La Venganza (The Revenge) is a Spanish-language telenovela produced by the United StatesâÂÂbased television network Telemundo, Caracol Televisión and RTI Colombia. This limited-run series ran for 127 episodes from November 4, 2002, to May 16, 2003. The soap opera starred Gabriela Spanic, José ÃÂngel Llamas, and Catherine Siachoque.
Helena FontanaâÂÂa sick woman in her fortiesâÂÂwho is the daughter of Danilo Fontana, one of the two mob bosses in the Caribbean town of Matamoros is getting married with the heartrob Luis Miguel Ariza. But on her wedding night, she realizes that his new husband has been involved with her sister Grazzia, Helena's heart cannot take this and she dies of sorrow. That very same night, Valentina Diaz, who is just a poor but brave woman and a boxer in illegal fights sponsored by the other mob boss, Fernando Valerugo, also dies because of a huge impact on her head during a fight. At the crossroads of both deaths, Helena mysteriously comes back to life in Valentina's body.
Helena notices this and has to ask help of Tobago Christmas, a medium friend of hers, who helps her to get her life back. Nonetheless, Valentina is still an employee for Fernando Valerugo, so HelenaâÂÂbeing in Valentina's bodyâÂÂcannot stop boxing and has to train very hard with Valentina's best friend and trainer Brenda Li just to last toe-to-toe against her opponents in every fight she participates in on behalf of Valerugo.
After earning enough money to sustain herself for a while, Valentina goes to the Fontanas' manor as Helena's best friend and using all her knowledge about the Fontanas' family she easily gets the trust of Luis Miguel and Danilo Fontana. Helena's plan is get even with Grazzia and Luis Miguel but soon she realizes the only responsible is her sister Grazzia, who now sees Valentina as a huge threat for her plans with Luis Miguel Ariza and the Fontana's. Grazzia plans to destroy her own father by helping Fernando Valerugo, so she becomes her lover. While in Fontanas' manor, Helena learns that the daughter she had more than twenty years ago with Fernando Valerugo's son Marco Tulio did not die when she was born, so she decides to find her daughter.
Valentina thinks that a young woman in Valerugo's manor named Adoración is her daughter and Valentina's brother, Paquito, is in love with Adoración. However, the suspicion that Adoración is the heir of both the Fontana and Valerugo families, makes her a target â especially for Fernando's wife, Raquel, and their son Alfredo. Therefore, Raquel kidnaps Adoración in order to control her as the potential heir, ignoring that Adoración is, in fact, the daughter of Sebastián (Fernando's brother), who is famous priest of the town. When Father Sebastián picks up the news that his daughter is in danger, he sets out to release her and, in the process, reconnects with Mariaté, Adoración's mother, after years of being apart.
Grazzia then learns that Raquel was using her to leverage an advantage over Adoración's kidnapping gone wrong, so Grazzia orders Raquel to be killed. Roughly at the same time, Luis Miguel finds out that Fernando's goddaughter, Giovanna, might really be Helena's daughter, effectively falling into Fernando's scheme to confuse the Fontana's, that leads them to falsely believe Giovanna is Helena's daughter.
Later, Valentina and Luis Miguel start a romantic relationship; but Felipe, who is Valentina's ex-boyfriend, actively sabotages their relationship under the pretense of protecting Valentina. Grazzia at the time was expecting Fernando's baby but made Luis Miguel believe it was his to keep him under control. As the grand play of her plan, at a bieg social event of the town Grazzia makes a scene in order to blame Valentina for poisoning her and causing her a miscarriage. After this episode both the Fontana's and the Valerugo's go after Valentina to kill her. But Felipe successfully hides her with the help of Tobago Christmas, making everybody believe she is dead while both prepare her revenge, to get her place back as the sole legitimate heir of both families.
After saving Valentina, Felipe manages to get several top secret documents from both families, which he then compiles into a 'black book' that he uses to blackmail both the Valerugo's and the Fontanas, asking for one million dollars to keep the secret. He gets the money and goes to Europe for quite some time with Valentina and her mother, Concepción â Danilo Fontana's former housekeeper, who knows that Valentina DÃÂaz is, in reality, their daughter: Helena Fontana.
Ignoring all this, Luis Miguel just believes Valentina cheated on him and abandoned him, all while Grazzia convinces Fernando to kill him so she can gain the full rights over the Fontanas' wealth. After her plot, Luis Miguel is left to die in a lake but Valentina gets there in time to save him. Luis Miguel eventually escapes Felipe's lair and Valentina gets caught by Grazzia, who locks her in a basement with no food or water until she finally orders to set the house on fire.
Grazzia then believes that Valentina is dead, but Valentina was taken out of the basement right before the explosion by Tobago's husband and a friend of his. Throughout her torture time in the basement, HelenaâÂÂin Valentina's bodyâÂÂlearns that Luis Miguel married her solely because he wanted to get back several properties that Danilo Fontana took away from his parents. She also finds out that the body she owns now is actually the body of her long-lost daughter with Marco Tulio Valerugo. After surviving all that, Helena now wants to destroy all the people who made her miserable for so long, in spite of the fact she is pregnant with Luis Miguel's baby.