PART 1

The night before Christmas Eve, at 10:46, Lucia Mendoza's phone started vibrating on the steel table in her industrial kitchen in the Roma Norte colony.

On the screen, it read: Mom.

Lucia had a flour-covered apron, her hair tied back, and 3 menu tests open in front of her. In 12 hours, she would fly to Los Cabos to present her company's expansion to one of Mexico's most important hotel groups.

She answered, thinking it might be an emergency.

It wasn't.

'Mom, I need you to come tomorrow morning,' her mother ordered without a greeting. 'Your sister has a VIP dinner at the house. There will be people who actually matter.'

Lucia closed her eyes.

Her younger sister, Fernanda, had been bragging for years that she was a consultant, but her 'clients' were usually her mother's golf club friends.

'Mom, I can't make it tomorrow,' Lucia said.

Her mother let out a dry laugh.

'Oh, Lucia, please. You make little dishes. Don't come crying to me that you have a State Secretary meeting.'

Lucia clenched her jaw.

'I have a flight at 7:30.'

'Cancel it. Fernanda needs 7 hearty dishes and 10 side dishes. Something classy. Nothing of your weird modern stuff. Victoria Lin, the director of Grupo Horizonte, is coming. If Fernanda gets that account, she'll finally take off.'

Victoria Lin.

Lucia opened her eyes.

The same Victoria Lin she had been negotiating with for 2 years to get a national contract for Banquetes Aurora.

'Victoria is coming to your house?' Lucia asked.

'For dinner with important people. That's why I'm calling.'

The phrase slapped her like a slap.

For years, her family had used her as a free cook. Baptisms, birthdays, club dinners, Christmas. Always Lucia who arrived with pots, trays, and exhaustion.

But in family photos, Fernanda was always in the center.

Lucia was relegated to the background, near the kitchen.

'I won't cook,' she said finally.

On the other end, there was silence.

Then her mother's acid voice came through.

'Don't start with your dramas. Your sister is actually trying to do something with her life.'

Lucia looked at the walls of her professional kitchen: certificates, magazine cutouts, photos of events at museums, embassies, and luxury hotels.

Her mother had never attended a single inauguration.

Never asked.

'There's an important presentation,' Lucia repeated.

'More important than your family?'

'More important than being treated as an unpaid employee.'

Her mother took a deep breath.

'Listen carefully. Tomorrow at 9, you'll be here. I want mole negro, beef, cod, elegant romeritos, salad, mashed potatoes, and vegetables. And don't even think about embarrassing us.'

Lucia turned off a burner.

'I won't go.'

Her mother's voice dropped.

'Then don't complain when everyone still thinks you're the failed daughter.'

Lucia didn't respond.

She hung up.

The next morning, as the Mendoza family waited for their 'family cook', Lucía boarded a flight to Los Cabos with her best black suit, a folder of contracts, and a frozen certainty in her chest.

That night, when the guests arrived at the Las Lomas mansion, they didn't find 7 dishes or 10 side dishes.

They found cold pizzas served on fine china.

And doña Patricia, facing Victoria Lin, started destroying her own daughter without knowing that this woman already had a date with her the next day.