CHAPTER 6: PLAN B
Plan B had a name.
Santa Lucía Wellness Institute.
The brochure looked soft and expensive. White walls. Gardens. Private rooms. Discreet care for high-profile families. The kind of place wealthy men sent inconvenient women when they wanted cruelty to sound like concern.
Mariana held the brochure between two fingers.
It felt dirty.
Renata opened the folder Clara had saved.
Inside were intake forms.
Not blank.
Pre-filled.
Patient name: Mariana Salazar Aranda.
Presenting symptoms: emotional instability, paranoid delusions, aggressive outbursts, infertility-related breakdown, marital fixation.
Mariana’s throat tightened.
The words were clean.
Clinical.
Deadly.
Rodrigo had built a cage out of medical language.
Renata’s face hardened.
“These were prepared before the dinner.”
Clara nodded.
“Two weeks before.”
Mariana looked at her.
“You knew?”
“I suspected. Then I found the forms in Doña Elvira’s study.”
“Elvira?”
Clara opened another envelope.
Inside was a handwritten note.
My son cannot lose the trust because Mariana refuses her role. If she becomes unstable on record, Gustavo will have to negotiate.
Signed with Elvira’s initials.
Mariana sat down.
Not because she was weak.
Because the truth had weight.
The insults about fertility had not only been humiliation.
They had been groundwork.
If Mariana cried, she was unstable.
If she fought, aggressive.
If she feared them, paranoid.
If she refused divorce, fixated.
Every natural response to betrayal had been pre-labeled as evidence against her.
Renata called Gustavo immediately.
He arrived in less than an hour.
When he read the forms, he did not speak for a full minute.
Then he said:
“I failed you before the marriage. I will not fail you in the war.”
Mariana looked at him.
“Stop calling it war.”
He blinked.
She stood.
“It’s not war. War makes him sound equal.”
Renata almost smiled.
Then her phone rang.
It was the court.
Rodrigo’s emergency petition had been granted a preliminary hearing the next morning.
He wanted access to Las Lomas, reinstatement of certain personal accounts, and a protective order against Gustavo’s security team. His filing included sworn statements from Ximena and Elvira claiming Mariana had been erratic, jealous, and dangerous.
Mariana listened.
Then asked:
“Did he mention Santa Lucía?”
Renata looked at the papers.
“No.”
“Good.”
The next morning, Rodrigo arrived in court wearing a navy suit and the face of a wronged husband.
Ximena sat behind him.
Elvira beside her.
Both women wore black.
Performance again.
Rodrigo’s lawyer argued Mariana had weaponized family wealth to destroy a man she wanted to punish. He described Rodrigo as “a devoted husband under extreme emotional pressure.”
Mariana sat silently.
Renata waited.
Then she stood.
“Your Honor, we have evidence the petitioner prepared false psychiatric intake documents before the night in question.”
Rodrigo’s face went pale.
Elvira’s hand froze around her purse.
Renata submitted the forms.
The judge read.
The room cooled.
Rodrigo’s lawyer tried to object.
The judge raised one hand.
“Was Mrs. Salazar ever evaluated by Santa Lucía Wellness Institute?”
“No, Your Honor,” Renata said.
“Did she consent to admission?”
“No.”
“Who prepared these forms?”
Renata looked at Rodrigo.
“That is what we intend to determine.”
Then Clara testified.
Quietly.
Precisely.
With dates.
Locations.
Copies.
Elvira tried to stare her down.
Clara did not blink.
At the end of her testimony, she turned toward Mariana.
“I am sorry I did not bring them sooner.”
Mariana shook her head.
“You brought them in time.”
The judge denied Rodrigo’s petition.
All access to Las Lomas remained barred.
Rodrigo’s personal accounts tied to Salazar assets stayed frozen.
And the psychiatric documents were referred for investigation.
Outside court, Ximena followed Mariana into the corridor.
Her face was pale.
“I need to talk to you.”
Renata stepped in front of Mariana.
Ximena whispered:
“Rodrigo lied to me too.”
Mariana stared at her.
“That is not a bond.”
“No,” Ximena said. “But I have the recording of Plan B.”
The corridor went silent.
May you like
“And there’s something else,” Ximena added.
“Elvira wasn’t the one who wrote it.”
