Chapter 12 - THE STRIKE
The workers wanted back pay for lost hours.
Safer staffing ratios.
Independent reporting channels.
And an employee seat on the hotel oversight council.
Several directors called the last demand ridiculous.
Mariana did not.
She also did not automatically agree.
That surprised Isabel.
“You’re saying no?”
“I’m saying we negotiate the structure.”
“You own hotels because you inherited them.”
“That’s true.”
“And workers have to prove they deserve one chair?”
“That’s also a fair criticism.”
Negotiations lasted fourteen hours.
People shouted.
Coffee went cold.
A union representative called Mariana “the polite face of inherited exploitation.”
She wanted to walk out.
She stayed.
The strike was suspended after a preliminary agreement.
Back pay would be independently calculated.
Staffing minimums would be reviewed.
Employees would elect two non-voting observers immediately, with a pathway to a voting governance seat after legal restructuring.
Nobody got everything.
That made the agreement believable.
Outside, reporters surrounded Mariana.
One asked:
“Is this the end of the Alvarado dynasty?”
Mariana answered:
“I hope it’s the end of pretending a family name is a management system.”
The quote went everywhere.
Sofía hated it.
Octavio loved it.
Ana said, “Good line. Now do the work.”
Meanwhile, Camila decided to keep the pregnancy.
She told Arturo through attorneys.
He demanded a paternity test after birth.
Camila cried for twenty minutes.
Then hired her own lawyer.
Mariana did not pay for it.
She almost offered.
Then remembered Leah.
Stop fixing things with money.
Arturo’s criminal exposure grew.
The stolen case linked him to coercion, commercial espionage, and financial misconduct.
But prosecutors still lacked proof he stole it.
Then Diego, the receptionist, requested a private meeting.
He had remembered something from Arturo’s check-in.
Arturo had not carried the leather case into the hotel.
A bellman had delivered it later.
Security footage confirmed it.
The bellman was named Mateo Cruz.
He had quit the morning after Arturo’s confrontation.
His personnel file listed an emergency contact.
May you like
Héctor Salgado.
