Chapter 6: The Desperate Widower
By 7:00 AM, the morning heat of Cancún was already rising, but Mauricio Serrano was shivering in the back of a cheap city taxi.
He had spent the last two hours in a nightmare of declining credit cards, blocked PINs, and automated banking messages repeating the same terrifying phrase: Account suspended by court order. Even the luxury condo he rented for Paola had locked its digital keypad; Ernesto’s real estate company owned the building.
Desperation makes a greedy man dangerous. And Mauricio had one card left to play: public opinion.
Before leaving the marina, he had used Paola’s prepaid phone to call three tabloid journalists and a local news crew whom he had regularly fed society gossip over the years. He gave them an anonymous tip: Tragedy in the Aguilar family. Heiress Valentina Aguilar in critical condition after domestic accident. Father locking husband out of the hospital.
When the taxi pulled up to the glass entrance of Ángeles Hospital, a cluster of reporters and cameramen were already waiting on the pavement.
Mauricio stepped out of the cab, intentionally mussing his hair and rubbing his eyes until they watered. He ignored the taxi driver shouting for the fare—he didn't have a single peso to pay him—and pushed his way toward the flashing cameras.
"Mauricio! What happened to Valentina?" a reporter shouted, thrusting a microphone toward his face. "Is it true she fell down the stairs?"
"Please, have some respect!" Mauricio cried out, his voice trembling with manufactured anguish as he pushed through the glass doors into the main lobby. "My wife is fighting for her life! Her father is trying to isolate her! I just want to see my wife!"
He expected to find confused receptionists and a clear path to the elevators where he could stage a scene for the cameras.
Instead, the main lobby was completely empty of patients.
Standing in the center of the polished marble floor, flanked by four armed security guards and a squad of federal police officers, was Don Ernesto Aguilar. Beside him stood Attorney Beatriz Robles, holding a thick leather briefcase.
The reporters who had spilled into the lobby behind Mauricio abruptly fell silent, the cameras humming as they captured the collision.
"Ernesto!" Mauricio shouted, falling to his knees ten feet away, playing to the lenses behind him. "Please! Let me see her! Why are you doing this to me?! We are family!"
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Ernesto did not move an inch. He looked down at Mauricio with the calm, terrifying detachment of a judge viewing a condemned man.
"We were never family, Mauricio," Ernesto said. "And your performance is over."
