Chapter 8
Dawn in S?o Paulo brought no light, only a gray pallor that crept through the mansion’s windows like toxic smoke.
I was sitting in the leather armchair in my office on the ground floor, in exactly the same position in which I had collapsed hours earlier.
I hadn’t closed my eyes for a single second.
The half-empty bottle of whiskey rested on the mahogany desk, next to a crystal glass that I had emptied and refilled repeatedly throughout the early hours of the morning, seeking a numbness that stubbornly refused to come.
The silence in the house was complete and deafening.
The smell of industrial cleaning products and bleach seeped through the cracks in the office door.
Lurdes and the other employees had spent the entire early morning scrubbing the marble in the entry hall as soon as the forensic team cleared the scene.
They wanted to erase the blood… the physical stain of the tragedy.
But the stain on my mind was impossible to remove.
Every time I blinked, the nightmare would start all over again. I saw my mother’s contorted body at the foot of the staircase. I saw her lifeless eyes, her skin taking on that cadaverous hue that would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.
Then, the image of her was replaced by that of Maria Rita.
I pressed my fingers to my temples and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the memory.
But it was useless. The image of my wife kneeling on the sidewalk beneath the torrential downpour, her hair plastered to her face and her frail body shivering from the cold while I ordered the gates locked, had been seared into my memory with a red-hot iron.
I threw her out onto the street.
In the middle of the night. With no money, no coat, and nowhere to go.
The protective instinct that had driven me since the day I met her in the Northeast was screaming in the back of my mind, calling me a monster.
A part of me was in agony, wondering where she might be at that very moment, if she’d found shelter, if she was safe…
Then the hatred resurfaced, thick and suffocating, smothering any spark of compassion.
“She’s a murderer,” I repeated to myself aloud, consumed by alcohol and exhaustion. “She killed my mother.”
I needed to cling to that rage. It was the only thing keeping me together.
If I let doubt creep in, if I allowed myself to consider, for a split second, that her tears were genuine, I would go mad.
The blood on her hands was irrefutable proof.
Lurdes witnessed the hatred between the two of them.
It was a simple calculation, her instinct for survival against the woman who threatened her glass castle.
Maria Rita wasn’t the angel I’d made her out to be. She was a fatal mistake for which my mother paid with her own life.
Three sharp knocks on the office door snapped me out of my trance.
“Mr. Vasconcelos?” Lurdes’s voice sounded muffled from the other side of the thick wood.
I straightened my posture, running my hands over my face to wipe away any trace of weakness. I adjusted the collar of my wrinkled shirt.
“Come in,” I said in a dry voice.
The door opened slowly. Lurdes had sunken, red eyes and was wearing her usual impeccable uniform. She didn’t look me in the eye, keeping her head slightly bowed as a sign of mourning.
“Sir, please forgive me for disturbing you at this hour. But… there’s a visitor.”
I frowned. It was just past seven in the morning. The news of my mother’s death must already be splashed across all the city’s gossip sites and newspapers, but no one from my family or business circle would dare show up at the mansion without first being announced by the lawyers.
“I told Roberto I don’t want to see anyone, Lurdes. Tell them I’m not feeling well and send them away.”
“Ms. Ferraz is here, sir.” Lurdes hesitated, clasping her hands in front of her. “She’s very shaken. The security guards let her in because… well, because Dona Eleonora always welcomed her at any hour.”
The name Júlia struck me like an echo from a past life.
Júlia Ferraz. Daughter of one of the country’s most prominent bankers.
We dated for three years before I took over as president of the construction company.
It was the perfect relationship in my mother’s eyes: heirs to empires who would unite to strengthen their dynasties.
But there was no passion. It was a social contract—cold and monotonous—that I ended as soon as I realized that life had to be more than gala dinners and polished appearances.
My mother never forgave me for breaking up with Júlia, and even less so for replacing her, years later, with a woman from the Northeast who didn’t have a last name.
“Send her in,” I sighed, resigning myself to the bureaucratic drudgery of my position.
Lurdes nodded and stepped back. Less than a minute later, the sound of high heels echoed across the wooden floor, stopping at the office doorway.
I looked up.
Júlia was standing there, looking like the cover of a magazine on how high society should dress in mourning.
She wore a black dress with a simple cut and fine fabric, her blonde hair perfectly arranged in a low bun.
Her blue eyes were slightly red, and her flawless makeup had been strategically smudged to convey emotion, without losing her elegance.
“Eduardo…” she whispered through a rehearsed sob.
She didn’t wait for an invitation. She crossed the room with quick steps, skirted around my desk, and threw herself into my arms.
I tensed. Her perfume—sweet, floral, and absurdly expensive—invaded my nostrils, suffocating me. My hands hesitated in the air for a second before resting lightly on her back.
