Chapter 4 - THE CORPORATE CROSSHAIR
Three months after Alejandro walked out of the Polanco mansion, the small apartment in downtown Mexico City had begun to feel like a real home.
The wobbly desk was now covered in both of their laptops, a growing collection of law and finance textbooks, and a chipped ceramic mug holding two toothbrushes. Alejandro had adapted to his new life with a terrifying, admirable resilience. He wore off-the-rack shirts from Zara instead of bespoke Italian wool, rode the metro during rush hour without complaint, and worked sixty-hour weeks at his new firm, quickly proving his genius in a corporate environment that didn't rely on his last name to validate his worth.
One evening in late June, as a heavy summer downpour lashed against the cracked windowpane, Alejandro slammed his laptop shut with a triumphant grin.
“That’s it,” he announced, leaning back in his creaky chair and stretching his arms over his head.
Carmen looked up from her civil law textbook, blinking sleepily from the kitchen table where she was reviewing case files. “What’s it?”
“The restructuring plan for Grupo Logístico del Norte,” Alejandro said, his eyes sparkling with a familiar, dangerous corporate fire. “My firm has been trying to secure their logistics contract for six months. If the board approves my proposal tomorrow morning, we lock down a multi-million-peso partnership that completely cuts Mendoza Holdings out of the northern transport corridor.”
Carmen’s heart skipped a beat, a flicker of nervous anxiety mixing with her pride. “Alejandro... that’s direct economic warfare against your father’s company. Do you think they’ll let you do that without retaliating?”
Alejandro stood up, walked over to her, and placed his hands on her shoulders, massaging the tight muscles at the base of her neck.
“Let them try,” he said softly, kissing the top of her head. “For the first time in my life, I’m playing a game where the rules are based on merit, not bloodlines. My father’s monopoly is rotting from the inside out because they rely on intimidation instead of innovation. If I beat them in the open market, there’s nothing they can do legally.”
He was wrong.
The Mendozas didn't play by the open market. They owned the board, the referees, and the stadium.
The blow fell at precisely 9:14 a.m. the following morning.
Carmen was sitting in her administrative law lecture at the university when her phone buzzed violently in her pocket. She glanced down at the screen: an incoming call from Alejandro.
Normally, Alejandro never called during morning office hours unless it was an absolute emergency.
A cold spike of dread pierced her chest. She raised her hand, whispered an apology to the professor, and hurried out into the quiet, echoing hallway.
“Alejandro? What’s wrong?” she asked, pressing the phone to her ear.
There was no sound on the other end for a few terrifying seconds, save for a heavy, ragged breathing. Then, when he finally spoke, his voice was hollow, stripped of all color, sounding like a man who had just been hit by a truck.
“Carmen... get to the hospital. General Hospital of Balbuena. Now.”
“Hospital? Alejandro, what happened? Are you hurt?!”
“It’s not me,” he whispered, his voice cracking violently. “It’s your father. Someone... someone torched the family workshop in Ecatepec an hour ago.”
The world tilted on its axis.
Carmen dropped her notebook. It hit the linoleum floor with a sharp, heavy slap.
“My... my dad?” she breathed, her voice turning into a terrified squeak. “Is he... is he alive?”
“He’s in surgery,” Alejandro said, his voice breaking entirely. “Carmen... the police found a calling card at the scene. A warning. They told my father that people who steal from the rich eventually pay with blood.”
When Carmen burst through the sterile, fluorescent-lit doors of the hospital emergency ward twenty minutes later, she looked like a ghost.
Alejandro was waiting in the hallway, leaning against the pale green wall, his shirt wrinkled, his eyes bloodshot and haunted. The moment he saw her, he rushed forward and pulled her tightly into his arms.
For the next four agonizing hours, they sat on molded plastic chairs in the waiting room while surgeons fought to save her father’s life. Don Mateo—a hardworking, humble man who had spent forty years building wooden furniture in his small Ecatepec garage—had suffered severe smoke inhalation and third-degree burns trying to put out the sudden, suspicious fire that had consumed his livelihood in less than ten minutes.
When the surgeon finally emerged from the operating doors around 2:00 p.m., wiping sweat from his forehead, he delivered the grim verdict: Don Mateo was alive, but he would spend months in intensive care, and the workshop—their only source of income—was reduced to a pile of charred ash.
As the surgeon walked away, Carmen sat frozen in her chair, staring down at her trembling hands, the horrifying truth dawning on her with crystal clarity.
It wasn't a random accident.
It was a message.
A message sent by Doña Beatriz Mendoza, proving with terrifying efficiency that no matter where Carmen hid, no matter how far they fell from society, the Mendozas could reach into her life and crush everything she loved with a single flick of their wrist.
Alejandro knelt down in front of her chair, taking her cold hands in his. His face was twisted into a mask of pure, murderous rage mixed with agonizing guilt.
“It was my mother,” Alejandro whispered, his voice trembling with fury. “She found out about the logistics contract yesterday afternoon. She realized I was actually succeeding on my own terms. And she wanted to show me that my freedom has a body count—paid for by the people I love.”
Carmen looked at him, her eyes dry, hollow, and burning with a dark, terrifying resolve.
For three years, she had been the quiet maid who cleaned their floors. For three months, she had been the runaway lover hiding in a downtown apartment.
Now, sitting in the sterile hospital hallway, listening to the rhythmic beep of monitors in the distance, Carmen realized something fundamental:
Running away wouldn't save them. Hiding wouldn't protect her family.
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If the Mendozas wanted a war, she was going to give them one.
And she was going to use their own rules to tear their empire down to the foundation.
