Chapter 1: The Glass Tower
It was nearly eight at night, and I was still in my glass-walled office in Polanco, staring out at the sprawling, glittering skyline of Mexico City. The last of the employees had long since trickled out to elevators and parking garages, completely unaware that the foundation of my life was about to fracture. The hum of the air conditioning was the only sound in the executive suite. I had just finalized the most important acquisition of the year, a grueling corporate merger that would expand our firm across Latin America. The ink on the contracts was barely dry, securing bonuses generous enough to fund yet another year of my husband’s relentless indulgences.
For years, I had worked tirelessly to sustain what our social circle casually referred to as “our lifestyle.” In truth, it was mine alone. It was a golden cage carefully built from my sleepless nights, my anxiety, and the strategic risks he never possessed the intellect or the spine to understand. My name is Sofía Aguilar, and I had spent the last decade building an empire, only to realize I had been sharing the throne with a parasite.