The courthouse smelled like lemon cleaner and old paper.
Katrina had imagined her divorce would feel like fire. Like breaking glass. Like the first breath after drowning. Instead, it felt like paperwork. Three signatures, a tired judge, and a clerk who didn't look up when she said, "Congratulations, Ms. Medina. You're free."
Free.
The word rattled in her chest as she walked down the steps into Guadalajara's afternoon heat. Free at thirty-two. Free with a last name that wasn't his anymore. Free with a bank account that had exactly $1,847, a one-bedroom apartment in Colonia Americana, and a family that still introduced her as "Lucía's sister" before they said her name.
Mateo hadn't come. Of course not. He'd sent his lawyer. Mateo never did his own dirty work. That's why it took her three years to leave — because he was careful. He never hit her where it showed. Never when anyone could see. Just quiet cruelty behind closed doors. The kind you couldn't prove. The kind that made you doubt yourself first.
She stopped at the corner. Traffic snarled past. A man sold *tejuino* from a cart, the sweet fermented corn smell cutting through the exhaust. Six months. She'd been free for six months. Six months of sleeping without listening for footsteps. Six months of coffee that didn't go cold because she was waiting for permission to drink it. Six months of bougainvillea on her balcony that she planted herself, just because she liked the way it looked when it died and came back angrier.
Her phone buzzed. Papá.
She stared at the name for three rings. He hadn't called in four months. Not since she told him she was divorcing Mateo and he said, "You're making a mistake. The Medinas don't divorce. We endure."
Endure. That was her father's favorite word. His second favorite was "duty."
She answered on the fourth ring. "Papá."
"Katrina." His voice was the same as always. Like gravel wrapped in silk. Like a boardroom, even when he was talking to his daughter. "I need you at the office. Four o'clock."
Not hello. Not how are you. Not I'm sorry I haven't called since you escaped a man who used your ribs as his personal stress ball.
"What for?" she asked. The old Katrina would have said yes. The six-months-free Katrina asked questions.
There was a pause. She could picture him — silver hair, Montblanc pen, office overlooking Andares like he owned the sky. "There's a matter of family business. It concerns you."
"Lucía can't do it?"
"Lucía declined."
Of course she did. Lucía declined everything that wasn't a party or a photoshoot. Lucía was twenty-eight, golden, and selfish in the way only the truly loved could afford to be. Lucía was the daughter who got her mother's cheekbones and her father's approval. Katrina was the daughter who got her mother's maiden name and her father's silence.
"What time is it now?" Katrina asked, even though she knew. She just needed a second.
"Three-twenty. Don't be late." He hung up.
Family business. Those two words had never meant anything good. The last time it was "family business," she was twenty-three and he told her Mateo Soler was a good match. "He's hungry," Papá had said. "Hungry men build empires. You'll be taken care of."
He never asked if she wanted to be taken care of. He never asked if she wanted to be a wife. He just decided, and Katrina, who had spent her whole life being the quiet one, the useful one, the one who didn't make noise, said yes.
She looked down at her hands. No ring. The tan line was almost gone. The last evidence of Mateo was a hairline scar on her left eyebrow from when he "accidentally" shut the door too fast. She'd told the ER she fell. She'd told herself she fell too, for a while.
The office was twenty minutes away. She could go home. She could block his number. She could keep being free.
Instead, she started walking. Because six months of freedom doesn't erase twenty years of duty. Because some habits live in your bones. Because a small, ugly part of her was still that girl who thought if she was good enough, quiet enough, useful enough, maybe her father would look at her the way he looked at Lucía.
She was wrong. But she walked anyway.
The Vega Capital building was glass and arrogance. Fifty stories of "we own this city" reflected in the clouds. Katrina gave her name to the security desk. The guard didn't recognize her. Why would he? She hadn't been here since Mateo's first big contract. Since before.
"Ms. Medina for Arturo Medina," she said. Her maiden name tasted like ash. She'd kept it. Mateo didn't deserve to be the last name she had.
The elevator smelled like money. Like leather and cedar and decisions that ruined people.
Papá's office was on the 47th floor. The doors were already open. He was at his desk, but he wasn't alone.
There was a man by the window. Tall. Back to her. Hands in pockets. Suit so black it ate the light. He didn't turn when she walked in.
"Katrina," Papá said. He didn't stand. "You're late."
"It's 3:58."
The man by the window turned.
And Katrina's six months of free ended.
Because his eyes were winter. Not blue. Not gray. Winter. The kind of cold that didn't burn — it preserved. It killed slow and kept you pretty while it did it.
He looked at her once. Head to toe. No smile. No frown. Just a cataloguing. Like she was a line item in a budget he was already tired of.
"Alexandra Vega," Papá said, gesturing like he was presenting a new acquisition. "Katrina Medina. My daughter."
Alexandra Vega didn't offer his hand. He didn't say hello. He just said, "She'll do."
And just like that, Katrina understood what "family business" meant.
She wasn't here for a meeting. She was the meeting.