Chapter 8 - THE GATES OF RUIN
The Porsche Cayenne tore up the steep, winding incline of Avenida San Agustín like a runaway train.
Mateo’s hands were shaking so violently on the steering wheel he could barely keep the vehicle in its lane. The digital dashboard was flashing low-fuel warnings, but he didn't care. His mind was spinning out of control, replaying Soto’s words over and over like a broken record.
Bankrupt. Frozen accounts. Alejandro Silva.
He rounded the final curve leading to his grand estate—and slammed hard on the brakes, throwing himself forward against the steering wheel with a sharp gasp.
The scene at the front gates of his mansion looked like an occupying army had moved in overnight.
Two black armored SUVs bearing Alejandro Silva’s private corporate security insignia were parked directly across the sweeping driveway. A crew of uniformed locksmiths was currently unbolting the heavy electronic security gates from their concrete hinges, while municipal police cars stood parked along the shoulder, their red-and-blue lights flashing silently in the morning sun.
Mateo threw the Porsche into park, leaped out of the vehicle, and sprinted toward the gate like a madman.
“Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Mateo roared, waving his arms wildly as he rushed toward the security team. “Get off my property! Who gave you permission to touch these gates? I’ll have every single one of your badges!”
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a sharp black suit stepped out from behind one of the SUVs. It wasn't Soto.
It was Alejandro Silva himself.
Alejandro looked immaculate. He wore a charcoal tailored suit, a crisp white shirt open at the collar, and expensive leather shoes that didn't have a single speck of dust on them. He stood with his hands tucked casually into his pockets, his dark eyes fixed on Mateo with a look of cold, impenetrable disdain.
Mateo skidded to a halt a few feet away, his chest heaving, his hair disheveled from the club, his expensive blazer wrinkled.
“Alejandro...” Mateo choked out, his voice cracking between rage and sheer disbelief. “What is this? What the hell is going on here? Your men are trespassing! I’ll call the governor, I’ll call the head of police—!”
“You can call whoever you want, Mateo,” Alejandro interrupted, his voice smooth, low, and terrifyingly calm. “Though you might find your phone calls don't go through anymore. Your cellular service was tied to your corporate accounts. Which, as of twenty minutes ago, have been completely liquidated.”
Mateo stared at him, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “Liquidated? What are you talking about? You can’t do that! I built this empire! I am Mateo Garza!”
“You were a thief, Mateo,” Alejandro said, stepping forward slowly, closing the distance between them until Mateo was forced to take a step back. “You stole my work five years ago. You thought you buried me. But you forgot a fundamental rule of business: never leave a paper trail when you steal from an engineer.”
Mateo’s face flushed a deep, mottled purple. He lunged forward, balling his hands into fists. “I’ll kill you! I swear to God I’ll beat you to death right here on this pavement—”
Before Mateo could take another step, two massive security guards materialized on either side of him, grabbing his arms with vice-like grips and slamming him hard against the hood of his own Porsche, pinning his wrists behind his back.
“Let me go! Get your hands off me!” Mateo shrieked, kicking his legs uselessly against the gravel.
Alejandro walked up slowly, stopping just inches from Mateo’s sweat-streaked face. He reached out, calmly adjusting the lapel of Mateo’s wrinkled designer blazer as if straightening a tie for a funeral.
“You wanted an empire, Mateo,” Alejandro whispered, his voice dropping into a lethal, venomous register. “You wanted flash, you wanted luxury, you wanted to feel like a king sitting on top of the world.”
“Screw you, Alejandro! Give me back my house!” Mateo sobbed, his bravado finally cracking into sheer, pathetic terror.
“I didn't just take your house, Mateo,” Alejandro said, his eyes burning with a dark, terrifying intensity. “I took your company. I took your cars. I took your bank accounts. I took every single peso you ever stole from me, with interest.”
Mateo stopped struggling. A cold, sickening dread pooled in his stomach.
“My... my money,” Mateo whispered. “You took everything?”
“Everything,” Alejandro confirmed coldly.
Then, Alejandro leaned in close, his lips brushing against Mateo’s ear.
“And more importantly... I took your wife.”
Mateo froze. The world seemed to tilt violently on its axis.
“Camila...?” Mateo stammered, his eyes widening in horror. “What... what do you mean, you took Camila? She’s inside the house—she was calling me last night—she was—”
“She was lying at the bottom of your marble staircase for two hours with a fractured skull and a placental abruption, bleeding to death while you were snorting lines and groping a gold-digger in a VIP club in San Pedro,” Alejandro hissed, his voice trembling with a sudden, violent rage that made the security guards holding Mateo flinch.
Mateo’s jaw dropped. The words hit him like physical blows.
“She... she called me...?” Mateo whispered, the memory of his phone buzzing on the glass table suddenly rushing back to crush his soul. Ten calls. Thirty minutes. “I... I thought she was just being dramatic... I turned my phone on airplane mode...”
“She called you ten times,” Alejandro said, pulling back, his eyes burning with absolute contempt. “When you rejected her, she didn't call the police. She didn't call an ambulance. She called the man you hated most in this world.”
Alejandro stepped back, signaling the guards to release Mateo.
Mateo stumbled forward, his knees buckling beneath him, collapsing onto the dusty gravel of his own driveway like a broken puppet.
“Where is she...?” Mateo wept, his hands clawing at the dirt. “Where is my wife? Where is my son...?”
“Your son is currently in a sterile incubator at San José Hospital, breathing on his own for the first time, surrounded by people who actually care whether he lives or dies,” Alejandro said, turning his back on him and walking toward the armored SUV. “And Camila is resting upstairs in a private recovery suite—far away from this cold, hollow monument to your vanity.”
Mateo looked up, tears streaming down his face, his voice breaking into a ragged, pathetic wail.
“Alejandro! Please! Leave me something! A car, an apartment, anything! I have nothing left!”
Alejandro stopped with his hand on the SUV door handle. He didn't turn around.
“You had everything, Mateo,” Alejandro said quietly. “And you traded it all for a bottle of mezcal and a stripper in a club.”
May you like
He pulled open the door, climbed inside, and slammed it shut.
The convoy of black SUVs rolled forward smoothly, crushing the gravel beneath their tires, sweeping past the broken gates and leaving Mateo kneeling alone in the dust of the driveway—bankrupt, abandoned, utterly destroyed, and holding nothing but the echo of his own arrogant laughter.
