The next morning, Daniela Hernández arrived at the address Mauricio had sent her with something he never expected to see in her hands.
She carried the blood-bank receipt from the private clinic in Santa Fe, copies of ninety-six records documenting the humiliations she had endured, and a calm expression Mauricio had never learned to fear.
He was waiting for her at a small private office near the university district. Rodrigo and Santiago were there too. The three men looked relaxed, almost amused.
Mauricio checked his watch.
“Number ninety-seven starts at noon,” he said.
Daniela placed the receipt on the table.
“Does it?”
His smile disappeared for half a second.
Then Rodrigo laughed. “You actually came.”
“I said I would.”
Mauricio leaned back. “Good. Because this is important. After today, there are only two left.”
Daniela looked at him for a long moment.
Three years earlier, she would have asked what she had done wrong.
That morning, she asked a different question.
“How long have you been doing this?”
Nobody answered.
Mauricio finally shrugged. “You heard something you weren’t supposed to hear.”
“So the ninety-six files are real.”
His expression changed.
Rodrigo stopped smiling.
Santiago looked at Mauricio.
Daniela knew then that they had not realized how much she had found.
She had discovered the folder the night before through an old link Rodrigo had accidentally left accessible in their group chat. It contained photographs, screenshots, voice notes, dates, and descriptions of what they called their “revenge.”
Numbers one through ninety-six.
Three more folders waited behind them.
Ninety-seven.
Ninety-eight.
Ninety-nine.
The first folder contained a draft message Mauricio planned to send to her parents. It was designed to make them believe Daniela had secretly taken money from them to support him.
The second contained edited screenshots intended to make her former university believe she had lied during the plagiarism investigation that had nearly ruined her final semester.
The third contained a script for Mauricio’s final speech—the moment he planned to leave Daniela and tell her that everything had been done for Renata Salgado.
Daniela had read every word.
And then she had called her father.
“Dad, before we leave for Mérida, I need you to see something.”
He had listened silently.
When she finished, he asked one question.
“Does Mauricio know you found this?”
“No.”
“Then don’t tell him yet.”
That was why Daniela was standing in front of Mauricio now without revealing the most important thing she knew.
He still believed he was controlling the story.
Mauricio tapped the table.
“Let’s get started.”
Daniela picked up her bag.
“I’m ready.”
The first part of number ninety-seven was supposed to happen through her parents.
Mauricio had planned to send the fabricated evidence while Daniela was with him, then wait for her mother to call in panic. He wanted Daniela trapped between defending herself and trying to explain why she had supposedly taken money.
But before he could send anything, Daniela’s phone rang.
Her father.
She answered on speaker.
“Dad?”
“Your mother and I are at the apartment. We found the files you sent us.”
Mauricio’s face tightened.
Rodrigo looked down.
Her father continued.
“We also spoke with the people whose names appear in them.”
Daniela watched Mauricio carefully.
“Did you?”
“Yes. And nobody is confused about what happened anymore.”
Silence filled the room.
Mauricio reached toward Daniela’s phone.
She moved it away.
“Don’t,” she said.
He froze.
For the first time in three years, Daniela had stopped reacting to his movements.
She was making her own.
Mauricio stood.
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“I understand exactly what I’m doing.”
He stared at her.
“You think those files prove everything?”
“No.” Daniela picked up the receipt from the table. “This does something else.”
She held it up.
“The blood you told me to donate yesterday was never used.”
Rodrigo’s face went pale.
Daniela continued.
“I watched an employee take the bag with my name on it and throw it into a biohazard container.”
Mauricio said nothing.
“I heard you laughing afterward.”
Santiago looked at the floor.
“And I heard you count the humiliations.”
Mauricio’s voice finally returned.
“You were never in danger.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“You weren’t hurt.”
“That isn’t the point either.”
He stared at her.
Daniela folded the receipt carefully.
“You made me believe someone I loved was dying because you wanted to watch me panic. You used my trust as entertainment.”
Mauricio shook his head.
“You’re making this bigger than it is.”
Daniela almost smiled.
That sentence had been part of their relationship for years.
Every time she cried, he called her sensitive.
Every time she questioned something, he called it a misunderstanding.
Every time another disaster appeared, he told her she was imagining patterns.
Now she had ninety-six files showing that the pattern had a name.
Mauricio.
And behind Mauricio, another name appeared again and again.
Renata.
Daniela had avoided searching for her for years.
That had changed the moment she saw the folder.
She had found old university records, competition photographs, public posts, and messages connecting Renata to people in Mauricio’s circle. Nothing by itself proved that Renata had directed every prank. But together with the files, dates, and Mauricio’s own plan to return to her, they showed that Renata was not simply a woman from his past.
She was part of the reason the relationship had begun.
