Two years after my husband divorced me and married my best friend, I was hiding under the bridge, freezing cold, my clothes clinging to my body and my pride shattered, when a luxurious black SUV screeched to a halt in front of me; the rear door opened and, to my horror, my wealthy father-in-law stepped out, pale, his voice trembling as he looked at me as if he saw a ghost and muttered, “Get in the car, I was told you were de.ad.”

I lived in a small apartment in Carabanchel, this time under my real name. I had money in the bank, new clothes, and a job contract with another cleaning company that I almost never visited because Ernesto paid me for my “availability.”

We met one last time in his office at the company headquarters overlooking the Castellana.

“It’s done,” he said, signing a document. “My new will. Javier is effectively disinherited. Lucía… no longer exists for me.”

“And me?” I asked.

He handed me an envelope.

“Inside is what I promised you,” he said. “And something more. Shares in one of my subsidiaries. You won’t be as rich as I am, but you’ll never sleep under a bridge again.”

I put the envelope away without opening it.

“Do you regret it?” I asked then, without quite knowing why.

Ernesto rested his hands on the desk.

“I did what I had to do,” he said. “Just like you.”

I walked out into the street, the Madrid sun hitting my face. I opened the envelope on a stone bench. Bills, documents, numbers.

An entire future folded into papers.