"Very good, you did very well, everyone..." Applause and cheers, plus laughter, were not long in coming each time teacher Sullivan explained what was on the acrylic board. "Okay, okay, okay. Now, pay attention, please. What's the next letter? Let's see." Sofia smiled openly, looking at the faces of all her students. "It looks like a... "n"?" "Mmm... Is it a question, or is it a statement?" She said to the girl who had just intervened, who laughed with her cheeks flushed. "Let's see, who has seen this..." she drew the letter much bigger, it looked like a cute cartoon, "this letter here?" She looked at the girl, pointing to the blackboard with the marker pen. "Which is very similar to "n", that's right. Who can tell me the name of this letter?" She looked at everyone, no one was saying anything. Suddenly, Sofia felt something move on the side of the door. Looked over there, and her smile faded. "EÑE! It's an "eñe," teach'," Jack Patterson jumped; the nephew of Detective Raymond
Sofia looked to her left and stopped. "Hi, Liam. It's a pleasure," the handsome man said, behind the wheel of a luxurious black SUV, the passenger window down to speak to them, a faint smile accompanying the greeting. Sofia didn't move, she felt as if her skin froze on the spot. "Mommy? Mommy, who is he?" She looked at her little one and felt the vehicle's engine turn off, a door open and close. As if the soles of her shoes had amalgamated with the ground, she was pinned there and could see the man who waved, circled the car, and headed toward them. The ghostly figure was now real. "My name is Leonel," he said to Liam, but he looked at her. Then, he extended a hand toward Sofia. "I owe you an apology." She looked at the outstretched hand, then at his face. Didn't speak right away. "You're forgiven," she said almost in a whisper but did not shake his hand. Leonel lowered it and nodded. "Come on, I can take you." "A ride?" "Yes, a ride. And so we talked." He looked into her e
Sofia excitedly ran to her room in the cottage Larry rented her so she could calm her nerves without her son seeing her. She felt like a teenager. That afternoon she would no longer be gazing at the cottage as she did each time, still feeling impressed to live in such a beautiful place. She was present at her son's chores, but couldn't find a way to refuse the dinner she was sure Larry and his wife Fabiola would propose. She called her sister and asked to connect with her via video call. Dolores wanted to see her nephew and so she did, but Sofia was feeling impatient. As soon as she could, keeping an eye out for Liam watching something on the living room TV screen, she went back into her room and closed the door. She spoke slowly and quietly so that nothing could be heard outside. "What's the matter? You look so strange." "I popped into Leonel Vos," Sofia said. Dolores, a woman in her forties with features very similar to those of her younger sister, with the difference of her h
"This way!" She followed the thick and somewhat hoarse voice of Leonel Vos to her left, crossed to the right, and a clearing opened up for her to see, well-lit, a table beautifully decorated with glassware and china, white tablecloth and with some details, wooden chairs and he, the boss of all, dressed in a black suit. Sofia, for a moment, stopped walking, her legs almost didn't respond. He looked very, very handsome and was already waiting for her, standing with the chair she would occupy, pulled up for her to sit down. Leonel exhaled a muted puff of air after she sat down. Before proceeding, she greeted him, smiled, and at the same time removed her cloth jacket that exposed a black, thin-striped, V-neck dress that was not intended to be sensual or evening; it was a cocktail dress, above attached to her skin, unlike the skirt, which went slightly above her knees. For the first time, he was seeing Sofia with cleavage and found this one to be very sensual. Her hair was straight and
Sofia saw the envelope and looked at it with a question mark on her face. He waited until he sat down to explain. In his gaze, there was a peculiar cynicism. The mask of hardness was already on. "Sofia, if you open the envelope, you will find the same thing I gave you five years ago. Open it." The girl didn't move immediately, only to open quickly the envelope, she was getting fed up with so much mystery. Her breath held as she saw what the contents were about. "You have two days to leave the country. If you wouldn't like to go back to Spain, I can take care of that. Just tell me where you'd like to go and I'll arrange it." Leonel stared at her, serious, nothing moved on his face. One of his legs was bent, one ankle on one knee, his back glued to the chair, his elbow resting on it, watching, observing the features of the beautiful Sofia who was trying to process everything. "What is this?" She looked at him, incredulous. "A very bad tasted joke?" "Sofia, you were wrong to come
Sofia moved away from the door, stepping backward, tired of knocking and shouting. She understood that had gotten herself into a serious problem, into a cave that might not have an exit. She looked at her hand, still holding the plane tickets, and remembered, at breakneck speed, everything Leonel had told her. «Gael has changed, the father of your child is not the same. He will hurt you, to you and Liam. Get out of here, go back to Spain!» «He brought me here to get me out of town. He invited me to dinner just for that, just to send me back.» She glued her ear to the metal, wincing because the material was cold. She couldn't hear anything. He had told her that the place was soundproofed. She regretted not picking that up as a sign that this dinner would go very badly. «But that's what he wants, he wants everything to go wrong here. He just wants me to leave. So why did he leave me locked up?» "Why did you leave me locked up in here?!" she cried helplessly, crying again, wiping h
