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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"What's going on?" Clementine's voice was rising with a panic she didn't think would be there.
"Clementine, it's okay," The steady voice of the family lawyer, Alberto, spoke to her from the couch.
"Where's dad?" She asked her mother, but her mother's hopeless look made her look at Alberto.
"Your father is safe, he's with the authorities," Alberto spoke as diplomatically as ever.
Clementine looked desperately at Ernesto, who was comforting Laticia with his hands on her shoulders, she clearly had cried.
A million different possibilities flashed before Clementine's eyes, and she did't know which one to grasp onto.
"Why isn't anyone saying what happened?!" Clementine exclaimed.
"Clementine, please sit down," Alberto motioned for her to sit across him, which she did, the shock of the situation rendering her helpless to resist.
"Your father is safe," Alberto started, "but there's been an...altercation." Altercation was the word he settled on and Clementine wondered what that meant.
It felt like they wee all dancing around the subject of what actually happened.
"Meaning?" She asked annoyed now.
"Meaning he was in a shoot out," Alberto said, casting his eyes to the floor.
Clementine's eyes widened, "but he's okay?" She asked.
"Yes," Alberto said but was interrupted by a sob coming from Laticia.
Clementine relaxed a little bit, but then Alberto said: "That's not all though. There were others involved."
Clementine's vision narrowed and her hearing sharpened, "what others?" She asked dumbly.
"It was a gang-war," Albert said as if this was all normal, and Clementine was having a hard time following who the good guys and who the bad guys were. Alberto then looked at Clementine's mother who nodded to him in affirmation, as if telling him to go on. "And somebody else, involved directly...was Zico."
Clementine's vision blurred and she had a visceral reaction to what she just had.
She went numb.
Regaining her sense of self, she felt a wail crawl up her throat and she started crying. She cried the tears that were stuck in her since the beginning of this whole mess. She cried a river she did not know ran through her.
"Is he okay?" She managed to ask through her sobs, and her mother instinctively came to sit beside her, enveloping her in her arms, shushing her as if she was a little baby.
"We don't know," Alberto said simply and she hated him then; the family lawyer not good for helping her figure this out then what is he good for.
"But I saw him....two hours ago..he was there beside him," she was ugly crying, and Alberto was clerkly uncomfortable.
