Which means he anticipated this room. These faces. This exact moment when people who barely saw you would suddenly begin calculating what it means that you now hold something they want.
You sit very still.
It is an old instinct. In childhood, stillness was survival. Stillness made you harder to notice when Valeria wanted to mock your thrift-store dresses or when Mariana wanted the guests to admire her polished stepdaughter instead of the awkward girl who preferred books to parties. Stillness made you smaller, and smaller often felt safer.
But today, stillness does something new.
It makes them nervous.
“What is Hacienda San Gabriel?” you ask.
Everyone turns toward you.
Your own voice surprises you. Calm. Even. Almost detached.
Ricardo studies you for a beat, then opens a second file from his briefcase. “A property in Jalisco. Originally acquired by your grandfather in the late 1970s under a holding name. It was later transferred privately into your father’s control. The estate includes agricultural land, a main house, several outbuildings, an archive room, and mineral rights.”
“Mineral rights?” Esteban says sharply.
