ADVERTISEMENT
“Who said that?”
Sofia closed her eyes.
“Carmen. Javier’s mother.”
That name turned my blood cold.
Carmen Robles had walked into my home three months earlier wearing gold jewelry, expensive perfume, and the kind of eyes that measured square footage before they measured character. Her son Javier looked perfect on paper—a young attorney, luxury car, tailored suits, clean smile, polite voice.
Sofia was in love.
And I did not want to be the bitter mother who ruined her daughter’s happiness, even though something about that family made my stomach tighten from the beginning.
The second time Carmen visited, she looked around my living room like she was pricing it.
“I heard Sofia’s father has serious assets,” she said casually. “And that Sofia owns a condo in Uptown Dallas.”
I answered coldly.
“That condo belongs to Sofia. No one touches it.”
It was true.
My ex-husband, Alexander, had signed it over to Sofia after our divorce—a luxury condo worth almost $1.8 million, the only safe piece of property our daughter had in her name.
Carmen smiled too slowly.
“Of course,” she said. “I’m only asking so I know what kind of family my son is marrying into.”
Then came the so-called “wedding contribution.”
Carmen wanted cash, jewelry, and “security guarantees,” as if my daughter were entering a business deal instead of a marriage. I refused, but Sofia cried and told me Javier loved her, that his family was just traditional, that I was looking for problems where there weren’t any.
In the end, I agreed to a bigger wedding than I wanted.
But I made one thing clear.
The condo would never be transferred to anyone.
Now my daughter was trembling on my couch with her back covered in marks.
“After the reception, Javier took me to the hotel suite,” Sofia sobbed. “I thought we were finally going to be alone.”
She covered her face with shaking hands.
“But then he said he had something to handle and left. Twenty minutes later, his mother walked in with six women and locked the door behind them.”
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
ADVERTISEMENT