by Pinky Dior
Mr. Vicente was sitting next to her with his hands folded gently on his lap as he sat calmly, looking straight ahead. Maria nervously bit down on her bottom lip. She noticed that her father was too calm. He didn’t exchange any words with her, and that made her even more nervous into the house, not wanting to have come face-to-face with her father. She just wanted to go in her old bedroom and be alone. She really wished she could be home with Mercedes right now. She knew her daughter was probably wondering where she had disappeared to.
As they pulled up to the house, Maria made sure she got out before Vicente did. She got out and quickly rushed up the front steps and through the front door.
Vicente quickly caught up behind her, snatched her arm, and turned her whole body with full force. She turned around and stared him in the eyes with her nose flared up.
“Did you really think that you could leave Cuba and get away with it?” Maria acted as if she didn’t hear what he had asked. “Huh?” Vicente barked as he placed a tighter grip on her arm.
“No!” Maria yelled as she ripped her arm back from his grip. “Why did you kill him, Daddy?” Maria inquired with tears streaming down from her eyes. “I know it was you! You didn’t have to kill him!” she yelled.
“You had me worried sick! I’ve looked for you for eighteen fucking years, Maria!” Vicente lost control. As he shouted, you could hear his voice echo throughout the mansion.
“I’m grown, Daddy.” Maria gritted her teeth together.
“You know the rules, Maria. I told you don’t ever talk to any of my customers. I separate my business from my pleasure, and you should know that. You put yourself in danger; you put us in danger.”
“Danger?” Maria raised her voice. “Carter loved me dearly. He never laid a finger on me. He was the man of my dreams, the most perfect man I’ve ever met in my life. Why couldn’t you be happy for me, Daddy?” Maria cried.
“Because, Maria, you belong to me!” Vicente smirked, using a tone that sent chills down her spine. “He’s a very dangerous man, Maria. He was no good for you.”
“The only person that’s dangerous is you!” Maria moved her head around with an attitude, but she was quickly stopped, when he smacked her across the face. She held her face in agony as she licked the side of her lip, tasting blood.
“How dare you?” Vicente’s lips trembled as he felt her harsh words attack him.
“You killed my husband!”
Vicente smacked her across the face again. Maria held her face, breathing heavily, as she stared at her father with evil intentions of killing him. “Your dead husband!” Vicente barked. “Don’t you ever try to pull something like that again, or you’re dead! You hear me?” Vicente yelled. He grabbed her neck and slammed her head against the wall.
Maria pressed her eyes together and automatically felt dizzy. Her brain felt like it was rushing.
“I said, do you hear me?” Vicente yelled. His eyes were now big and bulging with anger.
“Yes!” Mercedes cried as the tears streamed down her face and she tried to gasp for air.
Vicente unloosened his grip around her neck. “I promise, Maria, if you try anything stupid ever again like that again, I will fucking break your neck!” Vicente retorted. “Because of you, I sent my best men over there, and they are fucking dead because of you! You’re lucky you’re alive right now.” A tear fell down his cheek as Maria just stood there breathing heavily.
“I missed you, Maria. Countless years have gone by and I haven’t seen you. I thought you were dead somewhere. Don’t ever leave me like that again.” Vicente kissed her on the cheek and then kissed her on the neck.
Maria moved her head to the side as she looked into her father’s evil eyes. A wicked smile appeared on his face. Vicente walked away and disappeared into one of the rooms in the mansion.
Maria had her back pressed up against the wall. She slowly fell to the ground as the tears streamed down her face. She knew that she couldn’t escape this time or else she would really wind up dead for sure. She just wished that she could turn back the hands of time. She did not regret meeting Don Carter, but that day, she wished she could have killed her father.
***
Maria tossed and turned in her bed. She couldn’t sleep because she heard her mother and father arguing. She jumped up and her heart was racing faster than normal. She opened up her eyes and heard the sound of broken glass ringing in her ears. She held her hand over her chest. It felt as if she was having some sort of attack. She looked over and couldn’t see if her sister was up or not.
