Chapter 14 - The lawyer who could take control by winning my case
Lucía laughed once when she heard.
Not because it was funny.
Because the irony was vicious.
“Of course Arturo named me.”
“You knew?”
“No.”
“How?”
“My firm represented the trust years ago. He must have listed a partner position, not me personally.”
We checked.
Correct.
The document named:
Senior independent counsel appointed by Valdés Continuity Trust.
At the time, that role belonged to Lucía’s mentor.
When he retired, Lucía inherited the position automatically.
She had never reviewed the old Aster succession schedule because it had remained dormant.
Now the conflict was immediate.
If she continued as my personal attorney while also serving as potential restructuring counsel, every victory for me could look like self-dealing.
She resigned from the Aster role within the hour.
Then, after arranging replacement counsel for me, she temporarily withdrew from my corporate representation too.
That hurt.
I trusted her.
But it was the right decision.
“Who replaces you?”
“For the trust? Independent court-approved counsel if needed.”
“For me?”
“You choose.”
“Can you stay on custody?”
She considered.
“With conflict waivers and independent review, perhaps. But I think the cleaner choice is no.”
I hated clean choices.
They often cost relationships.
Still, that was the lesson repeated through every chapter of this nightmare:
The person with power must sometimes step away from power precisely because they believe they would use it correctly.
I hired new counsel.
Lucía became a witness regarding the anonymous packet and page seventeen.
That separation ultimately strengthened everything.
Then Javier finally agreed to speak through counsel.
No dramatic confession.
No hidden mansion.
A conference room.
Water glasses.
Three attorneys.
He looked older.
Still elegant.
Still carried Arturo’s cane.
I asked:
“Why warn Lucía?”
“Because Mateo was supposed to lose management authority.”
“So page seventeen served you.”
“Yes.”
“Why help me?”
“I needed you competent.”
“At the same time you were building a psychiatric case.”
“I needed you contestable.”
The word chilled me.
Not incompetent.
Contestable.
Enough uncertainty to slow me.
Enough competence to preserve the founder option.
He admitted arranging Camila’s introduction to Mateo.
Not ordering an affair.
Creating proximity.
He admitted using Estela’s obsession with lineage.
He admitted working with Benítez to create “defensible uncertainty” around postpartum capacity.
He denied directing falsification of specific medical records.
That remained under investigation.
He admitted hiding Aurora’s true nature from Mateo because Mateo would have refused any structure acknowledging my founder authority.
“Why all this?” I asked.
“Carranza was overleveraged.”
“You could have told me.”
“You would have replaced Mateo.”
“Yes.”
“And the company might have survived under you.”
I stared.
“That sounds good.”
“For you.”
There it was.
His grievance finally surfaced.
“You and Mateo built the company from a concept Arturo and I created. He erased my interest. Then you let Mateo become the public founder. Every person in that company profited from a history no one wanted to acknowledge.”
“You had legal claims.”
“Expired.”
“You had negotiation.”
“With Arturo’s daughter controlling the votes?”
“You never tried.”
He smiled sadly.
“I tried with your father.”
Not with me.
He never gave me the chance.
Because grievance had already turned me into an extension of Arturo.
Then he said:
“I didn’t want your babies.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t want you hospitalized.”
“You created the conditions for it.”
“I wanted ten days.”
“You used a mother one day after childbirth to create a lender event.”
He looked down.
“Yes.”
Finally.
No euphemism.
Then my new counsel placed one document on the table.
The Aster trust had completed an independent review.
Carranza’s hidden debt was real.
Mateo’s governance failures were real.
Javier’s manipulation was real.
Gabriel’s conflicts were real.
My own oversight had also failed.
The trustees would not simply return the company to me.
They proposed temporary independent management.
I stared at the paper.
After everything, I would not “take back” Carranza immediately.
That was the right answer.
And it hurt.
Then one final audit result arrived.
The 38 million pesos paid to Aurora did not all fund restructuring.
Nearly 9 million had been diverted.
Recipient:
Carranza Family Services.
Estela’s company.
She claimed she used it for attorneys, childcare planning, and “family protection.”
The ledgers showed something else.
Large cash withdrawals.
Jewelry.
Private travel.
A condominium.
My mother-in-law had actually been stealing.
Not masterminding the whole scheme.
Not architect of Aurora.
But quietly enriching herself inside it.
The woman screaming about Carranza blood had found her own way to profit.
May you like
And Mateo had never known.
Cliffhanger: Estela was not the mastermind everyone feared—she was something more believable and corrosive: an opportunist who used a larger conspiracy to steal millions while pretending everything she did was for “the family.”
