Clementine had become a wild child. Born in America but raised abroad, she now had little regard for the expectations of high society. But her reckless ways eventually catch up with her when she is kicked out of college in New York City and forced t...
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100
I should've known better.
My first instinct when I regained my breathing and a sense of reality was to stand up, as if readying to run. I didn't know where, but somewhere.
I sat back down, feeling as if the air has been taken out of me. The same thing was echoing uncontrollably in my head:
MY WHOLE LIFE HAS BEEN A LIE?
"Eu sabia que seria assim," I knew it would be like this. Laticia worriedly said as if now she was going to be the one about to pass out.
Ernesto kept his gaze steady, however, on us.
"I...have so many questions," I muttered, mostly to myself.
Did I just leave the love of my life for living the life I was meant for all this time after all? Did I dodge a bullet?
These were just the first few ones that came to mind immediately.
My heart felt as if it was definitely going to burst now, into a tiny million, little shattered pieces.
If everything else didn't take me over the edge, this did the trick.
"The reason we are telling you all this," Ernesto went on, trying to be the calm one, "is because something big is going to happen. And you have to be ready when it does."
"How do you know all this?!" I exclaimed with a panic in my voice, not really wishing to know anymore.
"How do you think? We are the few that have one foot soon the street and one foot in the know." Then, lowering his voice, he said "See, Zico is not just anyone."
"Oh, well, I know that." I wanted to scream that he was ind of everything, but I restrained myself.
"He runs a major part of the plaza," Ernesto said as if it was supposed to mean something big.
"What does that mean?" I asked bluntly.
"It means, that he is a figure with more power than your father would like, which means he's also more at risk."
"What did my father have to do with ZICO?" I asked rougher than I needed to.
"Your father," Ernesto continued, "runs the plaza that is in direct competition with Zico's."
My heart caught in my throat. For the little that I knew about this business, I think I understood enough to know that it was not pretty.
"There's going to be a shootout!" Laticia yelled seemingly out of nowhere.
"A what!?" I yelled back.
"O que você está fazendo?" Ernesto exclaimed, as if taking over the pressure from Laticia. "We don't know that."
"Well, either way, it can't go on the way it is. See, Clementina, this tension was building for a long while now - the fight to control more of the market share. Then you came along, your father realized just how you were dating, and told everyone to pull back for your sake." Laticia began vomiting words.
"But now...it's come beyond that. The groups are outgrowing each other, and somebody's gonna have to win. Your father has always won, but even that can't last forever." Ernesto explained, as if this was all perfectly normal for me to hear.
I stared at the floor, and before I could hear anymore, I knew what I had to do.
The phone didn't have time to ring beyond one ring, when the line was picked up on the other side.
"You mean you knew each other this whole time?" I said on the line before he even had a cane to say hi.
"Clementine...what are you talking about?" All these months not talking to me, and Zico says my name as if nothing like that had ever happened.
"My dad, Zico. You knew how my dad was?" My world was unraveling by the minute.
Never in a million years would I have called him yup like this, after everything. But this was an emergency. A crisis of sorts.
"Slow down," Zico, ever the cool headed. "I can't believe its you," he mused.
"Don't stray away from the subject. Did you know who my dad was when you met me?" I demanded.
"Well, yes, but..."
"I knew it!" I said incredulously.
"Let me finish," he interrupted me back, " but I didn't know who you were."
"What?" I asked.
"I had no idea he was a your dad. When I met you, you were just...you. A beautiful girl I was attracted to."
I let the silence hang in the air, feeling him break away the ice as he usually does, but not letting myself get so easily swayed now.
"But you figured it out, eventually, did't you?"
A beat passed before he quietly said "yes."
"Fuck," he said, surprising us both.
"And?" I asked.
"And what? When you left, I was a bit shocked, quite frankly. But then I put the pieces together and...you really didn't know huh?"
"No! No, I didn't..." All the fight in me creeped away and now I was unsure where I stood. The landscaper had changed completely.
All this time I thought we were in the dessert, to see that we were actually in the arctic.
"That...changes things, doesn't it?" Zico said carefully, and for once I didn't know how to respond.
