CHAPTER 9: The Mendozas
Bridgetown, Barbados
Don Carlos sat back in the plush velvet red chair with gold trim and puffed on his pipe. Natasha, had mixed together a perfect blend of Sativa and lavender to give him the best high he could ask for. It put him at ease, to say the least. He eased out of his chair and made his way to the bedroom down the hall from his home office.
The halls of Don Carlos’ estate were decorated in pricey artwork and personal portraits of his children and wife. There was one portrait of Don Carlos and it was perched on the wall of his lavish great room. When Don Carlos approached the bedroom, he paused and stood in front of the door. He gazed at the photo of his eldest son, Horatio, that hung next to the bedroom.
Horatio was killed by Kitana and before Don Carlos could get to the girl, she was scooped by her biological father and never heard of for almost 10 years. Horatio Mendoza’ death was plastered all over the news and made out to be a self-defense case. Don Carlos cringed inwardly thinking of all of the upturned noses he got in retaliation from the accusations that were brought against his son.
The news was saying that a young girl no more than 15 years old had allegedly been the victim of rape and molestation for more than 5 years at the hands of Horatio Mendoza. Horatio had been the on again-off again boyfriend to Kitana’s mother, Lady Jones at the time of said allegations. Lady was found dead in Kitana’s room alongside Horatio, but the autopsy report ruled her death as a suicide. Kitana could never be reached for a second interview, outside of the initial report, but there was a brief mention of Lady knowing of the abuse, but no one outside of the involved trio could neither confirm nor deny these allegations. Since Kitana was a minor at the time of the murder and she was identified as a real victim of abuse, there were no charges brought to the girl and she faded out of the spotlight.
For the longest, Don Carlos only wanted to question Kitana on his own terms and to be able to hold court in the streets to assure that real justice would be served. But after so many years of his initial wish not being granted, his mind made him believe that the girl was lying and had more to add to the story than what the media had released. Don Carlos had been after blood.
Then one day he lucked up when he got an anonymous tip that a girl that fit the description of Kitana had been spotted frequenting a coffee/ice cream shoppe in Alabama. Don Carlos’ Chief of Staff, Nico, had offered to make a trip to confirm their suspicions,but Don Carlos had refused, insisting on taking his granddaughter, Alana, along with him for the ride. When Don Carlos had seen Kitana with his own eyes, he wanted to strangle the girl right then and there. She was young and about to start the beginning of her adult life while his oldest son, the heir to his throne, rotted in a grave, his own purposeful life snuffed out before he could even take the crown. Alana had begged him not to do that, however, so when he got the news that Kitana’s home had been abandoned the very next day, he was furious.
It was a quarter past time for the meeting in the Mendoza’ family room and yet, Carlos Jr, was just now walking in, adjusting his pants and tie. Don Carlos wearily glanced at the statuesque grandfather clock in the room, and back at his disheveled son.
“Donde es tu madre, hijo?” Don asked his son.
“No, se, Papa,” Jr. Responded. “The estate is bigger than an amusement park. It’s a wonder she hasn’t gotten lost before.” He laughed at his own joke. The Don wasn’t laughing, however. He had began to notice a change in his wife’s demeanor as of lately. He had an inkling of what the cause was, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up or to upset Natasha. She had had quite a few miscarriages over the years, so after awhile, they just quit trying to get pregnant. It wasn’t until Mariana’s death, did Natasha start to behave differently. The Don understood his wife’s behavior. She may have felt that Mari’s death was on their hands, or she felt that yet another one of her children was gone. The Don saw this differently. Mari’s disloyalty to her own flesh and blood, accompanied with the aggressive cancer was the cause of her death, not him or Natasha.
Natasha would plead with him everyday after about a week of Mari not having access to her usual meds. She would even send in their grand daughter, Alana, to do her dirty work. The Don would turn them both away, intent on breaking Mari down to the point of helping him. He should have known as stubborn as his daughter was, she would rather die suffering in silence than to be controlled. If only he could have had a timeframe for how long she could last… But it was too late to think about that.
First he needed to begin to figure out where in the hell his grand daughter, Alana had ran off to. She had been missing since her mother’s funeral. His next order of business would be locating Kitana again. It seemed that she too, had apparently gone ghost, because the last few times he had sent men to retrieve her, they would come back empty-handed or in the last instance, not come back at all. That was the last straw. The Don had decided he needed to take a more serious approach to capturing Kitana. It seemed that the girl was not only resourceful, but she also had much more help than he had previously believed. Finally, Nico Nice, also known as Nice, the Don’s-right hand man entered the room with a salute. The Don returned the salute.
