Chapter 4 - The Audit of the Phantom
While the house in Coyoacán grew cold, Valeria sat in a sunlit conference room at the headquarters of the Fundación Solidaridad, the legal aid nonprofit where she worked. A medical doctor had treated the burn on her cheek, covering it with a sterile white patch.
Sergio Alarcón sat across from her, surrounded by boxes of financial ledgers that his team had spent the last twenty-four hours recovering from the bank registries.
"Your father knew exactly what kind of man Mauricio Mendoza was, Vale," Sergio said, sliding a corporate profile across the table. "Two years before Arturo died, Mauricio tried to pitch him a fraudulent real estate development deal in Querétaro. Arturo saw right through him. He blacklisted Mauricio from every reputable financial circle in Mexico City."
Valeria stared at the corporate profile. "So Mauricio didn't marry my mother out of love. He waited until my father passed, found her when she was grieving and vulnerable, and used her to get back into this house."
"Exactly," Sergio nodded. "But he made a fatal assumption. He assumed your mother owned the asset. Over the last three years, Mauricio has been taking out high-interest private loans, using this house as 'implied collateral' to convince lenders he was a man of substance. Now that the trust has locked the property, those private lenders are realizing they've been defrauded. They are going to come after him, Valeria. Hard."
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"And my mother?" Valeria asked, her voice tight with a mixture of pain and residual affection.
"Your mother signed several indemnity waivers as his co-signer," Sergio sighed. "She believed she was protecting her new family. If Mauricio falls, she falls with him."
