Chapter 7 - The Parasites Gather
By Tuesday afternoon, the shock had transformed into frantic, disorganized hysteria among the extended Del Valle clan.
I had moved into the Presidential Suite of the St. Regis, transforming the expansive living room into an auxiliary command post. Veronica and her team occupied the adjacent boardroom, while room service kept us supplied with fresh coffee, sparkling water, and cold platters of fruit.
The hotel security desk called at 2:15 PM.
“Señora Vance, there are three individuals in the lower lobby demanding access to your suite. A Mrs. Teresa Del Valle, accompanied by a Mr. Ricardo Del Valle and a Ms. Sofia Del Valle. They are causing a considerable disturbance with our concierge team.”
I looked at Veronica, who simply nodded with a grim smile.
“Instruct private security to bring them to Meeting Room C on the mezzanine level,” I said into the receiver. “Do not permit them to access the guest elevators.”
Five minutes later, I walked into Meeting Room C.
The contrast between us was staggering. I wore a tailored midnight-blue silk blouse, ivory trousers, and diamond stud earrings, completely collected and radiant.
Across the conference table, the Del Valle family resembled survivors of a shipwreck. Ricardo’s ivory wedding suit had been replaced by a rumpled button-down shirt that looked like it had been pulled from an overnight bag. His eyes were bloodshot, his beard unkempt. Teresa looked ten years older; without her weekly salon blowouts and luxury car, her haughty aristocratic facade had cracked into bitter, wrinkled rage. Sofia, his sister, sat in the corner clutching a knockoff designer tote, glaring at me with raw, undisguised hatred.
“You vindictive, sterile monster!” Teresa shrieked the moment the door clicked shut behind me. She lunged forward, slamming both hands onto the table. “You threw my son out like a dog! You sold his home! You left his pregnant wife crying on the street without a job! God will curse you for what you’ve done to an innocent child!”
I did not flinch. I did not raise my voice. I took a seat at the head of the table, folded my hands, and looked at Teresa with utter, clinical detachment.
“The only curse in this room, Teresa, is your profound inability to understand simple arithmetic,” I said evenly.
“Elena, please,” Ricardo interrupted, his voice breaking as he reached across the table, trying to catch my eye. “Let’s talk like adults. Sofia and my mother are upset, but you and I... we built a life together. Six years! You can’t just erase six years because of one mistake!”
“One mistake?” I let out a soft, genuine laugh that seemed to echo off the walls. “A four-month affair with an intern is a series of choices. Flying sixty people to Valle de Bravo to stage an illegal wedding is an elaborate production. Looking me in the eye on the phone while pretending to be in Singapore is pathological treason. Which part of that was the 'mistake,' Ricardo?”
“I did it for our legacy!” he pleaded, his eyes filling with real, desperate tears. “You know how much I wanted a child! Every time the clinics called with bad news, it broke me! When Ximena told me she was pregnant, I panicked! My mother said we could handle it quietly, that we could raise the boy together—”
“You were going to bring her baby into my house,” I stated, the cold truth hanging between us like an executioner’s axe. “You and your mother were planning to gaslight me into raising another woman’s child under my roof, using my money, while you continued to parade your young mistress behind my back.”
Teresa sneered, her lip curling with disgusting arrogance. “And what if we were? You should have been grateful! A boy carries the Del Valle name! You should have financed his education, given him his father’s heritage! What else were you going to do with your millions? Die alone in an office tower surrounded by paper?!”
I turned my gaze slowly toward Teresa. The room’s temperature seemed to plunge into freezing territory.
“Teresa,” I said quietly. “Do you know what this is?”
I pulled a single sheet of paper from my leather portfolio and slid it across the table toward her.
She blinked, squinting at the corporate letterhead. “What is this nonsense?”
“That is an official notification of foreclosure and debt acceleration from Banco Santander,” I said. “On the colonial apartment you live in on Calle Horacio in Polanco.”
Teresa’s face froze. “My apartment? My apartment was bought by my late husband!”
“Your late husband died leaving an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar mortgage on that apartment, Teresa,” I explained, my voice gentle, almost melodic. “For six years, I have quietly serviced that debt through a corporate holding entity. I paid the principal, the interest, the property taxes, the building maintenance, and your private domestic staff. I did it because I believed I was honoring my husband’s mother.”
Teresa’s hands began to shake as she read the numbers.
“Since you made it abundantly clear on Thursday night that I am not part of your family,” I continued, “I saw no reason to continue subsidizing your housing. The mortgage note was purchased yesterday by my secondary investment trust. You have fourteen days to settle the remaining balance of six hundred and forty thousand dollars in full, or the bank will initiate immediate eviction proceedings.”
“You... you can’t evict me!” she gasped, her voice choking on panic. “I am seventy-one years old!”
“Then I suggest you ask your son to pay it,” I said, looking at Ricardo. “After all, he is a Del Valle. He has an aristocratic name. Surely he can write a check for six hundred thousand dollars?”
Ricardo stared at the table, his shoulders hunched, completely crushed. He looked like an empty shell. “Elena... I don’t have that kind of money. You know I don’t have it.”
“I know,” I said softly. “You have fourteen thousand dollars in a checking account that Veronica’s team is currently auditing for fraudulent transfers. Sofia,” I turned to his sister, who shrank back into her chair. “The six-figure convertible note I granted your boutique fitness studio last year? It matures at the end of this month. If the principal is not repaid with interest, my legal team will seize the equipment and liquidate your commercial lease.”
“Elena, please!” Sofia cried, bursting into tears. “I didn't want to go to the wedding! Mom forced me to go! She said Ricardo was going to take over your company and that we had to support him!”
“Shut up, Sofia!” Teresa screamed, her aristocratic composure completely shattering into vulgar hysteria.
The meeting room descended into a chaotic, screaming brawl between mother, son, and daughter. The very family that had stood beneath white roses in Valle de Bravo, raising glasses of champagne to my downfall, was now turning on each other like starved animals trapped in a cage.
I stood up, smoothed my ivory trousers, and buttoned my silk blouse.
“Our business is concluded,” I said, walking toward the door.
“Elena!” Ricardo lunged out of his seat, dropping to his knees on the carpet, reaching for the hem of my pants with both hands, weeping openly. “Elena, don't do this! I love you! I will leave Ximena! I will sign away my rights to the baby! I’ll do anything! Just let me come home!”
I stopped at the threshold. I looked down at the man I had loved for nearly a decade. The man I had showered with luxury, protected from embarrassment, and held through the dark nights of our grief.
There was no hatred left in my heart. Only a profound, liberating disgust.
“You don’t have a home, Ricardo,” I said softly. “You only had an extended reservation at mine. And your checkout was at noon.”
May you like
I pulled my hem from his fingers, stepped out of the room, and closed the heavy oak door on his wailing cries.
***
