Rosa looked towards the windows, where gray clouds were pressed against the glass.
“Your wife. Your partner. And the friend who invited you to lunch.”
This is still wet.
“Hector?”
She got angry.
“He never planted anything. He kicked you out of the house.”
For a moment, Ernest could only hear his own pulse.
“Because?”
“Because today was the day they came to collect the last of what they had hidden from you.”
He entered slowly.
“Start at the beginning.”
Rosa looked at the moy as if each pile contained blood.
“Three years ago, I found the first envelope behind the laundry closet. Dollars, pesos.”
He frowned.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because the envelope had Lorepa’s handwriting on it.”
Ernesto’s stomach clenched.
Rosa copied.
“At first, I thought she was hiding jewels. Then I heard her arguing with Mr. Salipas.”
“Did Hector come here?”
“Many times,” Rosa said. “Whenever you traveled. Always on the side road.”
The room grew dark around Erpesto.
Rosa reached under the bed and pulled out a dented metal box.
Inside there were USB drives, notebooks, notes, photographs, and folded letters.
“I kept copies,” he said. “Not because I wanted trouble. Because the trouble had already happened.”
Erпesto chose a photograph.
Lorepa stood next to Hector in front of a warehouse he didn’t recognize, both watching as boxes were loaded onto a truck.
His hand was trembling.
“What is this?”
“Misappropriation of funds from their projects,” Rosa said. “Fake payments to suppliers. Inflated land purchases. Bribes channeled through shell companies.”
Ernesto’s voice broke.
“My colleagues blamed me for losing food.”
“They designed it that way.”
He sat heavily on the bed, squashing the edge of a pile of mozzarella.
“Did my company die because of this?”
Rosa knelt before him.
“His company was murdered.”
For the first time in months, Erпesto did feel cheated.
It felt dangerous.
“Why hide the skunk here?”
“Lorepa thought no one would search a house that was already occupied by servants,” Rosa said. “Especially the servants’ quarters.”
A bitter smile appeared on his lips.
“People like her think that poor people understand everything except what they understand.”
Erпesto looked at her, he really looked at her, perhaps for the first time.
“And did you count all this aloe?”
“I was counting on knowing that I could save the house, pay the workers, and reopen the investigation.”
“Workers?” he asked.
Rosa’s eyes hardened.
“The employees who lost wages while your partners drank champagne in Miami. The families who blamed you.”
Shame struck him then, more deeply than before.
He had regretted his reputation more than the people who had built it for him.
Before he could speak, the tires squealed outside.
Rosa froze.
“They arrived early.”
Erпesto turned towards the window.
A black Mercedes rolled into the driveway, followed by a silver SUV and a sleek sports car that he instantly recognized.
Lorepa had returned.
She came out with white lipstick, dark glasses, and the same confidence she had shown when she left him.
Hector emerged behind her.
Then Víctor Agüero, former finance chief of Erpesto, arrived with two men carrying empty canvas bags.
Erпesto returned with Rosa.
“You said they came to collect.”
“Yeah.”
“So we let them in.”
Rosa grabbed his sleeve.
“Dop Erпesto, son daпgeroυs.”
“Me too,” he said, and heard his former self return in a different form.
He was the greatest and greatest.
It was a map that had nothing left to protect except the truth.
Going downstairs, the doorbell rang.
Eresto walked towards the lobby before Rosa could stop him.
He opened the door himself .
Lorepa slowly took off her glasses.
“Eresto,” he said. “You’re home.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
Hector forced a smile.
“Dude, there was an emergency. I was going to call.”
“Were you there?”
Victor Aguirre looked beyond him.
“We need to gather some documents for the editors.”
Erпesto looked at the canvas bags.
“Extensive documents.”
Lorepa sighed.
“Don’t complicate things. You’ve already lost all dignity.”
The old iult would have killed him yesterday.
Today, he made it worse.
“Come,” said Ernesto. “All of you.”
They evolved as people returning to a house they believed was now haunted.
Rosa was standing at the foot of the stairs.
Lorepa’s mouth twisted.
“Are you still here? How do we play? Poverty makes company.”
Rosa lowered her gaze.
“Good after, ma’am.”
Lorepa looked at Erpeto.
