Chapter 5 - The Morning After the High
Back at Onyx, the morning sun was beginning to filter through the smog over San Pedro Garza García, but inside the private club, time had lost all meaning.
The bottles were empty. The music had long since stopped.
Mateo sat slumped across the VIP leather couch, a half-empty glass of warm whiskey balanced precariously on his knee. Valeria was fast asleep against his shoulder, her heavy makeup smeared, her designer handbag open and spilling cosmetics across the table.
Mateo groaned, rubbing his bloodshot eyes as a pounding headache hammered behind his temples. He reached blindly behind the cushions for his phone.
His fingers brushed against the cold metal casing. He pulled it out, flicked off airplane mode, and squinted against the sudden glare of the bright screen.
No new notifications.
A smug, self-satisfied smirk crossed his face.
“See?” Mateo muttered to himself, nudging Valeria awake. “I told you. She was just being dramatic. No texts, no missed calls. Everything is fine.”
Valeria groaned, stretching lazily. “Ugh, what time is it? My head feels like it’s splitting open. Let’s go back to your place, Mateo. I need an iced coffee and a shower.”
“Come on,” Mateo grunted, standing up unsteadily and throwing a thick wad of cash onto the table to cover the astronomical bar tab. “Let’s go home and see how dramatic my dear wife is being this morning.”
They caught a private car service back to the mansion in the hills. The ride was quiet, save for Valeria complaining about the morning traffic and her chipped manicure.
When the car pulled up outside the gates of the estate, Mateo frowned.
The secondary service gate was wide open. The steel housing looked like it had been chewed open by heavy machinery.
“What the hell?” Mateo muttered, stepping out of the car.
He rushed up the driveway, noticing that the front door was unlocked and pushed slightly ajar. A cold spike of adrenaline pierced through his alcohol-fogged brain.
“Camila!” Mateo shouted, bursting into the foyer. “Camila, where are you? What happened to the gate?”
He walked toward the grand staircase.
And then he stopped.
A dark, dry stain marred the pristine white marble at the bottom of the stairs. Several discarded medical wrappers, a blood-soaked gauze pad, and a shattered piece of glass lay scattered across the floor.
The house was dead, hollow, and utterly empty.
“Mateo?” Valeria called out, walking into the foyer behind him, her eyes widening in horror as she looked at the floor. “Is... is that blood?”
Before Mateo could speak, his phone buzzed violently in his hand.
It wasn't Camila. It wasn't a bill collector.
It was an incoming video call from an unknown, encrypted number.
With shaking fingers, Mateo swiped to answer.
The face of Alejandro Morales filled the screen.
Alejandro wasn't sitting in a car or a club. He was sitting behind a massive, polished mahogany desk in a high-rise executive suite overlooking Monterrey, wearing a crisp dark suit, flanked by two corporate attorneys and a senior judge’s court bailiff.
“Good morning, Mateo,” Alejandro said, his voice smooth, cold, and absolute. “I trust you had a wonderful night drinking in San Pedro.”
Mateo felt his breath lock in his throat. Panic surged through his veins like liquid nitrogen.
“Alejandro? What... what the hell are you doing? How did you get into my house? Where is Camila?!”
Alejandro leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk, his eyes burning with an intense, unyielding fury.
“Camila is resting in the intensive care unit at San Pedro Medical Center,” Alejandro said, every word dropping like an anvil. “She suffered a severe placental abruption after falling down your unlit marble staircase at midnight. Your daughter was delivered via emergency C-section three hours ago. They are both alive—not because of you, Mateo, but in spite of you.”
Mateo swayed backward, clutching the edge of the hallway wall for support. “My... my daughter? Alive? But... but she wasn't due for weeks—!”
“Seventeen times,” Alejandro interrupted, his voice cutting through Mateo’s panic like a razor. “Seventeen times your wife called you while she lay bleeding on your cold marble floor, begging for help. And seventeen times, you rejected her call to entertain your mistress and stroke your pathetic ego.”
Mateo’s face turned the color of ash. He looked over at Valeria, who had covered her mouth with her hands, backing away toward the front door in sheer terror.
“Alejandro... please,” Mateo stammered, his arrogance completely shattered, his voice cracking into a desperate whine. “Let me talk to her! Let me go to the hospital! I’m her husband—!”
“You ceased being her husband the moment you abandoned her,” Alejandro said coldly. He held up a thick legal document toward the camera. “And as for your assets, your real estate developments, your luxury cars, and this modernist tomb you built to hide your insecurity? As of 8:00 a.m. this morning, every single corporate account you hold has been frozen under emergency receivership due to fraudulent developer practices uncovered by my legal team.”
Alejandro smiled—a thin, merciless smile.
“Camila has already signed the expedited divorce papers and full sole custody filings. I have posted a 24-hour armed security detail around her hospital room. If you come within one mile of her or my new daughter, I will personally ensure you spend the next ten years of your life behind bars.”
“No! You can’t do that! That’s my family! That’s my money!” Mateo screamed, lunging toward the phone as if he could strangle the image on the screen.
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“You had your chance to answer the phone, Mateo,” Alejandro said softly.
Then, the screen went black.
