Tears And Blood

Prologue.

Bogota, Colombia. 1997.

"Cataleya!" She hears her mother calls out and turns the page of a notebook, revealing neat cursive handwriting, that covers her doodles.

Cataleua Restrepo, a contained, very centered 10 year old, pretty, but with a toughness, sitting at the dining room table, in a well kept, but modest home, with windows that look out over the steep hillside favela, attends to her notebook. On the window there are half a dozen beautiful orchid plants. The rare Cataleya orchid.

All around there are packed cartons, suitcases. Moving day is at hand.

"Cat! Is your homework finished yet?" She hears her máma yell from the other room.

"Working on it Máma."

Her mother, taking time off from packing, enters the next room and comes over to Cataleya, turning the page of the notebook to reveal her doodles.

"You draw beautifully my love, but if you want to be something in life you have to study." She stated, knowing her daughter to well.

"I am studying máma. I want to be a super hero."

Her mother turns the page back to the lessons, shakming her head at her daughters young, thoughtless mind.

"Better to be a doctor or lawyer." She said before exiting the dinning room to continie packing.

"Are we going to see Uncle Emilio?"

"I don't know. Just waiting to hear from your father." She responds as they have conversation through the wall seperating them.

□□ Don Luis Casa □□

"I can't believe this." Don Luis says, sitting opposite from a  mid 40's gentleman, at a table, with a bottle of liquor and two glasses..

"Why not?"

Off to the side, Don Luis's right hand man, Marco, stands like any right hand, unobtrusive.

"Because I love you Fabio. Like a brother."

" And I love you Don Luis. Like a brother." Fabio states back.

"Can you believe this guy Marco?" Don Luis said as he looked up to the standing figure,

"We started when we were little...how old were we Fabio? Ten? Yes, ten year old bastards stealing apples from the carts in the market. After all we've been through. And now we're on top, he wants to leave..."

"Luis, I'm going to be honest with you. You remember I had that operation? That was last year. Since then, I'm not a hundred percent. And you can't do this thing if you're not a hundred percent. I'm tired. So you'll take a rest." Fabio explained, mentioning the 'operation' from last year that almost ended with Fabio behind bars.

"You know how many times we should have been dead? I don't even want to count." Fabio continued, reminiscing.

" Neither do I. But you gotta think. How lucky we are to still be alive."

"Yeah. That's right. We're alive. And what about the future of this thing we built? It's yours. It's not my thing any more." Faboon said directingtheir conversation to the main purpose of this meeting.

"I'm not going to talk you out of it, am I cabron?"

"I'll always be there for you Luis. Just pick up the phone, I'm there."