Mauricio had chosen Daniela after she defeated Renata in the university dance competition.
He had not fallen in love with her.
He had chosen her as a target.
That realization hurt differently from the betrayal she had expected.
Daniela remembered the night of the championship.
Her father filming from the audience with an old phone.
Her mother crying when Daniela’s name was announced.
The feeling that she had earned something nobody could take from her.
Then she remembered Mauricio approaching her afterward.
His smile.
His congratulations.
The first coffee.
The first kiss.
The first time he told her she was extraordinary.
All of it had been real to her.
None of it had been real to him.
Mauricio stepped closer.
“Daniela, listen to me.”
She held up her hand.
He stopped.
“I’m listening.”
“You think Renata did this because you beat her.”
“No. I think you did it because you chose to believe him.”
His expression hardened.
“Don’t blame me for your choices.”
Daniela looked directly at him.
“You’ve been blaming me for yours for three years.”
Nobody spoke.
Then her father sent another message.
Daniela opened it.
It was a photograph of the documents they had preserved.
Her father’s message was short.
“We’ve backed everything up.”
Daniela locked her phone.
Mauricio understood what that meant.
“You sent the files to your parents.”
“And somewhere else.”
His face changed.
“Where?”
“I don’t think you need to know yet.”
That was the first real consequence of the morning.
Mauricio could no longer control who knew what.
The three friends had spent years creating situations where Daniela was isolated, frightened, embarrassed, or forced to defend herself.
Now the evidence was outside their circle.
And they could not erase it by changing a story.
Rodrigo suddenly spoke.
“This wasn’t supposed to go this far.”
Daniela turned toward him.
“Which part?”
He swallowed.
“The blood.”
Mauricio looked at him sharply.
Rodrigo continued.
“We thought the clinic would tell you there was a compatibility issue. We didn’t know they would dispose of it like that.”
Daniela stared at him.
“So you knew the accident was fake.”
Rodrigo didn’t answer.
“You all knew.”
Santiago finally nodded.
Daniela closed her eyes for one second.
Then she opened them.
“Thank you.”
Rodrigo looked confused.
“For finally saying something true.”
She walked toward the door.
Mauricio stepped in front of it.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“This isn’t finished.”
“No.” Daniela looked at him. “It isn’t.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a printed copy of folder 97.
Mauricio stared at it.
“You were going to send this to my parents.”
He said nothing.
She held up another page.
“Then you were going to send this to my university.”
His jaw tightened.
“And finally, you were going to leave me and tell everyone you had done all of this for Renata.”
For the first time, Mauricio looked genuinely frightened.
Daniela lowered the papers.
“You wanted ninety-nine acts of revenge.”
She stepped past him.
“You should have stopped at ninety-six.”
Outside, the afternoon air felt different.
Daniela stood on the sidewalk and looked at the bruise on the inside of her arm.
It was still purple.
For years, she had thought revenge meant making someone suffer as much as they had made you suffer.
But she no longer wanted to spend another three years becoming part of Mauricio’s game.
Her revenge was simpler.
She would remember.
She would document.
She would tell the truth to the people who needed to know it.
And she would leave.
Her mother called before Daniela reached the corner.
“Are you coming to Mérida?”
Daniela smiled through the tears that finally came.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“As soon as I can.”
Her mother was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, “Your room is waiting.”
Daniela looked back once.
Mauricio was standing behind the office window.
He was no longer smiling.
The man who had spent three years deciding what Daniela would fear had finally discovered something he could not manipulate.
She had stopped being afraid of losing him.
That night, Daniela packed her suitcase.
She found old photographs, university programs, dance shoes, and a small envelope containing the first birthday card Mauricio had given her.
She read it once.
Then she placed it in the trash.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number appeared.
It was Renata.
“I know you found the files.”
Daniela stared at the screen.
A second message arrived.
“There is something Mauricio never told you.”
Daniela did not answer.
A third message appeared.
“The ninety-six weren’t all his idea.”
Daniela sat on the edge of the bed.
For three years, she had thought Mauricio was the center of the story.
Now she understood that he might only have been the person standing closest to her.
She opened the message.
Renata had attached a single photograph.
It was from the night of the university dance championship.
Daniela was onstage, holding the trophy.
Behind the curtain, Mauricio was standing beside Renata.
And on the table between them was a handwritten list.
At the top was one name.
Daniela Hernández.
Under it were three words.
“Make her fall.”
Daniela stared at the photograph for a long time.
Then she saved it.
Not because she wanted another reason to hate Mauricio.
Because now she finally had the beginning of the story.
And somewhere in that beginning was the answer to a question she had been too afraid to ask for three years:
Who had decided that breaking her heart would be worth ninety-nine acts of revenge?
