Garcìa

chapter 2

Valentina awoke by a sound coming from the hallway. She looked over at her clock to see that it was ten a.m. The maids usually let her sleep in until ten-thirty. So, it couldn't be them. It couldn't be Elijah either because she heard him leave late last night. She grabbed the first thing she could use as a weapon. An umbrella. She carefully made her way over to her door.

"Shit." someone cursed when Valentina heard a crash.

She took a deep breath before opening her door. She looked to the left but found nothing. When she looked to the right, she saw a tall young man standing in front of a broken picture. One of the 'portraits' that hung all over the hallway. She furrowed her eyebrows. She had never seen him before.

"Who are you?" she asked the young man with her umbrella raised.

He looked up from the ground. His dark green eyes meeting her brown ones. He looked her over, as if trying to recognise her. But he had never seen her before either. She raised her eyebrows at him. Willing him to answer her question.

"I could ask you the same." he replied instead.

"Ugh. Just tell me your name and I'll tell you mine." she said with a grunt.

"Rafael." he replied simply.

"See, that wasn't so hard." she said while lowering her umbrella a bit.

"You owe me your name." he said without emotion while truly, he was intrigued by the young woman in front of him.

"Valentina." she stated.

A moment of silence went over them. Rafael was thinking over the name and matching it with her face. There was something so familiar about her but he couldn't for the life of him decide what it was. Valentina was trying to see if he knew her while figuring out if she had heard of him before.

"What are you doing in my father's house? Are you a kid of one of his whores?" Rafael asked, deciding to break the silence.

But instead of getting a response, Valentina burst out laughing. She had never heard someone asking something so ridiculous with such a serious face. It was pretty funny to her. But Rafael was quite serious about his questions.

"Well?" he decided to ask.

"No. No, hell no. Absolutely not. I don't think so. I'm not in any way related to that beast of a man." she said with distaste clear in her voice.

"Then what are you doing here?" he asked her.

"Well, why would I tell you? Since he's your father, how do I know I can trust you?"

He mulled over her words only to find them reasonable. He understood why she wouldn't trust him, knowing that Elijah was his father. Valentina looked at him with a tilted head, challenging him to make her talk.

"Because I probably hate him as much as you do, if not more." he spoke up.

"I don't think you could hate him as much as I do." Valentina replied while shaking her head.

"Why would you hate him more than me?" he asked, intrigued.

"Valentina! Don't forget to tend you bruises before coming down!" Sarah yelled from downstairs, oblivious to the situation upstairs.

Valentina sighed. He now had information that she had wanted to keep to herself. She looked up at the young man in front of her. Fully expecting the same emotionless look on his face as before, only to see anger on his face. But she couldn't figure out if it was for her or not. Rafael might seem like a heartless business man on the outside, but he does have a heart. He knew all too well what his father was capable of. And he had no doubt this woman in front of him was an unfortunate victim to his father's actions.

"I see." he said.

She huffed before going back into her room to tend to her bruises. It seemed that most of her cards were now out in the open.

"So, why are you here?" he asked while she was tending to her wounds.

"He wants information." she replied, figuring he knew too much already but still being a bit more vague.

"And he'll beat you to get it out of you." he stated more than asked.

"Jup." was Valentina's reply.

"How long?" he asked.

"Four years." she replied before cleaning up her medical stuff.

Rafael mulled over her answer. Things started to click together. He hadn't been here in over four years. After he had gotten his mother and sister out of here, he hadn't been back. That explains why he hadn't seen her before. But other than that, something else, something much more illegal clicked. Four years ago, Valentina Garcìa went missing after being brought to the hospital because she fainted after receiving the news about her parents. She was taken from the hospital and hadn't been found since. She was taken by his father.

"Asshole." he muttered out, causing Valentina to look up at him.

"What?" she asked him.

"My father is an asshole. He took you from the hospital four years ago. You're Valentina Garcìa. Rightful heir to Garcìa Jewellery." he explained and Valentina's eyes widened.

Nobody in the house had figured it out. Nobody knew, except for Sarah. What will he do now? Will he want information as well? If so, she needed time to form a plan. What was he willing to do to get that information? The best she could do was to run downstairs to Sarah. But that meant going past the young man in front of her. Making the plan quite a difficulty. Was he going to beat her as well? She couldn't take any more beating. These were supposed her three weeks of no beatings. Her free weeks. She was going to roam around the house without a care. She wouldn't let this man ruin all that for her. Absolutely not.

"Let's make a deal." he said instead causing Valentina to frown.