Chapter 2 - THE CELEBRATION OF A FOOL
The morning sun rose over Mexico City, painting the sky in pale shades of orange and grey. Inside the executive penthouse suite of San Gabriel Hospital, champagne corks popped.
Mauricio Alcázar stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, admiring his reflection in the glass. He wore an Italian bespoke suit that cost more than three months of a staff nurse's salary. In his hand was a crystal flute filled with Dom Pérignon.
"To the new era of San Gabriel," Mauricio toasted, clinking his glass against Ximena Varela’s.
Ximena looked radiant in a red designer dress, her sharp smile reflecting cold ambition. "I must admit, Mauricio, the way you handled her yesterday was brutal... but brilliant. The staff is terrified. No one will dare challenge your authority now."
"Daniela was a leech," Doña Elvira interjected from the plush leather sofa, sipping her orange juice with a sneer. She adjusted her pearl necklace—a gift bought with hospital funds. "She had the mentality of a peasant. She spent more time crying over penniless cardiac patients than networking with high-society donors. My son deserved a real lady at his side, not a glorified bedpan cleaner."
"Where is Renata?" Mauricio asked casually, taking a sip of champagne.
"She’s in her bedroom at the house with the nanny," Elvira replied dismissively. "The child was crying for her mother all night. I told her that Daniela had abandoned her because she couldn't handle being a proper wife. The girl needs to learn early who holds the power in this family."
Mauricio chuckled softly. "Good. Once the board approves the Vanguardia contract at ten o'clock today, I will have fifty million pesos transferred into our offshore account. I’ll file for emergency sole custody of Renata on the grounds that Daniela is unemployed, emotionally unstable, and unable to provide a suitable home."
"And what about her father's estate?" Ximena asked, leaning close to Mauricio, tracing her manicured fingernail along his lapel. "She won't try to contest the hospital ownership?"
"Esteban was an idealist idiot," Mauricio sneered, pacing around the mahogany desk. "He died broke because he gave away free medical care to half of Mexico City. He left Daniela nothing except some sentimental trinkets. She doesn't have the legal knowledge, the money, or the spine to hire a real attorney. By noon today, she will be nothing more than a bad memory."
Meanwhile, three miles away in a modest apartment in the Coyoacán district, Daniela was getting ready.
She wasn't wearing her scrub top or her rubber nursing shoes. She stood before her bedroom mirror dressed in a tailored midnight-blue pantsuit, her dark hair pinned up in a sleek, commanding twist. On her lapel sat a gold pin—the original medical caduceus presented to her father when he founded San Gabriel thirty years ago.
Sitting beside her on the bed was Tomás Valdés, along with two junior partners and a team of forensic accountants carrying heavy silver briefcases.
"Everything is in position, Daniela," Tomás announced, checking his pocket watch. "Our auditors have spent the night analyzing the transactions Mauricio signed over the last six months. The evidence of embezzlement is overwhelming. He transferred three million pesos from the charity ward account directly into Ximena Varela’s personal consulting firm yesterday afternoon."
"Did he cut off the oxygen supplies to the lower wards as well?" Daniela asked, her knuckles whitening.
"Yes," one of the auditors confirmed. "He reduced the supply orders by forty percent to artificially boost this quarter’s profit margins for the Vanguardia presentation. Don Julián and four other critical care patients are currently being sustained on emergency reserves."
Daniela’s eyes flashed with righteous fury. Mauricio’s arrogance was no longer just an insult to her—it was a direct threat to human life.
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"He stripped my badge off because he thought I was powerless," Daniela said, looking up at her legal team. "He forgot that a hospital isn't built on concrete and balance sheets. It’s built on trust. And today, Mauricio Alcázar pays his bill."
At 9:45 a.m., two sleek black armored SUVs departed from the law firm, heading straight toward San Gabriel Hospital.
