Chapter 5 - The Confrontation at Puente Grande
Two weeks later.
The visitation room at the Puente Grande Penitentiary was a cold, cavernous space lined with thick acrylic glass partitions and black steel stools.
Adrián sat on one side of the glass, wearing a simple grey sweater. Beside him sat Commander Rivas, who had arranged the private deposition session required to finalize the state’s criminal indictment against Teresa.
The heavy iron door on the opposite side opened, and two female guards escorted Teresa Salgado to the stool.
Teresa was dressed in the dull beige uniform of the state prison system. Her grey hair was unwashed, her face lined with deep, bitter wrinkles, her eyes rimmed with red.
When she saw Adrián, a flicker of her old, manipulative persona flared up.
"Adrián!" she cried out, pressing her hands against the acrylic glass. "My son! Thank God you came! You have to tell the judge that I'm sick! Tell them I was confused! The lawyer says I could face forty years in this terrible place!"
Adrián sat motionless, staring at the woman across the glass. He felt no anger, no urge to shout—only a profound, hollow stillness.
"I didn't come here to help you, Teresa," Adrián said, his voice flat and steady through the metal intercom speaker.
Teresa froze, her expression hardening. "How dare you call me 'Teresa'? I am your mother! I gave birth to you! I raised you and Bruno after your father died!"
"You raised us on stolen money in a house built over a man's living grave," Adrián said, looking her dead in the eye. "You locked my pregnant wife in a sweltering shed to starve because she refused to be your servant. You tried to murder my unborn child."
"She was disrespectful!" Teresa spat, her true, venomous nature breaking through her pathetic facade. "She was breaking up this family! She was turning you against me! I was teaching her her place!"
"Her place is by my side," Adrián replied coldly. "And your place is right where you are sitting."
Teresa slammed her fists against the glass. "You ungrateful brat! After everything I sacrificed for you!"
"You sacrificed nothing," Adrián said, standing up from his chair. "You stole a man's life for thirty years out of pure greed. I am officially signing over all parental rights, property claims, and family associations. You will never see me again. You will never see Bruno again. And you will never, ever set eyes on your grandchild."
Teresa gasped, her face twisting into a mask of pure rage and panic. "Adrián! Don't you dare walk away from me! Adrián!"
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Adrián turned his back on her, walking toward the exit door beside Commander Rivas without looking back once.
Behind him, the screams of Teresa Salgado echoed off the concrete walls of the penitentiary until the heavy steel doors slammed shut, cutting off her voice forever.
