Devotion (3) ✔

17 - Santiago

As a protector, as a brother who just his sister back, using her as bait to draw out the enemy was the stupidest crap I'd ever pulled. My knuckles were raw from pounding on the punching bag so hard for the past few weeks.

Lucia has been painting the town red, so to say. She was having an art exhibition in Los Angeles County Museum of Art gallery. I had to pull some strings but she'd been painting non-stop. Fantasy portraits, fantasy landscapes, realists images of waves crashing over the shore, neon stalagmites. I was mesmerised by how extraordinary she'd become. I contacted someone from the museum and asked an agent to come over to check out her art.

At first she wasn't so keen. To her, she was being asked by a rich man to put his sisters paintings on display because of a donation he was about to make. After she saw her paintings, she was so mesmerised that I didn't even need to pull out my check book.

However, when she spoke about waiting list, I wrote a nice amount of donation to get her damn paintings on those walls. My wife on the other hand, has been making blogs of her sister in law's paintings. Made her an Instagram account and have been helping her to get her paintings out there. She's also been teaching my sister how to make time-lapse with a music overlay. They were doing quite well apparently, especially for a beginner.

Mariana's publicist did a good job for getting so many people to turn out. Especially right after the thanksgiving holiday. I couldn't comprehend how the universe worked. Many years ago, Marianas current publicist Tori Benoist's father came to me, asked me find the man that raped his deceased girlfriend and kill him.

I didn't ask many questions then. I needed the money and I had men and means to carry out the hit. So I did. Now, that man's daughter was an acquaintance of my little sister. Publicist of my wife's. How the fucking world worked? I'd never know.

The Catalan family didn't celebrate thanks giving. It wasn't our culture but we did have a little get together, spent some family time together. It was the small things that mattered the most to be now.

My sister wasn't really into it so she'd record her paintings but when she was done, she'd pass it onto my wife's assistant for editing. She just wanted to paint. I understood that perfectly. Mariana was looking an assistant for my sister.

As much as I loved how well they got along, I hated that my sister went to my wife than me. I wanted her to come to me, not get my wife to relay shit. I wanted her to be comfortable around me, to speak to be about anything damn thing. It was a hard transition but I was coping.

She looked so damn happy when people were coming up to her, complementing her paintings asking for prints and posters. She was smiling from ear to ear and her henchman of a boyfriend was right behind her, never letting her go from his sight. She wasn't supposed to grow up the way she did. As a captive, in pain. She was supposed to grow up like a princess and go to college, become whatever she wanted to be.

Her dad was there in the room. Chest filled with pride. He went around, pulling people in a conversation so they'd buy her prints. He was working the room better than her agent.

When Tio came to L.A. and found Lucia in my house, he went ballistic. Crazy that I didn't tell him sooner before the guilt set in. Later, I sat him down, explained to him about what she went through, he cried. Cried like a father who'd just lost his only child. Cried like a man who couldn't protect his child or wife. He was horrified, couldn't look Lucia in the eye for a while until I learned from Mariana that Lucia took that as a sign of her dad being disgusted by her being violated.

I immediately replayed it to him. He was ashamed of himself not the other way round. I'm sure they had an emotional conversation that I wasn't a part of but Lucia of course, told Mariana and she told me.