Chapter 18 - Shadows in the City
While our valley thrived in the light of honest labor, the remnants of high society continued to fade into obscurity.
Word reached us through legal channels that Doña Bernarda had suffered a severe stroke and was now confined to a modest care facility, her fortune entirely liquidated, her former friends having long since forgotten her name. Roberto had vanished somewhere out west, swallowed by the anonymity of hard physical labor—a harsh lesson in humility that no amount of family pride could ever erase.
I felt no malice toward them anymore. Hatred required an investment of energy I no longer cared to waste. They were simply chapters in a book I had already finished reading.
One evening, while visiting the provincial capital for a government trade summit, my car passed down the very street where the Villareal mansion sat behind its iron gates.
I instructed my driver to slow down.
The grand estate looked desolate. The paint on the wrought-iron fence was peeling; the gardens were overgrown with weeds; the massive windows stared out at the street like blind eyes. The county had seized the property for unpaid municipal taxes, and it stood as a hollow monument to the fragility of old money built on cruelty and exploitation.
May you like
I rolled up the car window, leaned back against the comfortable leather seat, and spoke to my driver.
"Let's go home."
