My mother smiled as my daughter’s university acceptance letter sank into the swimming pool, and she remarked in front of everyone, “I told her I could ruin her big moment.”

Daniel Mendoza looked smaller under the fluorescent lights of the corporate conference room than he did standing beside my barbecue pit.

He had taken off his suit jacket, tossing it over the back of an ergonomic mesh chair. His blue button-down shirt was dark with sweat circles under the arms, and his tie was pulled loose at the collar. On the mahogany table in front of him sat an untouched paper cup of water from the lobby cooler.

When I opened the heavy glass door, he scrambled to his feet like a junior salesman caught sleeping in the breakroom.

"Alejandro," he said, holding out a hand that was damp and trembling slightly.

I didn't take it. I pulled out the chair across from him, sat down, and folded my hands over the legal pad I had brought with me.

"You have six minutes, Daniel. I have an engineering review with the plant director at noon."

Daniel swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing over his collar. He sat back down, leaned his elbows on the table, and ran both hands through his thinning hair.

"Patricia is having a nervous breakdown," he said. "She’s at the house throwing plates. She broke the coffee maker. She called Diego’s school and screamed at the vice principal until Sister Teresa threatened to call the municipal police if she set foot on the campus."

"That sounds like Patricia," I said.

"Alejandro, listen to me. I didn't know."

I looked at him. "You didn't know what?"

"I didn't know about the texts!" he pleaded, his voice cracking with genuine desperation. "I swear to God, on my mother’s soul, I didn't know she and your mother had planned that! I thought... I thought Diego was just being an undisciplined little brat like he always is! I thought he tripped!"

I pulled a single sheet of paper from my pad and slid it across the polished surface.

It was a printout of the screenshot Patricia had posted to her Instagram story. The blue pool water. The sinking letter. The laughing emojis.

Daniel looked at it. His skin turned a sickly shade of tallow.

"She posted this?" he whispered.

"Twenty minutes after you left my house," I told him. "While my daughter was sitting in her bedroom crying, your wife was entertaining thirty-seven of her friends with the image of Natalia’s ruined hard work."

Daniel closed his eyes. A long, shuddering breath escaped his chest. "Jesus Christ."

"And here," I said, sliding the second printout across the table, "is your wife telling my mother that she would make sure Diego brought his 'worst behavior' to keep Natalia from showing off."

Daniel stared at the messages. His hands began to shake violently. He wasn't acting. Daniel was a weak man, a vain man who liked driving an Audi he couldn't afford and wearing Italian shoes to regional sales conventions, but he wasn't a sociopath. He was simply an accessory to one.

"Why?" Daniel muttered, looking up at me with hollow eyes. "Why would she do that? Natalia has never done anything to her. Natalia babysits Diego for free. She helped him pass his English exams last year."

"Because Natalia is successful," I said. "Because Natalia represents something Patricia can never have: genuine merit. Patricia has never worked a forty-hour week in her life. She lived on my father’s handouts until she married you, and since then, she’s lived on mine. She hates Natalia because my daughter doesn't need a man’s permission or a family allowance to be extraordinary."

Daniel dropped his forehead into his palms. "I can’t pay this, Alejandro. I’m telling you the truth. If I don't pay the school by Friday, they won't let Diego take the trimester finals. He’ll lose his spot. The waiting list at Cumbres is two years long."

"Then sell the Audi."

Daniel looked up, his face twisted in disbelief. "What?"

"Sell the Audi," I repeated, my voice devoid of emotion. "You owe twenty-four months of lease payments on a vehicle that depreciates every time you start the ignition. Break the lease, pay the penalty, buy a five-year-old Nissan Versa, and you’ll have enough cash flow to cover your son’s tuition."

"I can’t drive a Nissan to client meetings!" he stammered. "My clients are logistics directors, factory owners! Image is everything in this business!"

"Then your son can go to the technical middle school in San Pablo," I said. "The tuition is eight hundred pesos a year. They don't have tennis courts, but they have textbooks."

"Alejandro, please," Daniel begged, reaching across the table, his eyes watering. "We’re family. We’ve had Christmas together for fifteen years. You can’t just cut us off like this over an Instagram post!"

"It isn't an Instagram post, Daniel. It’s an eviction notice."

I stood up, picked up my legal pad, and looked down at him.

"For ten years, I have carried you," I said. "I paid for your son’s birth at the private hospital in Jurica. I paid for his braces. I paid for your family vacations. I paid for his school. And in return, your wife brought him into my home like a trained dog to piss on my daughter’s floor while my mother clapped."

"I didn't clap," Daniel whispered.

"You didn't stop him," I replied. "Which makes you entirely irrelevant."

I turned toward the door.

"Tell Patricia that if she sets foot on my property again, I will file a formal complaint with the state prosecutor for criminal damage and harassment. I have the security footage from the patio cameras. It shows Diego deliberately taking the frame, walking to the pool, and throwing it in. It shows Patricia filming him and nodding. In Querétaro, malicious damage over five thousand pesos carries restitution penalties and a court appearance."

Daniel’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

"Have a safe drive back to the office, Daniel," I said.