“Patricia?” my mother whispered, her voice cracking. “What is this? What does this mean?”
My aunt didn’t look at my mother. She looked at Mrs. Rebeca Rivas. A silent, terrifying communication passed between them—a look of failed conspirators.
“It means,” the principal said, her voice regaining its steel as she looked at the printed sheets in the folder, “that this was never just about a teenage pregnancy. It was about a predatory cover-up.”
The Unveiling of the Pact
The principal turned the laptop screen toward the room. The video continued. We saw Aunt Patricia take a thick white envelope from Mrs. Rebeca—not the yellow one my father had rejected, but another.
“Valeria’s parents are stubborn,” Patricia’s recorded voice hissed on the speakers. “But she’s just a child. She drinks what I give her. She trusts me. By the end of the month, there won’t be a ‘problem’ for Mateo to worry about.”
