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Aubrey Vance never imagined that the worst place to wake up wouldn’t be a hospital, or an empty street, or an unfamiliar room, but the depths of a memory that refused to return. She opened her eyes amidst the smell of wet garbage, old cardboard, and rusty metal, her body aching, her head throbbing as if someone had shattered her world inside, and a single feeling lodged in her chest: someone had tried to erase her from this life.
I didn’t know his name.
I didn’t know where I came from.
I didn’t know why she was wearing a torn dress and her hands were covered in dirt.
All I knew was that I was afraid.
And if that young man hadn’t found her in that garbage dump on the outskirts of Monterrey, perhaps no one would have ever seen her alive again.
The boy’s name was Matthew.
He worked collecting garbage in different parts of the city, and that morning, while separating bags of waste and sheets of metal, he saw a hand moving under some cardboard boxes.
At first he thought it was an illusion.
Then he heard a groan.
He ran, moved everything aside as best he could, and found a beaten, pale, half-conscious woman with a silver necklace around her neck and a beauty so sad that it gripped his soul before he understood anything.
“Miss, can you hear me?”
She opened her eyes slightly.
“Where am I?”
“Don’t worry. She’s safe.”
Matthew had no money, no influence, and no last name that would open doors.
But he did have something that in these times is worth more than many bank accounts: a clean heart.
He took her to his small house.
He arranged a blanket over her.
He gave her water, bread, and silence.
He didn’t ask questions all at once.
He didn’t try to touch where it still hurt.
He just stayed nearby, in case she opened her eyes again and needed a human voice that wouldn’t hurt her.
When the woman fully awoke, she looked at the simple walls, the plastic table, the humble kitchen, and that dark-haired young man with calloused hands, who was looking at her with a mixture of concern and tenderness.
“Who are you?”
Matthew looked down for a moment, as if the question embarrassed him.
“I’m Matthew. I found you in a garbage dump.”
She put a hand to her forehead.Generated image
“And who am I?”
He shook his head slowly.
“I don’t know. You didn’t have any ID with you.”
The woman felt an icy emptiness.
Not remembering the way was already hard.
Not remembering the name was another kind of death.
“Are you going to leave me alone?”
Matthew looked at her as if that question had touched an old wound.
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Yes. I won’t leave you alone.”
Sometimes a life begins to be saved not when the truth appears, but when someone appears who decides to stay.
Meanwhile, in a mansion in Grosse Pointe, two people were celebrating with expensive wine what they believed to be a perfect ending.
Arthur Sterling, a brilliant lawyer on the outside and dark on the inside, raised the cup with a triumphant smile.
Beside him was Veronica, elegant, ambitious, used to wanting what belonged to others until she convinced you that it was always hers.
They were toasting to Aitana’s disappearance.
Armando’s wife.
The true owner of a fortune that he had been managing for years with the calculating patience of someone who does not love, is just waiting for the right moment to take it all.
But the phone rang.
The voice of the man hired to get rid of her came out trembling.
“We have a problem. The woman is still alive.”
Armando’s face hardened.
Veronica angrily put the glass down on the table.
“What does it mean that she’s still alive?”
“A garbage collector found her.”
The silence became poisonous.
Armando squeezed the phone.
“Listen to me carefully. This time you can’t make a mistake. Make that woman disappear.”
Yes, they spoke of a life just like that.
As if Aitana had not been a person, but an obstacle.
As if love, in that house, had long since been replaced by greed.
That same afternoon, while Matthew was trying to find out who the woman sleeping in his house was, the television broadcast a news story that left them both speechless.
“Breaking news. Elena Fernández has been reported missing…”
The woman raised her head.
“Elena…”
He repeated the name like someone knocking on a closed door.
“I think that’s me.”
Matthew looked at her carefully.
“So we already know something.”
“Yes. But I don’t remember anything else.”
She clung to the edge of the table as if the barely recovered name were a rope in the middle of the sea.
“Matthew, I need to know who I am.”
And he, without considering the risk, answered with the only thing his soul allowed him to answer.
“I’m going to help you.”
He called her Elena because that was the name of the news story, although deep down she didn’t quite feel completely inside it.
However, he let himself be sustained by that lead.
Along that thread.
Because of that promise.
In the midst of all this, a man appeared claiming to be a neighbor.
He spoke strangely.
He looked too much.
