Valentina

My phone slid off my ear yet the words continued ringing. My father killed my mother.

Falling back on the bed, I stared at the photos mocking me. Your father is a killer. Suddenly they weren't smiling photos of us anymore, they were mocking ones. Those weren't happy cheers, they were frowns masquerading as their counterpart.

"Val," a distant voice leaked from the phone. "Baby say something." Nicolas pleaded.

With trembling hands, I picked it up. The back of the device was as warm as my entire face. Maybe even my whole body. I felt hot, sweaty even in an air conditioned room.

"I am here." I answered with a rush of air filling up my lungs.

My eyes remained on my mother's post mortem report on one particular word, Asphyxia. Ramon Ramirez choked my mother.

"Nico, tell.. tell me everything.." I said, stuttering at my words and anchoring my phone holding my hand from trembling.

Nicolas drew a long deep breath as if preparing for a retelling of the treachery from my trusted father. "You may want to know who you are to make sense." His words pierced without pain this time. I stayed numb to it, with an occasional hmm now and then.

"You are not Ramon's daughter, Tina."

Unlike the usual silence I donned, I uttered a laugh upon hearing his words, upon seeing the photos and at my fate. All of my beliefs were crumbling before my eyes.

"So, I am an orphan?" I asked, waiting for the dark clouds lingering over me to consume me while with the truth.

"No," his shivered voice made its way across to me. "You are very much a Ramirez."

There were so many scattered pieces of thoughts in my mind but none of them aligned to depict a proper picture to me. "My mom.." I shuddered, unable to produce the next words. Nicolas helped me.

"Was having an affair with my dad. You are not Ramon's but Rodrigo's daughter. I am your half-brother."

Uncle Rodrigo was my actual father. My father, or the one whom I assumed to be my father, killed my mother. I was an illegitimate heir to the Ramirez. A bastard.

The silence in the room was deafening, jarring into my bones and blood. I dove into the pillow, screaming. My pent up anger passed onto my pillow as I bawled onto it till my lungs couldn't oxygenate me and my throat dried.

I was betrayed, lied to. I believed Ramon to be my father but he was just a guardian. He murdered my mother in cold blood.

My head was heating, my face burning and my chest heaving for air. The darkness of the secret took over the brightly lit room, casting a shadow inside. In the silence and the darkness, I sat up, wiping my face onto the pillow. The warmth from my face crept and engulfed my whole body. I looked up from the photos to the silhouette of a person standing near the door.

Antonio walked in, a hand in his trouser pocket and another scratching his stubble. His lips formed a straight line as he neared me and sat beside me.

The mattress depressed from his weight. Warmth flowed through his eyes and face when he moved his hand to be placed next to mine but not over it. Not touching.

Peeling his gaze off his hand placement, he titled his head to my side resembling an abandoned puppy. "What happened, Valentina?" He shifted in the bed till a comfortable spot was attained. He looked over the pages that lay beside him, a glance before diverting his attention onto me.

"My father killed my mother," I said in a torpid tone. I hoped it was all a nightmare. A bad one. I wanted Antonio to wake me in reality, if indeed he was in my room. I wanted someone to hold me in their warm embrace and tell me that it was all a joke. Something to get me off my high horse.

As warm tears made their way over my cheeks, Antonio's hand shifted from its place but never reached to comfort me. With the thoughts that ran wild, my tear ducts overworked. All those years of training, acting strong, being strong all faded into a ball of darkness that engulfed all my emotions and feelings. I felt numb again.

"You knew about it? Didn't you?" I was watching Antonio since my confession. He didn't move or react. His close to human reaction came when I cried yet, he remained stoic throughout the other part. "How long?" I asked, moving closer to him.

Antonio's face turned to those photos. They fluttered under the air that entered the room through the small budge in the window. Picking up a photo of Rodrigo hoisting me over his shoulders, he smiled a bit before returning to his serious demeanour.

"He was a good man, your father Rodrigo." He passed the piece of memory to my side, watching me as I held it in my hands again. "You are his daughter, be proud of it. He was the kindest man I knew."

"We don't deserve kindness, none of us does." I blurted, shaking my head sidewise.

I didn't care if Antonio wanted to make me feel better or was merely stating things out of his recollection. I didn't care about anything. All I cared about was what I was told.

Lies.

Lies pumped into my body. Of disloyalty, or connivance. If someone could cut me open today, I would bleed revenge instead of blood. Since seven, I was trained by Ramon after Rodrigo died. All I had heard since then was there would come one day when all my training would be utilized for good. For slitting the Moralez's throat. To take the throne.

I believed it all, my murderous fairytale. I wanted to be the Kingslayer.

When girls played outside, I trained. When they dated men, I trained. When they went away, travelling, schooling, I fucking trained. There was nothing else to me, if not my training. Of what I was bred for.

Imagine being told a lie all your life. A lie that fueled you, drove you to achieve perfection. You believed that lie to be the gospel. That to be the final words of God. And suddenly, one day, that lie was taken away, replaced with the truth. Your whole existence would fall into question.

