We need to talk. Alone. I stared at the screen. I didn’t need to ask who it was. Only one person would text me like this. Ximena. I showed the text to my father, who was sitting in the corner of my office reading a financial report. He looked up over his reading glasses. “Mauricio’s girlfriend?” he asked. “Yes,” I said.
“What do you think?” Gustavo took off his glasses and set them on the desk. “I think she’s realizing she’s on a sinking ship,” he said.
“And she’s looking for a life raft.”
“Should I meet her?” I asked.
Gustavo thought for a moment.
“Yes,” he said.
“But not alone.”
“I’ll be in the car outside.”
“And wear a wire.”
I almost laughed.
“A wire, Dad? This isn’t a movie.”
“It’s exactly like a movie,” he replied deadpan.
“Because people like Mauricio only exist in movies and federal indictments.”
An hour later, I pulled my car into the parking lot of a quiet coffee shop in Wicker Park.
Ximena was already sitting at a corner table, nursing a latte.
She looked different without her designer sunglasses and arrogant smile.
Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun.
She wore a simple oversized sweater.
She looked small.
I walked in and sat down across from her.
She didn’t say hello.
She just stared down at her cup.
“Why did you want to meet?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.
Ximena looked up, her eyes red and puffy.
“He’s crazy, Mariana,” she whispered.
“I know,” I said.
“No, you don’t understand,” she said, her voice trembling.
“He’s not just crazy.”
“He’s dangerous.”
I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms.
“Tell me.”
Ximena took a shaky breath.
“After the club, when the card was declined, he lost his mind.”
“He was screaming at me in the car the whole way home.”
“He said you ruined everything.”
“He said he was going to make you pay.”
I nodded slowly.
“We already know about the emails he sent to my clients.”
Ximena’s eyes widened.
“He did?”
“Yes,” I said.
“What else has he done, Ximena?”
She bit her lip, looking around the coffee shop as if she expected Mauricio to jump out from behind the counter.
“He told me to pack a bag,” she whispered.
“He said we were leaving the country.”
“Leaving the country?” I repeated.
“Where?”
“He wouldn’t say,” she said.
“He just kept talking about a secret account.”
“He said he had enough money hidden away to start a new life in Dubai.”
My mind flashed back to the shell company.
Apex Consulting Group.
Eight hundred thousand dollars.
“Did he mention Apex?” I asked.
Ximena shook her head.
“No.”
“But he kept talking about his mother.”
“He said she was holding the passport for the account.”
I felt a chill run down my spine.
Mauricio wasn’t just trying to ruin me.
He was planning to flee.
“Ximena,” I said, leaning forward.
“If he leaves the country with those funds, it’s a federal crime.”
“And if you go with him, you’re an accomplice.”
She started to cry, silent tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I don’t want to go to prison,” she sobbed.
“I just thought he was rich.”
“I thought he was going to take care of me.”
I looked at her, feeling a strange mix of pity and disgust.
She had willingly participated in the destruction of my marriage.
She had worn my jewelry, spent my money, and mocked my pain.
But now, the bill was coming due.
“Help me,” I said firmly.
“Help me, and I won’t let you go down with him.”
She looked up, wiping her eyes.
“How?”
“Give me his phone,” I said.
“What?”
“His phone,” I repeated.
“He has to have the routing numbers for the offshore account on it.”
“If you get me that, I can freeze the funds before he even gets on the plane.”
Ximena hesitated, her hands shaking.
“If he catches me, he’ll kill me,” she whispered.
“He won’t catch you,” I said.
“Because tonight, while he’s sleeping, you’re going to walk out.”
She stared at me for a long time.
Then, slowly, she nodded.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay.”
PART 7
That evening, the atmosphere in my father’s house was thick with tension.
Gustavo had set up a command center in his dining room.
Laptops were open, phones were charging, and legal pads were covered in frantic handwriting.
Teresa was on a conference call with a forensic accountant in New York.
I was sitting at the table, staring at my phone, waiting for Ximena’s text.
It was past midnight.
“Stop staring at it,” Gustavo said, pouring himself a cup of black coffee.
“It’ll come when it comes.”
“I know,” I said, rubbing my temples.
“I just can’t stop thinking about what he’s doing right now.”
Gustavo sat down across from me.
“He’s probably packing,” he said.
“Or he’s on the phone with his mother, trying to figure out how to wire the money out of the country.”
“Do we have enough to get an injunction?” I asked.
Teresa walked over, holding her phone.
“We do now,” she said.
“The forensic accountant confirmed the shell company’s routing numbers.”
“The funds are currently sitting in a holding account in the Cayman Islands.”
“But they’re scheduled to be transferred to a private bank in Dubai tomorrow morning.”
I looked at the clock.
It was 12:15 AM.
“If the transfer happens, we’ll never get it back,” I said.
“Not without a massive international legal battle,” Teresa agreed.
“So we need to freeze it now.”
“I’m drafting the emergency motion as we speak,” Teresa said.
“But I need a judge to sign it.”
“At one in the morning?” Gustavo asked.
Teresa smiled, a sharp, predatory expression.
“Judge Harris owes me a favor,” she said.
“I’ll have the order by 1:00 AM.”
Suddenly, my phone buzzed.
I jumped, grabbing it off the table.
It was a text from Ximena.
I have it.
He’s asleep.
Meet me at the park on 5th and Elm.
I showed the screen to Gustavo.
He stood up immediately, grabbing his coat.
“I’m driving,” he said.
“Teresa, keep working on the injunction.”
“If you get the judge, call the bank immediately.”
“On it,” Teresa said, already dialing.
Gustavo and I walked out to his car in the cold night air.
The streets were empty, the city sleeping under a blanket of fog.
We drove in silence to the park.
When we arrived, Ximena was standing under a flickering streetlight, shivering in a thin jacket.
She held Mauricio’s phone in her hand.
Gustavo pulled the car over, and I stepped out.
Ximena handed me the phone.
“His face ID is locked,” she said.
“But I know his passcode.”
“It’s his mother’s birthday.”
I typed in the numbers.
The phone unlocked.
I immediately opened his banking app.
There it was.
The Apex Consulting Group account.
And right there, the pending transfer to Dubai.
I took a series of screenshots, capturing the account numbers, the routing details, and the transfer schedule.
“Did you see anything else?” I asked her.
Ximena nodded.
“He has a burner phone in his glovebox,” she said.
“He uses it to call his mother.”
I opened the glovebox and found the cheap black phone.
I turned it on and handed it to Gustavo.
He scrolled through the call log.
“Bingo,” he said.
“He’s been calling a number in Miami every day for the past week.”
“Send the photos to Teresa,” Gustavo instructed me.
I texted the screenshots to Teresa’s secure line.
A moment later, my phone rang.
It was Teresa.
“Judge Harris signed it,” she said, her voice breathless.
“I’m calling the bank’s fraud department right now.”
“Tell them to freeze the Cayman account.”
“Do it,” I said.
We hung up, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
We had done it.
We had stopped the money.
I looked at Ximena, who was hugging her arms to stay warm.
“Come on,” I said to her.
“Get in the car.”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Somewhere he can’t find you,” I said.
“Because once he wakes up and realizes his phone is gone, he’s going to come looking for blood.”