He asked more questions than usual.
Matthew sensed something suspicious about him and quickly took him out of the house, although Elena remained uneasy.
“Who was he?”
“Don’t know.”
“All of this scares me.”
Matthew nodded.
“Me too. That’s why I don’t plan on letting go of you.”
And she, without knowing why, began to trust him.
Perhaps because someone who truly wants to help you doesn’t invade, they accompany you.
Perhaps because in Matthew’s voice there was no interest, no ambition, no hurry.
Just a humble truth.
The problem was that Matthew didn’t know everything.
He didn’t know that the woman he was protecting wasn’t just any stranger.
It was Aubrey Vance de Salazar, heiress to an important business group in Nuevo León.
She didn’t know that Armando, her husband, had been preparing papers for months to take possession of her assets.
I didn’t know that Veronica, Aitana’s supposed best friend, had been her lover for years.
Nor did he know that the woman who now seemed disoriented had heard much more than anyone imagined.
Because Aitana had not lost her memory.
She had faked it.
When she fell into the garbage dump and regained consciousness intermittently, she remembered enough to understand that Armando and Veronica wanted to kill her.
And when he woke up at Matthew’s house, he decided to remain silent.
I needed time.
I needed proof.
I needed to see how far they would be willing to go.
And, above all, I needed someone who wasn’t bought off.
That someone ended up being the humblest man in history and, at the same time, the most dignified.
When Aitana insisted on returning to the mansion to look for answers, Matthew didn’t want to let her go alone.
“I’ll go with you.”
“What if I’m wrong?”
“Then we found out.”
“What if I’m in danger?”
He held her gaze.
“Then I won’t let you.”
On the way, a young woman nervously approached upon seeing Aitana at the entrance of the house.
It was Lucia, a true friend, not one of those who smile while you’re being buried.
Before Aitana entered, he took her by the arm.
“That man is dangerous. Don’t go in.”
“Who?”
“Armando.”
Aitana felt a blow inside.
But he continued acting.
He couldn’t give himself away yet.
Matthew saw the fear in their eyes.
“What did he say to you?”
“Nothing… we’re going to pass.”
Inside the mansion, Armando and Veronica were with a lawyer reviewing documents for an urgent transfer.
They wanted to sign before any doubts arose.
When an employee announced that there were visitors, Veronica went to see and felt the ground open up beneath her feet.
Aitana was alive.
And she didn’t come alone.
She returned with Armando, pale.
“Elena… is at the door.”
He froze.
“Impossible.”
“He’s here. But I think he’s lost his memory.”
That sentence barely calmed him down.
Not for love.
For the opportunity.
If she didn’t remember anything, they could still manipulate her.
They could still make him sign.
They could still finish the job without getting their hands so dirty.
This is how Armando greeted his wife: with fake hugs and manufactured tears.
“Aitana… my love. We were desperate.”
She looked at him with deliberately empty eyes.
“I don’t remember much.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re home. I’ll take care of you.”
He lied so well it was disgusting.
Veronica smiled too.
“Oh, friend, you gave us such a fright.”
Aitana felt like slapping her right there.
But he kept pretending.
Matthew watched everything from a corner.
He didn’t fully understand what was happening, but his intuition told him that something smelled worse than any landfill.
Armando, wanting to get him out of the way, took him aside.
He took out money.
Quite.
He placed it in front of him with the elegant disdain of men who believe that everyone has a price.
“Take this and forget you ever met my wife.”
Matthew recoiled as if he had been offered rotten garbage.
“I don’t need your money.”
Armando smiled arrogantly.
“Of course. People like you always say that at the beginning.”
Matthew straightened up.
“I am poor, yes. But honest.”
That rejection irritated him more than an offense.
Because there is nothing more disconcerting to corrupt people than encountering someone who cannot be bought.
Meanwhile, Veronica went to the room where Aitana was and closed the door.
He approached her with pure hatred.
“Stop pretending.”
Aitana looked at her, trembling inside, but firm on the outside.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you. I know you’re not stupid.”Generated image
“If you were my friend, you wouldn’t talk to me like that.”
Veronica let out a bitter laugh.
“Your friend? I was never your friend. I just got tired of seeing you have everything.”
That phrase was both a stab in the back and a confirmation.
Aitana understood that she wasn’t crazy.
Everything was real.
Betrayal.