“See?” Valeria whispered loudly enough to be heard.
Diego squeezed her hand and smirked. He did not say anything to you directly, which somehow made it worse. He just looked at you with that lazy, relieved contempt of a man who thought the law had blessed his theft, then stepped into the rain like somebody entering a future already paid for.
Rebecca handed you a coffee.
“Last chance to tell me you want to stop at transferring the funds and leave the rest to God,” she said.
You wrapped both hands around the cup and watched Diego descend the courthouse steps like a man leaving a casino with someone else’s money in his pocket. “God has had three years,” you replied. “He can take the afternoon off.”
Rebecca’s mouth twitched.
Across the street, Diego’s phone rang before he even reached the curb. You saw him glance down, frown, and lift it to his ear with the confidence of a man expecting routine. That confidence lasted all of eight seconds. From where you stood, you couldn’t hear the words, but you saw his shoulders stiffen, his jaw go tight, and his free hand shoot toward the screen.
Valeria’s smile slipped first.
He barked something into the phone. Then he opened his banking app with the frantic speed of a man trying to outscroll disaster. You saw it happen on his face, the exact second his expression changed from annoyance to disbelief. The kind of disbelief greedy men reserve for the possibility that someone else has touched what they already counted as theirs.
“Let him enjoy that,” Rebecca murmured.
