Chapter 9
Chapter 9: The Reckoning
Four months later, the fallout of the Alcázar scandal was still dominating the national headlines.
The evidence Valeria had gathered was insurmountable. Faced with decades in federal prison, Rebeca Alcázar broke. She accepted a humiliating plea deal for coercion, assault, procedural fraud, and criminal conspiracy. She was serving her sentence in a medium-security facility, stripped of her silks and pearls.
Octavio was disbarred, his law license revoked permanently, and he was handed a hefty prison sentence for his role in the shell companies and the conspiracy. Dr. Salgado lost his medical license and was facing a mountain of civil lawsuits for medical malpractice and falsification of records. The hospital, desperate to avoid a massive PR disaster, paid Valeria a staggering, undisputed settlement and fired their entire administrative board.
The $3.8 billion trust fund was placed under strict judicial administration, earmarked exclusively for Mateo’s benefit upon his eighteenth birthday. Neither Rebeca nor Sebastián could touch a single peso of it.
The divorce was swift, cold, and entirely one-sided. Sebastián, broken by the realization of his own cowardice and the destruction of his family's empire, signed the papers without contesting a single clause regarding full custody.
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Valeria allowed him to see his son for ten minutes, once a month, strictly supervised by an armed court officer in a neutral facility. During their first visit, Sebastián wept, apologizing profusely, swearing he had been blind.
Valeria looked at him with eyes as cold as ice. "Your real mistake, Sebastián, wasn't that you were blind. It’s that you never actually wanted to see."
