Dangerous Game

Part 3

   A/N: That's a picture of Raul aka Michael Trevino 

      I was 16 years old when it happened. 

Raul was every younger sisters' ideal older brother. He was kind and sincere. He was always there when I needed him. Maybe that's why Maritza never got along with him, I thought to myself.

He would almost always come to my defense when Maritza would try to verbally or physically abuse me. I say almost, because Raul was extremely busy working. He was employed as a lawyer for a pharmaceutical company in Washington, D.C, So he defended me growing up but when he finished high school he left us and went straight to college. The first in our family. We were so proud. We still are proud. 

Even though he was in Washington, D.C, he would fly almost every weekend to see us, and on all the holidays. See, the perfect brother!

However, he suddenly stopped visiting on the weekends, he'd call occasionally. One night he called us out of the blue, and said he was working on a new case, but he never gave us the full details. He respected his company's privacy policy. 

Soon after that he stopped calling, even on holidays. Occasionally we received postcards from the different countries he traveled to. We knew he was capable of taking care of himself, but we missed him a lot. I missed him a lot. He was and still is my best friend. 

Here's the thing, secretly we were all worried, even Maritza, whose only important to herself most of the time. Papi and I felt that the company he worked for was a bit nefarious, because they were always in the media, and there was always controversies regarding them and medicine distribution in 3rd world countries. I guess coming from a family of detectives and military men we were always looking at things from a different angle. 

So when my family and I received a call from Raul's employers that he went missing somewhere in Morocco, we (papi and I) weren't completely surprised.  

Raul was a strong but silent type of person. He had curly brown hair, which he would shave off and when he did that, he would drive Maritza crazy. She felt he looked better with his curls. But to Raul he didn't feel very manly. He liked to have it cut short, almost like a buzz cut. This type of haircut I felt brought out his dimples and his strong chiseled cheeks. His hazel eyes were beautiful and when the sun was in his eyes you could see a green tint around his iris. He's beautiful inside and out.

He would always challenge me to a game of chess or Scrabble, which he would beat me every time. He's extremely intelligent, graduated top of his class in high school and college. He was offered a full scholarship to Harvard and then Harvard Law school. Which is a first for our family, even our extended family. Even though my uncles are upstanding servants of the law, their children aren't. I have cousins who are delinquents,  part of some mafia, and a couple of addicts. See a normal family. My cousins weren't as serious as my uncles were about upholding the law.