Chapter 25:

🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙

Revenge, it turns out, is a full-time job.

We’d given the Delfin brothers a week. Seven days to demonstrate through actions—not words, not soup, not pathetic martyr poses—that they understood what they’d done. That they were willing to distance themselves from Selena. That maybe, just maybe, we could reach a peaceful divorce without burning everything to the ground.

They failed spectacularly.

Julian continued his food delivery service. Marcos sent flowers. Neither of them said a single word about Selena. Neither of them acknowledged what she’d done. Neither of them seemed to understand that we weren’t being dramatic—we were being serious.

So we made it impossible for them to misunderstand.

Clara and I spent days perfecting our posts. Every video, every screenshot, every piece of evidence was verified twice, sourced, timestamped. We weren’t just throwing accusations into the void. We were building a case.

The videos of Selena abusing animals went up first. All two hundred of them, edited into a compilation that lasted forty-three minutes. We opened with her kicking a small dog. Moved through her poisoning stray cats. Ended with her smiling selfie holding a dead animal.

The caption was simple: This is who Selena Martinez really is.

Then came the delivery receipts for the dead cat. The security footage showing me opening the pink box. My medical records from Metropolitan Hospital—Clara had pulled them with my permission—showing the exact moment I went into premature labor.

Psychological trauma induced early labor. Patient presented in critical condition.

Next: Julian’s phone records. Twenty-seven missed calls while I was dying. Text messages between the brothers.

Julian: Adriana’s being dramatic again

𝓐𝓾𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓻’𝓼 𝓿𝓮𝓻𝓼𝓲𝓸𝓷: gⲁ𝗅𝗇𝗈ν𝖊𝗅𝘀⫽𝓬𝓸𝓶

Marcos: Clara too. Just ignore them

Julian: Already am

And finally, the piece de résistance: The relationship between Selena and both brothers. Screenshots of her livestreams with them. That video of her in the bathrobe with Julian’s clothing on the floor. Text messages where Marcos sent her money for “veterinary expenses.”

We tagged everyone. Selena’s official accounts with her 500,000 followers. Julian’s professional page as an obstetrician at Metropolitan Hospital. Marcos’s LinkedIn as CEO of MedVita Pharmaceuticals. The hospital itself. The pharmaceutical company.

And then we boosted it.

Five thousand dollars in advertising. Ten thousand dollars. Whatever it took to make sure this reached everyone.

“Are we sure about this?” Clara asked one last time, her finger hovering over the ‘post’ button.

I thought about it. About whether we were being vindictive. Whether this was justice or just cruelty wearing a prettier name.

Then I remembered Samuel’s tiny casket. Julian shoving me at the funeral. “Hermano Nori.” “We’re even.”

“Post it,” I said.

She clicked.

The internet is a remarkable thing.

Give it scandal, give it proof, give it a villain to hate, and it will do your work for you.

Within ten minutes, the first shares started. Within an hour, it had reached thousands. By evening, it was trending.

Doctors and nurses from Metropolitan Hospital found the posts. Added their own stories.

I was there the night Adriana came in. Dr. Mendez performed a miracle keeping her alive. Dr. Delfin? He was delivering a dog’s puppies. For his mistress. While his wife died.

The baby needed a medication we use routinely. It’s manufactured by MedVita Pharmaceuticals. The CEO—the baby’s uncle—was cooking soup for the same woman’s dog. The baby died.

The comments section became a battlefield.

“Are you SERIOUS? A mother and child are worth less than a mistress’s dog?”

“I love dogs. I have three of them. But this is INEXCUSABLE.”

“Two brothers groveling over the same woman while their wives suffer? Disgusting.”

“Selena pretends to rescue animals but ABUSES them? And destroys marriages? Why is she allowed to exist online?”

“This woman ruins homes, dates two married brothers simultaneously… she’s despicable.”

The criticism was relentless. Brutal. Exactly what we’d hoped for and more terrifying than we’d expected.

Clara’s phone rang. Blocked number. We didn’t answer.

My phone rang. Julian. Blocked.

Marcos. Blocked.

Mrs. Delfin. Blocked.

They called from the hospital. From the pharmaceutical company. From friends’ phones. We blocked them all.

We’d given them a week to make this right.

They’d chosen wrong.

By day two, Marcos’s company stock had dropped eighteen percent.

By day three, environmental activists—the real kind, not performative Instagram activists—had filed formal complaints about MedVita Pharmaceuticals. Turned out that when you prioritize your mistress’s dog over basic environmental regulations, people notice. The authorities launched an investigation.

Operations ground to a halt. Workers sent home. Stock plummeting.

Julian wasn’t faring much better.

Metropolitan Hospital suspended him “pending investigation into professional conduct.” Which was hospital-speak for “the expectant mothers are terrified of the doctor who abandoned his dying wife, and we can’t have him anywhere near our maternity ward.”

His professional reputation—the thing he’d built his entire identity around, the reason he’d ignored me for years—was destroyed in seventy-two hours.

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