PART 1
CHAPTER 1: THE WEDDING OF LIES

The heat in Cuernavaca always has a sticky texture, but that afternoon, in the gardens of Hacienda San Gabriel, the air felt heavy for reasons beyond humidity: it smelled of old money, stale hypocrisy, and betrayal.

We were in the heart of the “City of Eternal Spring,” at one of those restored colonial haciendas that rent out for half a million pesos for a weekend. The volcanic stone walls were covered with fuchsia bougainvillea and white orchids imported from Holland—my mother-in-law Catalina Montemayor’s whim. She insisted that national flowers were “far too rustic” for a wedding of her status.

Five hundred guests filled the tables set beneath a white silk canopy. The crème de la crème of Mexican society was there: politicians famous for embezzlement scandals, businessmen who owned half the country, and socialites whose faces could no longer express emotion because of excessive Botox. All of them were staring at me.

I stood alone in the center of the dance floor. My husband, Emilio Montemayor, had stepped away a few feet, champagne glass in hand, nervously laughing with his golf-club friends—those “mirreyes” who have never worked a single day in their lives and who call their unlimited credit cards “dad.”

Silence fell over the garden when Catalina took the microphone. The sharp feedback made several guests cover their ears, but she didn’t flinch. She smoothed her silver Carolina Herrera dress, looked me up and down with that expression women from Las Lomas reserve for people they consider “domestic staff,” and smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile; it was the smile of a predator who knows her prey is trapped.

“Attention please, dear family, friends…” Her voice—polished in the best private schools—boomed through the Bose speakers. “Before we continue with the banquet, and before they serve the duck mole—which, by the way, the chef prepared especially for refined palates—I want to make a very special toast.”

She paused theatrically. I clenched the bouquet in my hands. My knuckles were white. Hidden among the rose stems and baby’s breath was my cellphone. The screen was on, brightness dimmed. A timer ran silently.

07:00 minutes.
Seven minutes. That was all the Montemayor empire had left.

“Look at the bride,” Catalina said, her tone turning from sweet to acidic in a single second. “Look at her dress.”

Five hundred pairs of eyes drilled into me. I felt their stares like stones.

“Isn’t it… curious?” she continued, pacing with the microphone. “We really tried to take her to New York, Paris, even Masaryk to buy her something decent. But you know what they say: ‘You can dress a monkey in silk, but it’s still a monkey.’”

Nervous giggles rippled from nearby tables.

“In the end,” Catalina sighed, pretending resignation, “she insisted on choosing her own outfit. Tell me—did you get that rag at a Soriana clearance sale? Or did you steal it from some maid’s closet before coming?”

The room exploded. Not discreet laughter this time—open, cruel, ringing laughter.

I stayed perfectly still.

The dress they mocked was simple, synthetic fabric, empire cut. It had cost me 479 pesos in an end-of-season sale. A small loose thread dangled from the hem. To them, that thread proved my genetic and social inferiority. To me, that dress was armor.

I looked at Emilio. My husband. The man who, barely an hour earlier at the altar, had sworn to love and respect me. Now, under his mother’s pressure and his social circle’s gaze, he had shrunk into a frightened boy.

“Come on, Mom, don’t be like that,” Emilio muttered weakly, avoiding my eyes as he took another long drink. He preferred getting drunk to defending me. He preferred being a rich coward over a decent husband.

David Montemayor—the patriarch, the man Forbes México had named “Visionary of the Year”—stood up. His face was flushed from the Blue Label whisky he’d been drinking since eleven that morning. He tapped his glass with a silver fork.

“Alright, silence please,” he ordered. Everyone obeyed instantly.

“My wife has a point, even if she’s a bit… direct.” He stepped closer to me, smelling of expensive tobacco and woody cologne. He leaned toward my ear so only I could hear at first.

“Enjoy it, girl,” he whispered venomously. “Because tomorrow, when you sign that paper and we give you your settlement, you’ll go back to the hole you crawled out of.”

Then he turned to the crowd, arms spread.

“Let’s be honest, family. We’re not here celebrating love. Leave that for five-o’clock soap operas. We all know why this girl—Yazmín… what was your last name? Bautista, right? Such a common, such a… provincial name—we all know why she’s here.”

He savored the moment.

“Some women spread their legs for love. Others for pleasure. But this one… she did it for a hot meal. To escape hunger. An investment. A classic gold dig.”

The crowd went wild. Flashes blinded me. Phones streamed live. I imagined the hashtags:

MontemayorWedding #PoorGirl #SoEmbarrassing

I didn’t cry.

I lowered my gaze to my bouquet.
04:32 minutes.

They saw Yazmín, the supermarket cashier from Iztapalapa. They didn’t see the woman who had spent three years teaching herself Python, C++, and blockchain on a rebuilt computer. They didn’t see Guillermo Bautista’s daughter.

“You know what’s worst?” Catalina continued. “She isn’t even grateful. Look at her face. Standing there like a statue. She should be kissing our feet for rescuing her from misery.”

My heart thundered.

I remembered my father. Guillermo Bautista. A dreamer. A mathematical genius who believed technology could level the playing field. The night he died, I was twelve. Tacos on the kitchen table. A phone call. His face changed.

“I have to go to the office, Yaz. David says the servers are down.”

“Don’t go, Dad. It’s late.”

“It’ll be quick, love.”

He kissed my forehead. He smelled of Zote soap and coffee.

He never came back.

The official story: a robbery gone wrong. The truth: David Montemayor needed my father’s algorithm.

And now, fifteen years later, my father’s killer was toasting with Moët & Chandon.

Emilio staggered toward me. “Yaz, please… say something. Apologize. If you don’t, my mom will destroy you.”

“Do you want me to speak, Emilio?”

“Yes, baby. Say the dress was a mistake. Make them happy.”

I smiled. Coldly.

“Alright. I’ll speak.”

01:58 minutes.

The acquisition deal—950 million dollars—waited for my digital signature.

David raised his glass. “A toast! To charity! To welcoming this little mascot into our family!”

The sound of clinking glass made me nauseous.

00:30 seconds.

“You’re right,” I said into the microphone.

Satisfied murmurs spread.

“I bought the dress on clearance,” I continued. “It cost what you tip a waiter.”

Laughter again.

“But there’s something you don’t know. I bought it with clean money. Money I earned honestly.”

Catalina’s smile faltered.

“Not like you, Catalina,” I pointed at her, “who’s never worked a day in her life and wears stolen money.”

Dead silence.

“Shut up,” I told her when she tried to speak. And she did.

I pulled the phone from my bouquet and raised it high.

The screen turned bright green.

TRANSACTION REJECTED. ACQUISITION CANCELED.

“You said I didn’t even have five hundred pesos,” I said calmly. “You’re right. In my personal account, I have three hundred. But in my corporate account…”

The projector screen changed.

$347,000,000.00 USD

Gasps. A glass shattered.

“I’m Yazmín Bautista,” I said. “Senior Vice President of Acquisitions at Jang Industries.”

David trembled.

“Yes,” I continued. “The deal that would save your empire. The one I just canceled.”

Chaos loomed.

But I was just getting started.