And right there, in front of everyone, I realized the worst part of the night had only just begun.
PART 2
The next morning, my father arrived at my apartment holding two OXXO coffees and wearing an expression that looked ten years older than the night before.
“Don’t lie to me,” he said the second I opened the door. “I need to know everything.”
So I showed him.
He refused to sit until I pulled up every transfer, one by one. Month after month. Dates, amounts, blank descriptions because Veronica had always insisted on discretion. My father stared at the screen without blinking, his jaw locked tight.
“She told me she was using money her mother left her,” he said quietly.
“That money ran out a long time ago,” I answered. “Everything after that came from me.”
His breathing shifted.
By noon, we were at the bank. He had gathered statements, old papers, folded notices, and half-open envelopes from a drawer in Veronica’s office. I still wanted to believe there had been real emergencies, something that could explain the disaster. But the truth was worse.
The house they lived in was three months behind on mortgage payments.
