For the next nine days, I became exactly the wife Rodrigo and Patricia believed they had created.
Compliant.
Sweet.
Easy.
I made breakfast.
Asked Rodrigo about work.
Smiled whenever Patricia visited.
Rodrigo grew increasingly confident.
On the fourth day, he brought home a folder.
“Just some administrative paperwork,” he said.
He placed it in front of me.
The cover read:
ASSET RESTRUCTURING PROPOSAL.
I opened it.
Buried among several pages was a draft changing the apartment’s ownership percentages.
“Why do we need this?”
Rodrigo smiled.
“To protect you.”
For a second, I almost admired how easily he lied.
“I don’t want to sign anything before I read it properly.”
His smile shifted.
Only slightly.
“You’re my wife.”
“I know.”
“Then trust me.”
Patricia sat across from us.
She lowered her cup onto the saucer.
“A marriage where every document has to be reviewed by an attorney isn’t much of a marriage.”
I looked straight at her.
“Then nobody should mind if someone reviews it.”
The room became silent.
Rodrigo barely spoke to me for the next three hours.
It was the first time I saw the punishment Patricia had described.
The following morning, he was affectionate again.
Flowers.
Breakfast.
Messages.
Then another folder appeared.
I didn’t sign that one either.
Three days later, Fernanda called.
“Mariana, we found something.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“A financial broker requested property registry information on your apartment.”
“Who?”
“Daniel Murillo.”
I knew that name.
Daniel was Rodrigo’s friend.
Fernanda continued.
“There’s something worse. Someone submitted a copy of your INE and a document that supposedly authorizes them to begin evaluating the apartment for a loan.”
I felt hollow inside.
“I never authorized that.”
“I know.”
She sent me the document.
My name appeared at the bottom.
Below it was a signature.
It looked like mine.
But it wasn’t.
Rodrigo was no longer preparing to pressure me.
He had already started acting without my consent.
That evening, I heard Rodrigo talking to Daniel on the terrace.
I didn’t need to hide.
I placed my phone inside a flowerpot nearby and started recording.
“This is getting complicated,” Rodrigo said.
Daniel answered, “Without her signature, you cannot finalize the mortgage.”
“That’s why I need you to complete as much as possible first.”
“And then?”
