Chapter 10
Júlia’s embrace should have provided me with some kind of anchor.
In theory, it was exactly what a man broken by the loss of his mother needed: the comfort of someone familiar who understood the inner workings of my world, who knew how to handle the impending scandal, the obituaries, and the funeral formalities of a billionaire family.
But in practice, her closeness caused me unbearable suffocation.
Her perfume—expensive, sweet, and perfectly balanced—invaded my nostrils, competing grotesquely with the lingering smell of bleach wafting from the hallway. Júlia’s hands, with their impeccable porcelain nails, stroked my back in a mechanical, almost rehearsed rhythm.
I closed my eyes. I didn’t see Júlia’s face. The image that flashed through my mind was that of Maria Rita, her hair soaked, her eyes wide with terror, and her blood-stained hands begging for mercy in the rain.
A rush of adrenaline and revulsion ran down my spine.
I placed my hands on Júlia’s shoulders and pushed her back. The movement wasn’t violent, but it was firm enough to shatter any illusion of intimacy she was trying to create there.
Júlia blinked in surprise, her hands hovering in the air for a second before falling to her sides. Her perfectly applied mask of mourning faltered, revealing a flash of resentment.
“Eduardo?” she called, her voice soft, taking on a slightly hurt tone. “What’s wrong? Did I do something wrong?”
“No. You didn’t do anything, Júlia.” My voice came out rough, hoarse from the sleepless night and the whiskey. I took a step back, creating an insurmountable distance between us. “I appreciate you coming, and I appreciate the warning about what my mother told you. But you need to leave.”
She furrowed her brow, straightening her posture; her socialite instincts tried to navigate around the rejection.
“Eduardo, you’re in shock; you haven’t slept and you’re exhausted. I’m not going to leave you alone in this huge house dealing with all of this. The lawyers will start calling, the press will swarm the gates… I can take control of this for you. Let me help.”
“I don’t want any help.” I cut her off, my tone cold and final. “No lawyers, no press office, and—with all due respect—no you here either.”
Júlia’s throat worked. The direct, unfiltered rejection stung her pride. I saw her jaw clench slightly, but she was too well-trained to make a scene. She picked up the designer purse she’d left on my desk and slung it over her shoulder with stiff movements.
“I was just trying to be the friend Eleonora would want me to be for you right now,” she said, adopting the role of the misunderstood victim.
“I know, and I appreciate it. But I need to be alone. Completely alone, Júlia. My whole world has just come crashing down, and the last thing I can stand right now is company. Please. Go.”
She held my gaze for several long seconds, searching for any crack of weakness she could exploit. She found none. She nodded slowly, her expression returning to its polite and distant demeanor.
“All right. If you need me, you know where to find me. My condolences, Eduardo.”
She turned her back and walked out. The sound of her stiletto heels echoed across the floor, rhythmic and precise, until it faded down the hallway. I heard the heavy sound of the front door being opened by the security guards, and then the definitive click of the lock as she left.
Silence crashed down on me with the weight of an avalanche.
I walked over to the office window and pressed my forehead against the cold glass. The day outside was gray. The torrential rain had given way to a fine, persistent drizzle, leaving the mansion’s garden looking somber and waterlogged.
Alone, without Júlia’s intrigues, or Lurdes’ accusations, or even the blind fury that had overtaken me during the early hours of the morning, the silence forced me to think.
I was a man who had built an empire based on logic. I never made decisions without analyzing every angle of a contract. I anticipated my opponents’ moves even before they thought to act.
Why, then, did the crime scene in my own home make no sense?
I turned my back on the window and walked slowly out of the office toward the entry hall.
The white marble floor gleamed, spotless.
The blood had been cleaned up. The police tape had been removed.
It looked as if nothing had ever happened there.
Yet the ghost of my mother screamed in that empty space.
I stopped at the exact spot where her body had lain. I looked up at the top of the staircase.
If Maria Rita were the cold, calculating, and self-serving murderer that Júlia and my mother claimed she was… what did she gain from it?
A professional con artist doesn’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs without securing her own alibi. If Maria Rita had planned to eliminate my mother, why didn’t she do it cleanly? Why didn’t she poison her slowly? Or stage it to look like a robbery?
Even more disturbing: why didn’t she run away?
I closed my eyes, reliving the scene that had unfolded before me the previous afternoon.
When I walked through those doors, Maria Rita wasn’t calling a lawyer. She hadn’t faked fainting. She was kneeling on the floor, covered in my mother’s blood, crying hysterically and begging me to save her.
And, even worse, I relived the moment in the early morning when I kicked her out.
She didn’t demand her rights, nor did she threaten to sue me—as any woman advised by lawyers would do—nor did she ask for a share of my fortune.
Maria Rita begged me for a coat and not to be thrown out into the rain.
The desperation in her eyes was raw, primal—the absolute terror of a wounded, cornered animal.
What had I done?
The thought hit me with the force of a derailed train. My legs gave way, and I had to brace myself against the icy banister of the staircase to keep from falling.
What if Júlia were lying? What if my mother, blinded by prejudice and hatred, had brought about the tragedy herself by attacking Maria Rita? Perhaps the tears of the woman I loved were, in fact, the purest truth?
I looked at the double doors of solid oak, the very same doors I’d ordered the security guards to lock. I had cast my wife—the girl from the sert?o whom I’d sworn to protect—out into the middle of a storm in S?o Paulo, wearing nothing but bloodstained rags, with no money and nowhere to go.
A lump formed in my throat, so painful it prevented me from breathing.
If she were guilty, justice would exact its price. But if she were innocent… I had become the worst executioner to ever walk this earth, and the possibility that I had committed the greatest atrocity of my life against the only woman I had ever loved devoured me alive, cell by cell.