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He caught his girlfriend, a luxury enthusiast, abusing his frail old mother – his reaction proved what kind of man he really was.
The silence of the afternoon was broken by a scream of pain that froze the blood of everyone who heard it at the entrance to the luxurious Álvarez estate; a scene that no one should have seen was unfolding at that very moment.
He wanted to surprise her romantically, arrive early, and see her smile at this unexpected gesture. But as Rafael opened the front door of the mansion, the bouquet slipped from his hands and fell onto the marble floor, splashing water and petals at his feet. What he saw next not only ruined the surprise he had planned, but also the entire future he had envisioned.
There stood Barbara, his girlfriend, impeccably dressed in designer clothes, her hair perfectly styled, her face contorted with pure hatred, the likes of which Rafael had never seen before. At his feet, stretched out on the cold floor of the corridor, lay Doña Marta, his mother, the 68-year-old woman who had raised him alone, who had worked for years to give him an education, who had never raised her voice against anyone, curled up there, her face marked by tears and blood from a cut on her forehead.
Barbara’s voice echoed through the mansion with a cruelty that seemed to come from the depths of hell: “Soon you’ll be in a nursing home far away from here, where your son will never find you. Never.” Then Rafael saw Barbara take her foot off the gas to kick her mother in the ribs. He saw Doña Marta curl up even tighter, moaning in pain, her trembling hands trying to protect her face. He saw Marina, the housekeeper’s daughter and a childhood friend, try to intervene, but she was pinned against the wall.
“Please…” whispered Doña Marta, fear in her stomach. “Please don’t separate me from my son. I beg you.” Time seemed to stand still.
Rafael froze for only two seconds, his mind trying to grasp the impossibility of what he was seeing. The woman he was to marry the next day, the one who had called his mother “Mama” with such affection for months, the one who brought gifts, who embraced Doña Marta with obvious tenderness, who claimed to be the perfect daughter-in-law… It was all a lie. Absolutely everything.
Rafael’s scream echoed through the estate with such force that Barbara stopped abruptly and refused to put her foot down again. She turned her head, and for the first time in months, Rafael saw genuine fear in her eyes. Not fear of what she was doing, but fear of having been discovered.
Rafael ran. His confident strides crossed the corridor in seconds, unconsciously kicking rose petals and shards of glass. He knelt beside his mother, his trembling hands gently stroking his injured face.
“Mom, my God, what has he done to you? How did we get here?” Rafael asked, his heart broken. “How could a friend who seemed so perfect hide such cruelty?”
After her father’s death, when Rafael was only twelve years old, Doña Marta worked tirelessly as a seamstress, ironer, and even as a domestic servant for private families. All this to ensure her son received an education and future prospects. “My son will succeed,” she said with the unwavering faith typical of a mother. And Rafael did not disappoint her.
With a degree in business administration, he built his own business empire and, by the age of 35, owned one of the city’s largest technology companies. But success never went to his head. He brought Doña Marta to the estate he had bought, gave her all the comforts she had never known, and never forgot the nights when her mother wept silently, worrying about how she would pay the bills.
Even on her estate, Doña Marta remained the same humble woman as before. She rose early to pray, volunteered at the local church, and treated everyone with the same kindness and respect, from the driver to the businessmen who visited Rafael. She wore simple clothes, cared little for expensive jewelry, and her greatest joy was seeing her son happy.
Marina was practically part of the family. The daughter of Doña Célia, the housekeeper who had worked at the mansion since Rafael bought it, Marina had played with him since childhood. Now, at 28, she was a nurse in a public hospital, caring for the poorest patients with a compassion reminiscent of Doña Marta.
Marina had soft brown eyes, brown hair tied back in a practical ponytail, and a smile that lit up any room. She and Rafael shared a deep friendship built on years of mutual trust and affection.
Rafael met Bárbara Mendoza at a charity gala. The 32-year-old ran a luxury boutique in the city’s most exclusive district and immediately caught his attention. Bárbara was stunning: blonde, tall, always impeccably dressed, with perfect nails and flawless makeup. She spoke three languages, knew all the great vintages, and frequented the most fashionable restaurants. For Rafael, who had always been discreet and absorbed in his business, Bárbara seemed to bring the glamour that was missing from his life.
When they first met, Barbara whispered in Rafael’s ear, her blue eyes sparkling with a gleam he interpreted as admiration, but which was actually pure ambition. Their idyllic romance was swift and intense. Barbara was caring, loving, and above all, seemed to idolize Doña Marta from the very beginning.
Doña Marta, with her big heart, was deeply moved. Her eyes filled with tears of joy at seeing her son so happy, so in love. Marina, who was helping Doña Célia in the living room, watched the scene with a strange sadness she couldn’t explain. There was something in Bárbara’s smile that she couldn’t quite grasp, but she pushed the thought away, feeling guilty for doubting her friend’s happiness.
“Rafael, my son, she is beautiful and seems to have a heart of gold,” Doña Marta remarked later, tenderly taking her son’s hands. “If you are happy, I am too. God bless this idyllic scene.”
And Rafael was happy… Or so he thought. In his eyes, Barbara was the ideal girlfriend: always kind to Doña Marta, always caring, always present.
In the following weeks, she brought her future mother-in-law gifts: a soft scarf, a prayer book, chocolates. She called Doña Marta “dear Mama” and even offered her arm to help her walk when Rafael was nearby. “How lucky you are to have such a wonderful mother-in-law!” her friends told her, and she smiled, playing her part perfectly.
But what no one saw, what happened in Rafael’s absence, was quite different. And the real Bárbara was on the verge of revealing her darkest side. Bárbara’s mask fell away for the first time on a Tuesday afternoon, exactly two weeks after he had met Doña Marta.
Rafael had left for an important meeting at his office, and Barbara had stayed at the mansion, ostensibly to help her expectant mother choose a dress for the engagement dinner that weekend. Doña Marta was in the living room leafing through a fashion magazine Barbara had brought when she heard footsteps approaching. She looked up with a friendly smile, expecting to see her daughter-in-law as affectionate as ever.
But what he saw was a completely different expression. Barbara’s blue eyes were cold, devoid of tenderness. Her smile was gone, replaced by a thin, cruel line on her perfectly made lips. “Let’s be clear, old woman,” Barbara said in a low voice, almost a whisper, yet every word sounded like ice.
She approached Doña Marta with a calculating step, like a predator stalking its prey. “All this charade is for Rafael, because I need him to marry me. But you’re bothering me,” Bárbara said. Doña Marta felt her blood run cold. Her hands began to tremble, and the magazine fell heavily to the floor.
She tried to speak, but the words caught in her throat. “No… I don’t understand…” Finally, she whispered. “No,” Barbara laughed with a joyless laugh, full of venom. “I want to be perfectly clear: After I marry Rafael, you will disappear from our lives. I’ve already planned everything. There’s a magnificent retirement home in Switzerland, very far away, very expensive, very isolated.”
“No!” whispered Doña Marta, tears burning in her eyes. “My son would never allow that.” Her voice trembled so much that it was difficult for her to speak. “Your son won’t even notice,” continued Bárbara, leaning closer, his face close to Doña Marta’s. “I’ll tell him that you’re confused, that you have memory problems, that you need special care that only a suitable facility can provide. I’ll convince him that it’s for your own good, and he’ll believe me because he loves and trusts me.”
Doña Marta placed her hand on her chest and felt her heart pounding. Seventy years of life, and she had never felt such profound fear.
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