Mexico City, the city of bright lights and dreams of changing your life.
I, Alejandro, 23 years old, a boy from the provinces who had just graduated as an engineer, but without a stable job. My family in the village was poor, my parents were old and sick, and the debt with lenders to pay for my studies had become a chain that brought us all down. I dreamed of a bright future, but the cruel reality had cornered me. Then Doña Carmen appeared, as a way out as tempting as it was dangerous.

Doña Carmen was 47 years old, a widow, owner of a chain of luxury restaurants. She was not beautiful: her face was marked by wrinkles, her hair dyed black could not hide the passage of time. His gaze was piercing, his smile confident, like that of someone who controls everything.
“Alejandro, I’ll make sure you have a comfortable life, I’ll pay your family’s debts, I just need you to be my husband,” he told me one afternoon in his private office, where expensive perfume mixed with the cold air of the air conditioning.

I shuddered, I thought of Isabel, my ex-girlfriend from the village, but the pleading look of my parents made me nod. “It’s just a contract,” I repeated to myself, swallowing my revulsion.

The wedding was quick, with no fancy party, just a few relatives present and the poisonous murmurs of the neighbors. Doña Carmen was wearing a red silk suit, her fingers full of gold rings squeezing my hand tightly.
“From now on you are my husband, Alejandro,” she whispered in a sweet but authoritative voice.

I smiled forcefully, thinking, “He’s my mother’s age… how did I end up here?”

The first days after the wedding were suffocating. Doña Carmen controlled me as if I were a puppet. He forced me to give up a small job I had gotten and led me to live in his mansion in Polanco, full of luxuries, but cold and lonely. He checked my phone, cut off my communication with friends.
“You’re my husband, you must obey,” she said with a sharp look.
I protested, “You can’t treat me like a prisoner!”
She just laughed, “Have you forgotten the contract yet? I paid off your family’s debts. If you betray me, they lose everything.”

My father, Don Manuel, who had begged me to marry her, only sighed: “Hold on, son, it’s for the family.”
My mother, Doña Teresa, looked at her with envy, as if Doña Carmen had stolen something valuable from her.

The tension was growing. She demanded that I behave like a “real” husband, from the clothes I should wear to the caresses I rejected.
—”You could be my mother! How do you want me to love you?” I shouted once.
She replied furiously, “Love? Do you think I need love? I just need you to play your role as a husband.”

The wedding night arrived, the most dreaded. The room was decorated with roses and candles, but for me it was a cell. I tried to linger in the shower, but when I came out, she was already in bed, wearing a light nightgown and a haunting look.
“Come here, dear husband,” he called to me in a honeyed voice.

I sat on the edge of the bed, shaking.
“No… I don’t feel well,” I stammered.
She laughed, stroking my shoulder with her wrinkled hand.
“Do not be afraid, I will be soft.”

I pushed her.
—”Don’t touch me! I can’t!”

His face hardened. Suddenly, he pulled the sheets. And what appeared underneath left me cold: it was not her body, but a pile of documents, photos and contracts. At the top, a photo of me with Isabel, my ex-girlfriend, taken in the village months ago, with a handwritten note: “Do you think I didn’t know?”

I fell to my knees, panicking.
“What… What does this mean? What do you know?”

Doña Carmen smiled coldly:
“Did you really think I married you just to have a young husband? I know you were still in touch with Isabel, even though you swore to break with her. These papers prove that you diverted the money I gave to your family to Isabel’s account, planning to flee with her after I paid your debts.”

I was speechless. It was true: he had secretly sent money to Isabel, dreaming of escaping and starting a new life with her.

But Carmen wasn’t just a wealthy, lonely widow: she was a calculating strategist. I had hired a detective to follow me before the wedding. He didn’t want me; he wanted revenge. Isabel, the woman he loved, had worked in one of his restaurants… and had stolen money from his accounts. When Carmen discovered that I was with Isabel, she put together her perfect revenge.
“Do you think I’m naïve?” she laughed contemptuously. “I have already sent all this to the police. Isabel will be arrested for fraud. And you… You’ll stay here, like my husband. If you try to escape, your family will lose everything.”

I broke down, pleading,
“Please don’t hurt Elizabeth! I’ll do whatever I want!”

She left the room with a cruel smile, leaving me with documents that looked like a death sentence.

Days later, Isabel was arrested. I, although I hated it, had to stay by Carmen’s side, fulfilling my role as “husband” in this bitter contract. My family got rid of debt… But the price was my freedom and my love.

Life went on, but for me every day was a prison. He worked in Carmen’s restaurants, under her constant control. At night I dreamed of Isabel, with her freedom lost.

That wedding night was not the beginning of a love story… but the beginning of a sentence that he had not chosen.