Chapter 2 - The Return with the Badges
The hallway of the third floor smelled like burnt lard and cheap bleach.
At 2:15 PM, the quiet apartment building on Calle Niños Héroes shook under the thunderous boom of four heavy fist knocks against the reinforced steel door of Apartment 302.
BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.
“Policía de Investigación de la Ciudad de México!” a deep, authoritative voice boomed through the quiet corridor. “Open the door immediately!”
Inside Apartment 302, chaos had already erupted two hours earlier.
When Renata had hung up the phone, Iván had run into the kitchen in a blind panic, his face white as ash, telling Saúl that the police were downstairs. Saúl, drunk on his own arrogance and convinced that no woman could ever stand up to the Morales men, had laughed. He had poured himself another glass of tepid dark beer, sat back on the sofa, and told his mother that Renata was just bluffing to scare them.
“She’s a weak little dental assistant,” Saúl had sneered, wiping beer foam from his mustache. “She’s running to her lawyer friend to make noise. Let her come back. When she steps through that door, I’ll show her who pays the rent around here.”
“She doesn't pay rent, Saúl,” Iván had whispered, his voice trembling as he paced the narrow living room. “She owns the deed...”
“Shut up, Iván!” Doña Lucha had snapped from her armchair. “You are the husband! In Mexico, a husband owns what his wife buys! Stop shaking like a frightened dog!”
Now, as the heavy knocks echoed through the steel door, the laughter in the living room died a sudden, violent death.
Brenda, Saúl’s wife, pulled her two young sons into the back bedroom, her eyes wide with terror. Doña Lucha stood up, her jaw working furiously, while Saúl slowly rose from the sofa, his fists clenching at his sides.
“Don't open it!” Doña Lucha whispered. “They can’t come in without a judge’s paper!”
Outside the door, the judicial officer—a tall, thin woman in a sharp grey suit named Licenciada Ortega—nodded to the lead police officer.
“Execute the entry order,” she said coldly.
The judicial officer held an emergency entry writ signed by a criminal judge. The lead officer pulled an iron crowbar from his belt, jammed it into the frame near the deadbolt, and applied two hundred pounds of pressure.
CRACK.
The door frame splintered open with a sound like a splitting oak branch. The door swung wide, banging against the entrance wall.
Four uniformed officers from the Policía de Investigación poured into the tiny, overcrowded apartment, their black boots stomping heavily over the dirty rugs. Behind them walked Jimena Ramos, holding a thick leather briefcase, and right beside her stood Renata.
Renata was dressed in a clean black turtleneck, her hair pulled back into a neat, tight bun. She wore no makeup to hide the deep purple bruise resting like a dark shadow under her left eye, nor the dark swollen scab on her bottom lip. She looked directly at the family standing in her living room.
“Renata!” Doña Lucha shrieked, pointing an old, arthritic finger at her daughter-in-law’s face. “You brought pigs into our home?! Are you insane?! Look what you did to the door!”
“This is not your home, Doña Lucha,” Jimena cut in, her voice ringing out over the mother-in-law’s screams. “This is the private property of Señora Renata Aguilar Mendoza. And you are currently trespassing on a crime scene.”
Saúl stepped forward, his heavy chest puffed out, his face dark with rage. “Get the hell out of here!” he roared, aiming his finger at Jimena’s face. “Iván, tell these people to leave! Tell them this is your house!”
Iván stood frozen by the dining table, his arms hanging limp at his sides, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. He looked at the police officers, he looked at his brother, and then he looked at Renata.
“Renata... please,” Iván whimpered, taking half a step toward her. “We can talk about this... why are you doing this? We’re family...”
“Which one of you is Saúl Morales Cruz?” the lead officer barked, stepping directly between Iván and Renata.
Saúl sneered, crossing his thick arms over his chest. “I am. What of it?”
The officer pulled a folded blue document from his tactical vest.
“Saúl Morales Cruz, you are under arrest pursuant to judicial warrant number 04-2026 for the crime of Violencia Familiar Agravada and Lesiones Categoría Dos against the person of Renata Aguilar Mendoza. Put your hands behind your back.”
The room went dead silent.
Brenda let out a sharp scream from the back bedroom. Doña Lucha gasped, grabbing her chest.