Before crossing, circling the outside of the house, Sofia hid behind some bushes to get a better look at the black vehicle parked in a corner. She looked at the ground and swallowed the dryness in her throat. Frank was already gone. It was still early, so she convinced herself that in the big house, they might still be awake. So trying to make as little noise as possible, she ran to the annex Larry rented for her. Her son was not in the room; he must still be in the main house. Under other circumstances, she would go looking for him, not now. She locked herself in her room. Locking the door, she began to cry; she needed it like never before. She restrained herself inside the van because she decided not to show herself like that in front of Mr. Vos' employee. Sofia cried a lot, glued to the wood. When she managed to calm down, she took out her cell phone again and dialed 911, but didn't hit the green button. "What am I going to tell them?" She looked for her sister's number, look
Sofia's footsteps were camouflaged by the thickness of the grass, but it was very early. It was not yet 06:00 in the morning, and the silence was so quiet that even a fly could be heard, so she had to be very careful. Hesitant, nervous, but also desperate, the young woman spotted the black van, very similar to the one that had left her there the night before, and stopped at the corner where she had expected to see it. She exhaled once and stood in front of the passenger door. She could barely see her image through the glass, but she had no desire to analyze any of her features at that hour. The decision was made; she would not back down and was already prepared to know what to say without letting the subject go any further than it might at any moment. Raymond opened the door, letting her in. The silence of the space enveloped them. He looked straight ahead and started the van... "No," she said, "what are you doing?" "Getting out of here?" She looked back, then all around. On th
"Thank you for waiting," Sofia said to Raymond after she had asked his permission to go and change. She was not so foolish as not to notice the looks he gave her as soon as she approached. Raymond rose from the furniture to politely greet her in the living room, where he made himself comfortable while waiting for the teacher. He sat back down when she did. Sofia in a single-seater and he in the three-seater armchair. "Okay, Raymond, tell me, what's going on? What are you doing in San Juan?" "Nothing's going on, Sofia. I know it may seem strange for you to travel back here, but I needed to do a few things here on the island. As you may have noticed, I work together with Leonel. You will likely see me often when it comes to his business." "Okay, it's fine, although I don't understand much, you manage at your own pace. Where is he?""He's busy." Ray avoided the pressure of his jaw. She stared at him. "He tightened the security in this house, then you come... Why all this? And why
It was already 20:00hrs in San Juan, and Leonel had not answered a couple of calls and text messages. Frank called her, explaining his boss sent word that he would contact her soon and apologized for the inconvenience and absence, he was attending to matters that consumed all his time. Half an hour after she hung up the short conversation with Mr. Loman, Liliana arrived out of her working hours, bringing with her a couple of pizzas and soft drinks, plus some desserts that, according to the cook, were sent by Mr. Vos as an apology. Sofia didn't say anything, but it all seemed very strange to her. However, she didn't know exactly what Leonel's work routines were like, the exact things he was dedicated to, she didn't know the details of his specific tasks. Food plans at Larry's school? In other schools or NGOs? Sale of the articles he saw that time when he invited her to dinner? Coordination of companies, management of shares, assets, protocol acts, commitments with personalities, inv
Frank sat in front of his boss's bed, who was lying down, resting from an operation on his left arm. Mr. Vos would recover, but the bullet wound tore the muscle, entering from the shoulder and exiting a point below, causing cracks and splinters in the forearm bone. The businessman should have been operated on immediately, but Frank himself, aided by the family doctor and his influences, arranged to leave the hospital as soon as possible. After what had happened, they couldn't risk staying inside the medical center at the mercy of any of Gael Cliff's henchmen. "Now this looks like a clinic," Mark joked, entering the room and speaking in a low tone so as not to wake Vos. "What the hell happened?" he asked, already seated in another corner of the room. "I think that Mr. Cliff wanted to prove a point of authority over Leonel, albeit a messy one. He didn't ask very intelligent questions. He insisted on knowing where his son's mother was and by logic, he must already know. We thought he