I felt like a cow, reared all its life for its meat. It always knew what was coming for it. It saw one after another day, other cows being taken away, never to return. Only one day, this cow was let go. Not for slaughter but free. The animal would go mad, just like what I felt.

"God I am having an existential crisis," I leaned onto the bed, instead landed on Antonio's lap. I tried to move but he handheld me in place, rubbing and patting over my head. The human touch I craved, I found it in him. "You should go," I whispered onto his lap.

He remained glued to his place, patting my head and rubbing my back till I rose back from my ashes.

One thing I was grateful for, was my training. No matter how broken or bent, I would recalibrate to the condition and come back.

Antonio pushed off the bed, turning to me. "If there is anything, anything you need. Call me." I bobbed my head. "I will return tomorrow."

He walked away through the door, vanishing. I waited for him to reappear. If only he could have read my mind. I didn't want him to leave. Suddenly I needed him to stay, to hold me again. Antonio and I had our differences but today, I saw something in his eyes.

Kindness.

That man wasn't El Demonio. He wasn't the one who choked men at the casino and burned them alive. He was an understanding person who respected me, gave me my space. Amidst the tornado, there comes a moment when everything becomes clear. In the eye of the tornado, for a brief moment, I saw in him, kindness light. Even love.

"Val." A soft voice entered the room, Maria, along with.

I slid off the bed, launching onto her body. She patted me the same way her son did. The Moralez touch worked again. I felt a surge of calm run inside me.

Maria took us to the bed. Picking up photos and documents, she placed them neatly on the table, under a weight. Moving back, she tugged me under the covers. She was everything I had missed in my mother. Warm and caring. Strong and stubborn. A mother who wasn't scared to beat up the drug lord if he ever raised his voice over hers.

I entered this family, determined to tear it apart. This place and its people. Little did I knew that the same people would bestow me with such love and affection that I would doubt my duty.

I was wrong about everything. Well, everything Ramon taught me about Moralez. They weren't sick, deviant people. They were kind ones who accepted me for what I was.

As the car backfired in the driveway before starting up, a part of me wanted to run behind it. I wanted to ask for forgiveness from the man I was married to. Forgiveness for treating Antonio as a madman, forgiveness for overlooking Maria's concern as being fake, forgiveness for ignoring Al's love and for toying with Agustin. I wanted to ask for repentance from every one of them.

The part that wanted to conduct this act was suppressed by fear.

What if they think I was a bad person? What if they tossed me away assuming all that I did for them was only a deception, planned for me by a man whom I assumed to be my father.

Maria patted my exposed arm over the covers. She ran her soft hand down a few times. "You are a Moralez now." I nodded, readjusting myself on my back to lean at the headboard. "A Moralez man might be defeated a few times with tricks but a woman," she smiled at me, her trademark smile. "A Moralez woman can't be bought down so easily. We lurk in the shadows and pounce when least expected."

I pulled up on the bed. What was Maria talking about? Did she know about Ramon? My question might have reflected on my face, as she proceeded to answer.

"I don't want to hear what Ramon did to you." she nudged me back into the covers. "I want you and everyone around you to tell me, what you did to him."

Removing my hand from inside the cover, I drew a hand pistol. Phew. I pointed at the documents.

She laughed softly, tilting her head sidewise and tucking me back inside like a burrito, as my mom used to do. "Or we can have some fun with him." She said, lifting off from the bed and dimming the lights in the room, one after another. In the darkness, she moved like a fox, towards the door. "You mi'ja, sometimes, the chase is better than the kill." She whispered, walking out.

Maria left the room with me and my thoughts. But she also left me with a new wave of confidence. She imbibed me with the knowledge that although I may have been defeated with the truth today, it didn't mean Ramon Ramirez won. It didn't mean I would lose forever. It only meant a temporary glitch.

Maria, with her words and care, instilled me with a new hope. The hope of having an actual family. A family I could care for, protect and maybe even love.

In the silence of the night with the crickets crying in a distance, I tossed off the cover, grabbing my phone. Tapping fingers over the keyboard, I sent a text which swooshed with a calming tone.

Antonio's might not reply but it didn't mean I shouldn't say what I felt.

'Thanks for being there, today.'

It was barely a few words but I wanted to tell him, his brief interaction helped me pick up my broken pieces.

Within seconds, his reply chimed.

'No problem, Val. Sleep tight.'

For a change, I decided to pay heed to his advice. I went back to bed with the memories of my mother and the betrayal of my father.

Ramon Ramirez may have had many a peaceful night but starting today, his nightmares would only be beginning.

~

A/N

From now on, you would see the walls of my male and female protagonist crumble, wither and one day fall. But because its not a fluff piece, it would take time and you might pull your hair while these two sort their emotions for each other.

Hope you would comment and let me know, what you think would happen when Antonio returns.. Will he feel different for Val or will he try to uphold what seem to not exist anymore?

Happy reading

Love

S