Six months later, it would receive forty-five thousand.
Lucía worked as an administrative manager in a private clinic and was used to managing budgets.
She didn’t consider herself naïve.
She had examined the documents.
Verified the name of the company.
Asked about the risks.
He had been shown contracts.
Photographs of buildings.
Financial balance sheets.
Everything seemed authentic.
Until the day she transferred her savings.
Two months later, the company stopped responding.
His former colleague disappeared.
And Lucía discovered that the documents were fake.
These thirty thousand euros represented almost all his personal savings.
She didn’t dare admit it to Javier.
Her husband had just gone through a difficult time at work.
In addition, they had been arguing for some time because Lucía wanted to buy their own home, while Javier preferred to continue living with Don Ernesto.
She decided to get the money back before anyone found out the truth.
This was his first mistake.
She took out a loan of twenty thousand euros to finance an alleged investment intended to recover her losses.
The second venture also turned out to be fraudulent.
She then borrowed money from another organization.
Then another.
When she finally recognized that she was trapped, she owed more than seventy thousand euros.
Interest rates continued to rise.
Every call from an unknown number made his heart beat faster.
Each letter left in the mailbox made her nauseous.
It was then that Arturo Salcedo appeared.
He received her in a small office.
Offered him coffee.
And listened to his story with an almost paternal patience.
“You’re not the first person to lose money trying to improve your life,” he told her.
Lucía cried in front of him.
Arturo handed her a handkerchief.
“I can help you.”
These three words were the beginning of everything.
For several weeks, Arturo studied his debts.
Then he began to ask about his family.
Her husband.
His father-in-law.
The house.
Savings.
The legacy of Javier’s late mother.
Lucía replied because she believed he was preparing a financial plan.
She did not understand that she was providing him with a detailed map of family resources.
One day, Arturo asked him:
“Who owns the house you live in?”
“To my father-in-law.”
“Is there a mortgage left?”
“No.”
“How much can it be worth?”
“About six hundred thousand euros, I guess.”
Arturo stopped writing.
He looked up.
And smiles.
“Then we have a solution.”
This solution consisted of convincing Don Ernesto to use part of the value of his house to obtain financing.
At first, Arturo spoke of a perfectly legal loan.
Then he suggested a sale with a right of residence.
Eventually, when the old man flatly refused to participate, he began preparing documents to access his accounts and facilitate a real estate transaction without his informed consent.
Lucía should have left at that time.
But Arturo had another weapon.
He knew his debts.
He was aware of the signatures she had used in some of the applications.
He kept messages in which she admitted to having hidden information from her husband.
And he assured her that if she abandoned their project, her creditors would turn against her.
“You could lose your job,” he warns her. And your marriage. »
The intimidation worked.
Lucía began to follow his instructions.
First, she photographed Don Ernesto’s documents.
Then she obtained copies of invoices and bank information.
Later, she gave Arturo an old example of Javier’s signature so that he could integrate it into some forms.
She justified everything with the same sentence.
I just need to buy time.
But time turned into months.
And the lies began to multiply.
That afternoon, Arturo had ordered him to provoke a conflict that would make cohabitation with Don Ernesto impossible.
He hadn’t asked her to push her husband to hit the old man.
Only to accuse him of an assault.
To cry.
To make sure that Javier demands that his father temporarily leave the house.
Once the old man was gone, Arturo hoped to be able to put pressure on him and move the process forward.
Lucía had agreed.
And now she was facing her husband, who had just read Arturo’s last message.
“Give me your phone,” Javier repeated.
She gave it to him.
Javier began to go through their conversation.
There were dozens of messages.
Some were talking about loans.
Others of signatures.
Still others contained precise instructions.
One of them, sent that very morning, said:
Ernesto must leave of his own free will. If you can’t do it, make up something Javier can never forgive.
Javier felt an icy cold wash over his chest.
He scrolled down the screen.
Another message appeared.
Don’t forget to clear today’s videos before you begin.
He looked up.
“You erased the camera recordings.”
Lucía burst into tears.
“Yes.”
