So, I was worth half a billion dollars. At least I fetch a large sum, I thought.
I looked at the envelope in my hand, my breath catching. Letters from my mother. I was afraid to open them, terrified of reading them. She had been gone since I was fourteen, and I had done my best to close the door on her death. I was afraid to hear her words from beyond the grave. Or worse, to realize that they weren’t her words and that this was all some cheap ploy, a power play of some kind by Benicio. I would get my hopes up that I might finally have answers and then it would all come falling down like a massive house of cards.
I steeled myself, bracing for the emotional impact as I pulled the sheaf of paper, yellowed with age, from the envelope. My heart stopped. I recognized my mother’s handwriting immediately. I traced the loops of her cursive, my fingers lingering on the letters. It was hers. Then I saw the first two words.
Mi Vida
My eyes brimmed with tears. My life. It’s what she had called me when I was young. I no longer had any doubt these were written in her hand.
If you are reading these letters, then you know everything, and I am gone. You should know that I tried my best-I saved for years. I thought I could escape and take you with me. I had a plan to run away with you. If you’re reading this, then you know that plan failed. I failed, and left you with him. The monster.
My heart lurched, and I felt bile in my throat. She had meant to go away and take me with her. The last day I saw her, the day she had dropped me off at school, she had told me she would pick me up early. And I had complained, whined about leaving. The memory returned as if it had happened yesterday.
She drew me toward her, pulling me tightly against her chest, standing on the sidewalk outside school.
“Mom, come on! My friends are going to see!” I pushed her away, already embarrassed that my mother walked me to school. It was completely humiliating. I was fourteen-too old to be walked to school by my mom.
“Mi Vida,” she said, her hands on the lapels of my thin jacket, straightening it, smoothing it with her palms. “Listen to me.”
“Mom, I have to go. I’ll see you after school.”
“Listen to me,” she said, her voice sharp. “I will pick you up early today.”
“What? No, I have soccer practice after school. Don’t you remember?”
“Listen, Mi Vida.”
“No. If I miss soccer practice, coach will be pissed.”
“There are more important things,” she said, her voice soft.
“Whatever, mom. I’ll just get kicked off the team and everything will be ruined.” I pushed her away. Samantha and Marie called from the steps of the school. “I have to go, Mom.”
“I love you, Mi Vida.”
“Love you too, Mom.”
I never turned around to look at her. I just walked away to meet my friends. I never said goodbye. It was the last time I would see her alive.
I swallowed, my throat constricting. I felt like my heart was being torn in two. Then I cried, for the mother I’d lost. For the way I’d said goodbye, a stupid selfish fourteen year old child who couldn’t be bothered to even look at her as I walked away. For the father I didn’t know. And for the man who raised me to know him as a father, the one who murdered my mother. I cried until I had no more tears left to cry.
And then I read the rest of the letters.
You should know the story of your father and I - Benicio, your real father. He would die to protect you, like he would do for me.
I read on, through the pages of letters she had written for me, the pages that told the story of her and Benicio, how she had loved Benicio and had burned with hatred toward my father for putting him in prison.
I listened to his heart beat, felt the rise and fall of his breath in the darkness, knowing he was mine. This man had sworn to protect me, this man who now possessed me, body and soul. This was the man I would own from the moment he looked at me, his gaze angry and unyielding. The first time his eyes met mine, I knew it, deep within me. I didn’t regret any of the winding journey on which it had taken us. My only regret was that it was going to get us both killed.
I knew that from the very beginning. I knew Guillermo would kill us if he found out about Benicio and I. He would murder both of us with his bare hands.