“What?!” Saúl shouted, stepping back toward the couch. “Arrest me?! For what?! I didn't do anything! She’s my sister-in-law! It was an internal family argument!”
“You struck a woman six times in front of a four-year-old child, breaking her lip and causing internal soft-tissue trauma to her jaw,” the officer said, pulling iron handcuffs from his belt with a sharp metallic clink. “Turn around. Now. Or we will use force.”
“Iván! Do something!” Doña Lucha shrieked, shoving her younger son hard in the back. “They’re taking your brother! Call a lawyer! Hit them! Do something!”
Iván took one look at the four armed officers, their hands resting on their holstered sidearms, and took two steps backward, bumping into the wall. He swallowed hard and looked down at his slippers. He did nothing.
“You coward!” Saúl roared, turning his rage on his own brother as an officer grabbed his arm, twisted it behind his back, and slammed him chest-first against the dining table—the very table where sixteen hours earlier he had struck Renata.
CLACK-CLACK.
The steel cuffs snapped shut around Saúl’s wrists.
Saúl thrashing against the officers, screaming obscenities, his face turning purple as they hauled him toward the broken doorway.
“You’re dead, Renata!” Saúl screamed, his spittle flying across the entrance hall as he was shoved through the frame. “You hear me?! You’re dead! My brother is going to throw you out on the street! Iván, don't let her touch my stuff! Iván!”
His voice faded down the concrete stairwell, punctuated by the heavy, rhythmic thud of police boots descending to the street.
Inside the apartment, Doña Lucha was weeping loudly, leaning against the kitchen counter for support, while Brenda cowered near the hallway, holding her two crying children.
The judicial officer, Licenciada Ortega, stepped into the center of the room. She opened a thick black binder, unclipped a pen, and looked at Doña Lucha and Iván.
“I am formally serving you with a court-ordered Notificación de Desalojo Precautorio,” Licenciada Ortega said in a clear, emotionless voice. “Because this property is the site of an active domestic violence investigation, and because Señora Aguilar is the sole titleholder, all unauthorized residents have seventy-two hours to remove their personal belongings from these premises.”
“Seventy-two hours?!” Doña Lucha shrieked, her voice cracking into a high-pitched squeal. “Where are we supposed to go?! We have nowhere to go! Iván pays for this apartment!”
“Iván has never paid a single cent for this apartment,” Jimena interjected smoothly, pulling a printed stack of bank statements from her briefcase and slapping them down onto the dining table. “Every mortgage payment, every utility, every tax bill has been paid exclusively by Renata Aguilar. Iván Morales does not own a single square inch of this property.”
Iván looked at the papers on the table. He looked at his mother, who was staring at him with eyes full of sudden, terrifying accusation.
“Iván...” Doña Lucha whispered, her voice shaking. “Is... is this true? Your name isn't on the house?”
Iván couldn't look his mother in the eye. For three years, he had allowed his family to believe that he was the benevolent head of the household who had brought them all to live in his grand city apartment. He had swallowed their praise, enjoyed their deference, and allowed them to walk over his wife because his fragile male ego couldn't bear to admit the truth: he was a tenant living off his wife’s hard labor.
“Mother...” Iván stammered, his cheeks burning red. “I... I was going to put my name on it later... when we got the loan...”
“There was no loan, Iván,” Renata said softly, speaking directly to him for the first time since entering the room.
She walked over to the dining table, picked up the small, chipped ceramic cup Iván had used for his coffee that morning, and tossed it into the trash can under the sink.
“You have seventy-two hours,” Renata said, looking at Iván, Doña Lucha, and Brenda. “On Friday at 2:00 PM, the locksmith arrives with the police. Anything left inside these walls will be carried down to the curb and left for the garbage trucks.”
“Renata, please!” Iván dropped to his knees right there on the dirty parquet floor, reaching out to grab the hem of her coat. “Don't do this! I’m your husband! We promised before God! In sickness and in health!”
Renata stepped back, letting his hands fall empty onto the wood.
May you like
“You broke that promise sixteen hours ago, Iván,” she said, her voice completely devoid of anger, left only with an absolute, terrifying emptiness. “When your brother raised his hand to my face, and you sat there and ate your soup.”
She turned on her heel and walked out through the broken door, leaving her husband kneeling in the ruined doorway of a home he had never owned.
