The divorce wasn’t quick…
But it was clean.
Because I had decided not to leave any loose ends.
Fernando spent the first few weeks sending me messages at all hours.
Some were angry.
Others were rehearsed regrets.
“We can fix it.”
“I didn’t want to lose you.”
“Everything got complicated.
” “Mateo isn’t to blame.”
In that last point, at least, he was right.
The child was wrong.
That’s why every step I took was designed to strike only where it mattered:
His pride.
His lies.
His wallet.
My lawyers filed the civil suit and prepared the criminal one.
The audit was precise:
Forty-eight unjustified transactions in twenty-six months.
A rental paid with company funds.
Two insurance policies.
A car registered in his name financed from the operating account.
Cash withdrawals without supporting documentation.
Fernando tried to defend himself by saying they were “advances.”
But these supposed advances had never been approved by anyone.
Least of all by me.
I was the sole partner.
His own lawyer ended up advising him to accept a settlement.
He accepted because he had no other choice.
He sold his car.
A motorcycle he hardly ever used.
And a small plot of land he had bought near Toluca ,
convinced that one day he would build a second home there.
With that, he returned part of the money.
He waived in writing any claims regarding the company, the house, and the furniture acquired before or during the marriage with my own funds.
In exchange, I dropped the criminal charges.
Not out of compassion.
Out of calculation.
Such a process would have taken years.
And it would have implicated Matthew as well.
The last time I saw him in an office was at the notary’s, on the day of the final signing.
He was wearing a wrinkled shirt.
He had that look of a man who can’t distinguish between being defeated and destroying himself.
He signed without looking at me.
When he finished, he asked with a dry bitterness:
—Are you happy with this now?
I put my copy away.
I stood up.
—No. I was happy before you decided to live as if I were an administrator of your whims.
Now I’m just at peace.
For a while, I heard news about him through third parties.
That he had taken on short-term contracts.
That Camila didn’t get back together with him.
That he saw Mateo some weekends in Mérida.
That he tried to start a small business with a friend and failed because no one wanted to give him credit for supplies.
In Mexico City, the business world isn’t huge.
People can forget infidelity…
but they rarely forget mismanagement.
I moved forward.
I reorganized the company.
I cleaned up the accounts.
I fired two employees who had concealed expenses.
I hired a finance director.
A year later, we opened a new warehouse.
We won back customers he had put at risk through negligence.
I didn’t need to reinvent my life for anyone else.
It was enough for me to truly rebuild my own.
Three years later, I was leaving a meeting.
I saw him across the street.
He was wearing gray overalls.
He was waiting next to a delivery van.
He had aged more than he should have.
He looked up at the facade of my company.
He stood motionless.
Above the door, in new letters, shone the name that should always have been there: Reyes Suministros .
He didn’t come to talk to me.
There was no need.
I understood then exactly what I had taken from him.
Not just a company.
Not just a house.
Not just a position.
I broke him of the habit of feeling indispensable in a place that never belonged to him.
And that was what he regretted most for the rest of his life:
Not having lost because he loved another woman…
But having lost everything because he believed that I would continue waiting while he divided my world as if it were his own.
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