The early sun flooded the gardens of the Esmeralda Hotel with a harsh, almost mocking brilliance—like it was completely indifferent to the heartbreak waiting to unfold.
Fernando Oliveira adjusted the rims of his wheelchair and watched the scene around him as if it were a flawless production: rows of white roses, a champagne fountain worth more than most luxury cars, and four hundred members of the social elite settling into gold-trimmed chairs with rehearsed elegance.
Fernando was forty-two years old.
A self-made real estate tycoon.
A man whose name owned half of São Paulo’s skyline.
Yet none of that mattered now.
