
“We are not twenty-seven anymore.”
“I know.”
“We have a child.”
“I know.”
“And everything is complicated.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because every argument seems to end with me agreeing with you.”
That almost made her smile.
Then a scream came from the hallway.
Both ran.
Valentina stood near the staircase.
A photographer was visible beyond the side garden wall.
He had climbed a neighboring structure to photograph through a window.
Valentina was frightened.
Diego grabbed her.
Security moved immediately.
Marisol’s face hardened.
“That’s enough.”
Diego looked at her.
“We leave tonight.”
“Where?”
“A place nobody connects to my family.”
He thought of the small house his mother had owned in Valle de Bravo.
It had remained unused for years.
They traveled after dark.
No convoy.
No visible security.
Only one discreet vehicle following at a distance.
At the lake house, Valentina finally relaxed.
She ran through the grass.
Marisol cooked dinner.
Diego washed dishes badly.
“You own hotels,” she said.
“You’d think someone would have taught you.”
“I employ people with important skills.”
“You mean you never learned.”
“That too.”
Later Valentina fell asleep between them while they watched the lake from the porch.
The silence was different there.
Not tense.
Comfortable.
Diego whispered, “I used to think you abandoned me.”
Marisol looked at him.
“I hated you for leaving.”
“I hated you for disappearing.”
“And neither was true.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
She stared toward the water.
“What do we do with four years of anger when the person we blamed didn’t cause it?”
Diego answered quietly.
“We stop giving those years a fifth.”
Marisol turned.
This time when he leaned closer, she did not immediately move away.
But before they could kiss, Diego’s phone rang.
Santiago.
Diego answered reluctantly.
“What?”
He listened.
Then sat upright.
“The board moved the vote?”
Marisol’s expression changed.
“When?”
Diego ended the call.
“Tomorrow morning.”
“What happened?”
“My father accelerated it.”
“Why?”
May you like
Diego stared at the dark lake.
“Because someone gave him enough votes to remove me.”