Sofia was not feeling well that day, it seemed that the previous night's dinner had gone bad for her.She experienced a fever in the early morning, which she cured on her own by taking medicine. "Liam?" she said to her son, who was entering her room. She stretched to check the time on her cell phone. It was about 06:00 in the morning. "Mommy, are you okay? Why aren't you out of bed yet?" Sofia wrinkled her eyebrows tenderly as she saw her little boy worried and talking in his tiny voice. "Oh, honey. Yes, I've been feeling a little sick since last night, but I'm better now. I'll be changing soon, okay? Now, tell me something, I see you already dressed, why did you get up so early?" She was really surprised to see her son ready to go to school when there was more than an hour left for his classes to start. "I woke up to a noise." She accentuated the furrowing of her brows. Liam was not a light sleeper, especially at night, as opposed to naps, the few times he took them. "What no
"I'd love to put a bullet between those wretched eyebrows," Gael growled. "I don't know what you're waiting for." Gael looked into Leonel's dark eyes. "If you won't do it, then put that gun down, your arm is going to get tired," Leonel said.Gael took a couple of seconds, but he lowered the gun and smiled as if he was dumbfounded by something in particular. "Leo-Leo, the businessman who orders." He laughed. "I'll pretend that none of your detective friends are around here, somewhere in the walls or on the ceiling, waiting for me to say something that will bring the fucking police here." He pointed around with his gun and gestured with his free hand. "I'll also pretend I'm crazy enough to imagine you've already made a deal with your old Intelligence department to turn me in like a Thanksgiving turkey. Anyway, I came all this way so that you could tell me yourself what you intend to do with Sophia and what the plan is to use her. I certainly don't know exactly where you've taken her
Everyone would know perfectly well that the place was not watched by any camera. Only a few knew that Leonel once, not so distant that time, came to own shares of the place, that after parading almost completely from Gael's ranks, he sold those shares to never again own anything that would link him to Mr. Cliff. However, Leonel kept going to that improvised gym, a huge and transformed shed with a wide space, almost as big as a mini hangar, but he did it in very specific cases, those in which the businessman needed to touch from time to time that opaque world devoid of feelings. The parking lot was open; no one could notice anything strange; it was just vehicles entering the site like any other night; with the difference that day, it would be closed for training. Neither Frank nor he said anything at all, silence was the best behavior they could perform as they drove the van into the large covered parking lot of the shed. Both gentlemen could see the Nordic man standing by the back d
The hours passed under great tension. Frank was worried about his boss, who had not left his room all afternoon, after moving from the mini-mall back to the building to get ready before going to meet Gael Cliff. Mark was prescribed rest that day, as he had hardly had any, so he didn't notice their arrival on the floor. The time to leave for the meeting at Troy arrived, Loman was to let Mr. Vos know that they were to leave. Leonel permitted him to enter the bedroom after hearing the knock on the door. Loman found him readying his gun and placing it behind his back, pulling his jacket over his black sweater, and tucking his gloves into his pockets. He turned and Frank could see the determination washing over his boss's face. "All set?" Vos asked. "Yes, sir. The team is waiting downstairs and another one has already started." "Raymond?" "Monitor the area. He left for there an hour ago." Leonel nodded. With his bulletproof vest on over his sweater, his thick jacket with zipper i
Liliana gave a splendid smile. She sat down in one of the high chairs across the counter from the teacher. "Boricuas love romance as much as we love to party. And we can smell the chemistry of two people a mile away." She shrugged and stood up. "I don't know what the story is between you, but there's candela, there's candela pura." Sofia laughed, felt her cheeks flush, and hated herself for it. What the cook said reminded her of some people back in Spain. "You take me back to my years in Madrid. By the way, I met some of your fellow countrymen there. Not many, mostly clients of the restaurant where I worked. Are you usually that extroverted all the time?" "Well, what can I tell you? Yes, yes we are. Not all of us, but it's something that is definitely in our blood." She pointed to her arm. It's inevitable, you know? And it gets rough when we get infatuated with someone. And wham, there we are, watching and seeing everything, so we don't miss anything." Sofia loved the accent of
Sofia furrowed as she saw one of the guards sitting in front of the house. "New position?" she asked Mr. Francisco, as she sat in the front passenger seat of the vehicle. The teacher had steadfastly refused to ride in the back seat next to Liam, especially when they were just going to school, it also happened when they went shopping. Sofia still felt uncomfortable with so much privilege. "I think Mr. Vos transferred him to that job today." The chauffeur almost shrugged. "But we already have to go with a security team back there." She looked in the rearview mirror, spotting the vehicle following them; at that moment, it was parked next to the curb, just like them. "Live with another team surrounding the house, have fixed communications on recording alert in case a suspicious call comes in, not to mention the alarms activated 24 hours a day, the cameras around the perimeter..." "And some of them are living by the pool, right mom?" Liam interjected with his innocent voice to complet