“Júlia… what are you doing here so early?” I asked in a neutral voice, gently pushing her away by the shoulders.
She looked at me, her eyes brimming with tears, meeting my devastated expression.
“I saw the news. My dad called me. I didn’t even think twice, Eduardo—I just got in the car and came. My God, Eleonora… I can’t believe it. It’s a nightmare.”
“It’s worse than a nightmare,” I murmured, stepping back and resting my hips against the edge of my desk. I crossed my arms, creating a physical barrier between us. “I appreciate the visit and your condolences, Júlia. But I really am in no condition to see anyone.”
“I’m nobody, Eduardo,” she replied in a hurt tone, taking a step closer.
She touched the sleeve of my shirt with her perfectly manicured nails, creating a grotesque contrast with my pitiful state.
“I was part of this family. Your mother was like a second mother to me. She talked to me almost every day.”
That caught my attention.
“Did you two still talk?” I asked, furrowing my brow.
“Of course we did. She trusted me and was terrified, Eduardo.” Júlia lowered her voice, taking on an air of somber confidence. She glanced at the closed door, making sure no one was listening, before turning her eyes back to me. “She called me yesterday morning.”
My whole body went rigid.
“What did she say?”
Júlia sighed, feigning reluctance, and gently stroked my arm.
“Your mother was desperate. She said she couldn’t stand seeing what that woman was doing to you anymore. That she’d hired private investigators and was close to proving that Maria Rita was a con artist, that she’d planned everything from the start to infiltrate your life and take your money.”
I felt as if an invisible punch had hit me in the stomach. The air was knocked out of my lungs. Júlia’s words confirmed exactly what the police suspected and what my tormented mind had been trying to piece together.
“Eleonora was going to confront her, Eduardo,” Júlia continued, her soft voice dripping with lethal venom.
“She said she’d call her upstairs for a final conversation.
She said she’d kick her out of this house and protect you from that parasite…
and a few hours later… your mother is dead. She fell down a flight of stairs.”
I closed my eyes tightly. Hatred bubbled up again in my veins, thick and hot. With every word Júlia spoke, the nail in the coffin of Maria Rita’s innocence was hammered in harder.
“Your mother told me exactly the same thing yesterday, before I left for the construction site,” I admitted, my hoarse voice faltering with repressed emotion. “They argued. Maria Rita pushed her, Júlia. That wretch threw my mother down the stairs.”
Júlia brought her hands to her mouth in a gesture of horror.
“I knew it… I always knew there was something sinister about that girl,” Júlia whispered, moving even closer, her body almost pressed against mine.
She placed her hands on my chest, smoothing the wrinkled fabric of my shirt.
“Eleonora warned me. Your mother said, ‘Júlia, that woman is dangerous. She’s going to destroy my son.’ She gave her life trying to save you, Eduardo. ”
My throat tightened under the weight of that statement.
If Maria Rita was the poison, my mother had been the antidote destroyed in the process.
And the blame for that woman’s presence in this house was solely and exclusively mine.
I had brought her under my roof, sealing and signing Eleonora’s death sentence the moment I slipped that gold wedding ring onto Maria Rita’s bloodstained finger.
“The police took her to the station last night,” I said, staring into the emptiness of the room. “But my lawyer got her out of there. She hadn’t been formally charged.”
“And where is Maria Rita now?” Júlia asked, in a flash of genuine concern.
“I threw her out onto the street.”
A deathly silence fell over the office. Júlia blinked in surprise, but soon an imperceptible, relieved smile tugged at the corners of her lips. She slid her hands onto my shoulders and pulled me into an embrace, resting her head against my chest.
“You did what you had to do, Eduardo,” she murmured against my neck. “But don’t worry, you’re safe now. I’m here, and I’ll take care of everything. I’ll help you with the funeral, with the press, and I’ll be by your side, just as Eleonora always wanted us to be. Together.”
I stood motionless, my arms hanging at my sides, letting her hold me. Her presence didn’t bring me comfort, but it brought order. Júlia belonged to that world of cold marble and restrained grief. She embodied the logic of a universe that Maria Rita had upended.
As Júlia poured her poisoned consolation into my ear, and the pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place, a microscopic prick of unease pierced my chaotic mind.
My mother had fallen down the stairs just a few hours earlier. I barely had time to absorb the blow, and the vultures were already beginning to circle, perfectly aligned, with prepared speeches and timely visits.
For the first time in that endless early morning, a disturbing question crossed my tormented mind—dampened by pain, yet persistent: if Maria Rita had planned it all, why didn’t she run away?
Why did she stay kneeling over my mother’s body, covered in blood and screaming for help, instead of creating a perfect alibi?