I was sleeping on the street when I saw two men burying a multimillionaire woman alive; one said: “Before dawn no one will find her.” My father had abandoned me years before and I could have fled, but I took a stone and came out of my hiding place. Hours later, the police discovered that behind the crime there was a family betrayal that no one expected.

—**Dig deeper. I want no one to be able to find her before the sun rises.**

Diego Hernández stopped breathing behind the bushes. He was nineteen years old and had been sleeping under an old tarp in a wooded area on the outskirts of Guadalajara for five weeks. He had learned that, when he heard engines at dawn, the best thing was to hide and not ask.

But that wasn’t a couple arguing or some boys drinking.

Two large men had taken a woman in her sixties out of a black van. His hands were tied with zip ties, his coat was covered in dirt, and a rag was in his mouth. While one watched, the other took out two shovels.

“Here,” he ordered. Among those pines.

Diego felt his legs trembling.

Since his mother, Lucía, died of cancer when he was eleven years old, his life had been unraveling. Four months later, his father, Raúl, disappeared. Diego went through different foster homes until he turned eighteen. Without money, without family and tired of the overcrowded shelters, he ended up surviving as best he could.

That’s why he knew that mountain perfectly.

And that’s why no one knew there was a witness.

The woman managed to spit out the cloth.

—My family will look for me.

One of the men laughed.

—Your family believes that you went to rest for a few days, Mrs. Beatriz Alcántara. That’s what Mauricio told them.

Diego opened his eyes.

Beatriz Alcántara.

I knew that name. In Jalisco and several states in the Bajío, his family had supermarkets, gas stations and car dealerships.

“Mauricio wouldn’t do this,” she said.

—Twenty-two years of partnership are many years to share profits. Without you, he controls everything.

Beatriz lowered her head.

Then he looked up and met Diego’s eyes between the branches.

He didn’t scream.

He didn’t point it out.

He just looked at it.

It was the look of someone who knew he was going to die.

The men finished the pit, dragged Beatriz to the edge and pushed her.

The first shovel fell on his legs.

The second, on his abdomen.

-Please! I have children, grandchildren! I pay them triple!

“It’s not about the money,” one responded. We get paid to solve a problem.

Diego saw a large stone next to his feet.

His whole body ordered him to run.

Then he remembered his mother telling him when he was a child: *If one day you can help someone and everyone else turns away, don’t turn away.*

He took the stone.

He came out of hiding and punched the nearest man. The subject fell dazed.

Diego jumped into the pit.

—Madam, get up!

He tried to remove the dirt while Beatriz coughed desperately.

The second man fell on top of him.

A huge hand closed his throat.

Diego felt his vision go out.

But Beatriz, still tied, threw her body against the aggressor’s legs. The man lost his balance.

-Runs! -she shouted-. Get help!

Diego climbed as best he could and ran.

He knew every path, every slope and every gap between the trees. He heard footsteps behind him, but he didn’t stop until he reached the road.

He threw himself in front of a delivery van.

The driver braked within centimeters.

—Do you want to kill yourself, kid?!

“They’re burying a woman alive!” Please call 911!

Twenty minutes later, several patrols entered the mountain guided by Diego.

He waited by the road until he heard an ambulance.

He then saw the two men leave in handcuffs.

And behind them a stretcher appeared.

Beatriz Alcántara was covered in dirt.

But he was breathing.

A police officer approached Diego.

—Five more minutes and we won’t count it.

Diego started to cry.

He thought that nightmare was over.

Little did he know that he had just saved a multi-millionaire woman from a plot that reached much closer to her own family than anyone imagined.

**And what he was about to discover was so brutal that no one could have believed it.**

At the hospital, Beatriz refused to sleep until she spoke to the police.

“Find Mauricio,” she whispered. “If he ordered this, I want to hear him admit it.”

But three hours later, detectives returned with unexpected news.

Mauricio had been found unconscious inside his office.

Someone had attacked him the same night Beatriz disappeared.

“He couldn’t have given those men orders,” Detective Salazar said. “According to security footage, he was already unconscious when you were kidnapped.”

Beatriz stared at him.

“Then who wanted me dead?”

The answer came from one of the arrested men.

After hours of interrogation, he finally talked.

“We never met Mauricio,” he admitted. “Everything came through another man.”

“Who?”

The suspect hesitated.

“Her son.”

Beatriz went completely still.

Her eldest son, Alejandro Alcántara, arrived at the hospital thirty minutes later, pretending to be devastated.

“Mom!”

He rushed toward her bed.

Police officers immediately stepped between them.

Alejandro stopped.

“What is this?”

Detective Salazar placed a phone on the table.

A recording began playing.

Alejandro’s voice filled the room.

“Once she’s gone, Mauricio will take the blame. The company shares transfer to me, and nobody looks any further.”

Beatriz covered her mouth.

Her own son had planned everything.

Alejandro had secretly accumulated millions of dollars in gambling debts and fraudulent investments. Beatriz had discovered irregular transfers days earlier and planned to remove him from the company.

So Alejandro decided she could never reach the board meeting.

He kidnapped his own mother, framed Mauricio, and prepared documents claiming Beatriz had voluntarily disappeared because of health problems.

“You were going to bury me alive?” Beatriz whispered.

Alejandro lowered his eyes.

“I had no choice.”

Beatriz’s expression changed.

“You always have a choice.”

Police handcuffed him.

As they led Alejandro away, Diego stood silently near the hospital door.

He felt uncomfortable among businessmen, lawyers and security guards. He turned to leave.

“Diego.”

Beatriz called him back.