Chapter Three

Luke Fagundes

A lump formed in my throat as the plane took off towards Brasília, but I didn't cry. I will never cry because my father decided to be a son of a bitch with me. I got used to your disdain, your lack of empathy. Likewise, I might even be going to hell, but I would come back stronger than before and ready for my revenge.

An hour later, the plane landed on the runway. I went down and came across an unknown man, standing waiting for me. Gonzalo thought of everything, every detail, to make sure that the punishment would be strictly imposed against me. The man, in silence, directed me to a car, stopped a few meters away. I was pushed unceremoniously into the backseat. Half an hour later he stopped on a street, without asphalt, with mud puddles and boys running barefoot. The place stank worse than the building where he was hiding with his mistress. The man opened the door and pulled me out.

— Your aunt is waiting for you, –  he said, pushing me into the middle of the street, causing me to bump into a boy who was running with a kite in his hand.

— You don't look where you're going, do you, Uncle? He looked at me and then turned his back and walked away.

The man got back into the car, pointing his finger at a house far ahead, indicating that was where I should go. Then he left.

For the last five hours, I had been tossed around like I was something nobody wanted. At that moment I felt like garbage, thrown in the middle of a dirty place, with strange people, at the mercy of my own luck. Who knew my own father would do this to me.

I walked towards the house. It was actually a shed, where the wood was being eaten by termites. The roof was old, the sewer ran in the open sky, there was garbage scattered in the middle of the yard. How could anyone live in conditions like that? Even worse, like my father, being rich left a relative as close as his own sister to live in inhumane conditions just like that. As I thought about all this, I watched a fat woman come out. His hair was disheveled, and his sandals were old and worn out.

— Luke? – his face was so fat that his eyes were pressed in with the surrounding fat.

At least she wasn't hungry, I thought.

— It's me, –  I replied.

— I thought so – she said it wrong – you look a lot like your bastard father – please come in.

I also noticed that she didn't like Gonzalo very much. But if that were true, why then did she agree to keep me there?

— Your father took it hard on you – he walked behind her, while crossing a wooden gate and heading towards the entrance of the house – what did you do this time?

If I told her, would it help me escape this hell? Hardly, no.

— I had enough evidence that he cheated on my mother.

— You see  – the woman let out a loud and satisfying laugh – I feel sorry for Olivia who has to live with a man like him.

We entered the house. Apparently clean had a torn and dirty couch. A small TV rested on top of an old, rusty table. And that was all there was.

— How do you know my family so well? – I asked, while she turned to me and looked at me – because I didn't know you.

— I left Belo Horizonte before you were born – he replied – I never got along with Gonzalo because he always refused to help me financially.

It was just the way he was.

— And why did you agree to keep me here?

— You see, Luke boy – she began to confess – I have nothing against you, you understand? But your father promised me a large sum of money to help him punish you. Surely with this money I will get out of this misery.

But what a motherfucker. Apparently, bad karatism came from the genetics of the Gonzalo family.

— Oh, of course! – Once more I looked around the environment – ​​I turned to currency exchange for your own interests.

She looked at me confused, certainly not understanding what I was saying.

'We don't have a bedroom at home, apart from mine and my husband's—she probably didn't have any children, I presume – so you can sleep anywhere.' I'll get you a mattress.

We walked to the other room, the kitchen of the house. There was a pot on a small wood stove. A rusty refrigerator and chickens walking in the middle of the room. Looking at that whole situation, I even understood why she had accepted my father's proposal.

— I'm going to get some clothes for you – he kept saying while stirring what was cooking in the pot – you can call me Magdalena, Luke boy. For today, I will take it easy on you and let you rest. But be up at six o'clock in the morning, because you're going to work at the grocery store I have right around the corner.

And left the kitchen. Magdalena walked with difficulty, and I even felt sorry for her. Imagining the suffering life that woman lived for years might even break my heart, but her chalice would also be mine from that moment on. I needed to find a way to escape from here and make Gonzalo pay for all the evil he was doing.

The next day I went to the little market that looked more like a bar. In fact, it belonged to Geraldo, my aunt's husband. He was a nice and hardworking man. He started to teach me what I had to do, but I was completely out of mood for that. Magdalena appeared in the afternoon and handed me a package.

— Your father told me to give you this – he held the thing out to me – and he said there's a note inside that you should read.

I took the object and started to open it. It was a cell phone. I was surprised. What kind of punishment would that be, where I could communicate with the rest of the world and be able to tell everyone what I knew?

I also took that note and read it

“Pay close attention to what I am about to tell you. Don't use that cell phone to commit your crazy things, because I've certainly already proved to you what I'm capable of doing. If you disobey me, I will send you out of the country and there you will live real hell for the rest of your life. In six months, on condition of good behavior, I will send you a small amount of money every month to support you there. In a year, I'll bring you back. Until then, he will work just to pay for his stay at Magdalena's house. Do as I command, and soon this hell will be over. And when he returns home, he will return as a man.”

I crumpled up the paper immediately. Gonzalo would keep me in a prison, with inhuman and even slave conditions, just to hide from the rest of the world how much of a petty and unscrupulous traitor he was. I wanted to find a way out of it all, but there wasn't. I would have to endure and dance in the footsteps of my dear father. Once again, my throat closed up and I refused to cry. Absorbing all the chaos, promising myself to make it my strength. I would get out of it, and Gonzalo would experience hell itself.