Part 2: My husband only married me for money.
She walked straight to me, ignoring Hector completely. Her marble expression cracked. Tears filled her eyes as she touched my cheek.
“My little girl,” she whispered. “My beautiful girl… I finally found you.”
I could not breathe.
She placed her hand over mine on my belly. My baby kicked. A tear ran down her face.
Then she turned to Hector, and the Iron Queen returned.
“My daughter and my grandson will live far better without you, Mr. Luján.”
Hector laughed nervously.
“Your daughter? Mariana is an orphan. I saw her records. Someone is deceiving you.”
Catalina raised one hand.
Six lawyers entered carrying black briefcases.
One placed a thick file on the judge’s desk.
“Your Honor,” he said, “we present evidence of fraud, forged documents, identity theft, altered civil records, misappropriation of funds, and bribery of public officials.”
Judge Rivas began to sweat.
And Hector stopped smiling.
The lawyer opened the file.
“Twenty-eight years ago, Mrs. Catalina Aranda lost her newborn daughter during an arson attack at a family property in San Miguel de Allende. She was told the baby died.”
I gripped the table.
“The death certificate was falsified. Social workers were bribed. Records were altered. The child was placed into foster care under the name Mariana Torres.”
My knees weakened.
All my life, I thought I had been abandoned.
But I had been stolen.
Catalina looked at me with unbearable pain.
“I never stopped looking for you.”
Hector slammed his fist on the table.
“This is madness! Mariana, tell them I cared for you!”
I stared at him. He had held me while I cried about having no family. He knew my deepest fear was my child being born without protection.
And all along, he had known who I was.
The lawyer continued. Three years earlier, Hector’s company had hired a private intelligence firm for acquisition research. During that search, they found a genetic match linking me to the Aranda family. Instead of reporting it, Hector found me at the bookstore, faked romance, isolated me, married me, and gained access to a trust created for the Aranda heiress.
That trust, activated when I married, had grown to more than 900 million pesos.
Every flower. Every dinner. Every promise.
A strategy.
Hector had not married me for love.
He married my money.
Then the lawyer turned to the judge and revealed a five-million-peso payment to a shell company tied to his brother-in-law, made three days before the hearing.
Federal agents entered moments later.
“Attorney General’s Office! Nobody move!”
They surrounded Hector. He tried to reach me, but an officer threw him to the floor before he could touch me.
“Mariana!” he cried. “Tell them to stop! I’ll give everything back! Don’t take my son!”
I looked down at him.
“You’re not a father, Hector. You’re a thief who used my loneliness to open a safe.”
As they dragged him away, a sharp pain split through me. Warm liquid ran down my legs.
My water had broken.
My baby was coming in the same place where they had tried to destroy me.
Doña Catalina caught me before I fell.
“I won’t let go,” she said.