Four.
Five.
“What’s wrong?” Diego insisted.
Camila stood up.
“Nothing… just… a problem at one of the hotels.”
But his voice was no longer steady.
The atmosphere was tense.
He picked up the phone.
Call.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Why is it closed?”
Pause.
His face hardened.
“What do you mean by an inspection? It wasn’t planned!”
My stepfather left the newspaper.
“Inspection?”
Camila didn’t answer.
He was pacing back and forth.
“No, no, no… it’s not possible… Find a solution!”
He hung up.
Another phone vibrated.
He answered.
“What do you mean by ‘closed’? It’s impossible!”
The silence at the table was no longer comfortable.
It was dense.
Heavy.
Diego looked at me.
I remained seated.
Drinking coffee.
Peaceful.
“Lucía…” he said softly. “What have you done?”
I didn’t answer.
Camila hung up another call.
Her breathing was uneven.
“This can’t be happening…” she murmured. “All three… all three hotels…”
“What happened?” asked her mother, now truly nervous.
Camila looked up.
And for the first time…
There was fear.
Real fear.
“They closed them.”
Absolute silence.
“What do you mean, they closed them?” asked her father.
“Health inspection… tax audit… I don’t know… all at the same time…”
Her voice broke.
“It’s not a coincidence…”
Her eyes moved slowly.
Until they stopped on me.
I left the cup on the table.
Gently.
“No,” I said— That’s not the case.
Diego stood up.
“Lucía, what have you done?”
I looked at him.
Calmly.
“What I should have done five years ago.”
I took out a file.
I placed it on the table.
“The money you used to open your first hotel…” I said, looking at Camila, “was in my name.”
She immediately denied it.
“That’s a lie.”
I opened the file.
Papers.
Signatures.
Stamps.
“Opening contract. Initial tax registration. Transfers.”
I handed the documents to her.
“Everything goes through me.”
Her face went pale.
“That… that doesn’t mean anything…”
“It means everything,” I replied. “Because there are irregularities too.”
Pause.
“A lot.”
My mother-in-law stood up.
“Lucía, what are you doing?”
I looked at her.
“Stop being ‘a family.'”
Silence returned.
But this time…
No one dared laugh.
Camila took a step back.
“You… you wouldn’t dare…”
I tilted my head slightly.
“After yesterday?”
A pause.
Her hands began to tremble.
“You’re going to destroy everything…”
I stared at her.
“No.”
I shook my head slowly.
“I don’t know.”
And I let the last sentence fall.
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