“Did you hear that?” Maria asked.
“Yeah,” Alana said, “What’s going on?” Alana asked, as if Maria knew.
“I don’t know, but I’m about to go see.” Maria pulled back the covers and tossed them from one side of the bed to the other.
“I’m coming with you.” Alana did the same thing and got out of bed.
Alana followed behind Maria as they tiptoed to the door. Maria pressed her ears against the door and carefully listened. She could hear her mother and father going back and forth, arguing with each other. She slowly opened the door and tiptoed down the hallway. She peeked down the stairs, looking through the wooden bars. Maria witnessed her mother getting brutally beaten by her father.
“Vicente, stop!” Carla begged as she tried to block her face from the continuous blows to the face.
Maria jumped back, covering her mouth. Vicente knew her father was a violent person, but she had never seen him this violent.
“What are you going to do?” Alana asked as she sat next to her older sister Maria, hoping she would go save their mother.
“I don’t know.” Maria nervously held onto the banister, her hands shaking in fear.
“You think I will let you get away with that shit?” Vicente barked as he smacked Carla to the ground and she held the side of her face, crying.
“I can’t watch this.” Maria quickly got up and went into her daddy’s office, where he kept his guns. She took a handgun down and gripped it in her hand as she headed back down the corridors. Alana looked over and saw her sister holding a black gun in her hand. She rushed over to her and gripped her arm.
“What are you doing with that?”
Maria just looked at her as she kept walking downstairs. She stood on the bottom of the steps as she held the gun in her hand, pointing it at her father. Vicente had his back to her; she couldn’t see what he was doing. She saw her mother’s face. Her eyes were wide open and her jaw dropped. Blood spilled from her mouth. Carla’s body dropped lifelessly to the ground. Maria’s eyes were glued to her mother’s body. Vicente turned around and saw his daughter pointing the gun at him.
“Put the gun down, Maria,” Vicente said softly. “It was an accident and I didn’t mean to kill her,” he lied.
Maria looked at him with tears in her eyes as she held the gun in her hand. Her hands were shaking tremendously. He slowly walked over to Maria and took the gun out of her hand. Maria ran over to her mother and cried as she held her mother in her small arms.
“Mama, please don’t leave us!” Maria cried.
Her mother was already dead with a stab wound to the chest and her eyes wide open. Maria cried as she laid her head on her mother’s chest. She didn’t want her to leave them alone with her crazy father, Vicente. Alana joined Maria and they both cried in unison, hovering over their dead mother’s body. Vicente tapped Maria’s shoulder and she looked back at him with hate in her eyes.
“Stand up!”
Maria nervously stood up and looked at her father, staring directly into his eyes. He got on his knees and held both sides of her face.
“It was an accident, Maria. She ran into the knife, killing herself. I know, baby, I know.” He embraced Maria as she broke into tears.
Maria knew he was lying and she knew that when her mother was around, she would protect her and Alana. But now she was dead. Maria wished she would have pulled the trigger and killed her father.
From that
day forward, Maria became his little doll and he had the power to do anything to her.
Chapter Twenty-two
The parole board
The weekend flew by so quickly. It was already Monday. Mercedes had pulled a couple of strings. She had called the parole board office and informed them that she and her friends were doing a group project for school, and needed to have hands-on experience with seeing what a parole board hearing was like. They accepted her request and gave her the okay to attend the parole hearing. Mercedes knew that part was a piece of cake, but she also had to get a guard to sneak the guns in for her and disable certain security cameras for her. She knew this was risky, but she offered one of the guards a lot of cash to smuggle them in for her—far more than what his job was paying him. He made a deal with her.
Mercedes wore a white cotton ruffled blouse that exposed her pretty breasts, giving her that sex appeal look. She wore a crisp gray pencil skirt that hugged her hips, showing off her voluptuous curves. Mercedes folded one leg across the other, as she put the tip of the pen in her mouth. Her long, jet-black hair flowed down the sides of her face, with a little bit of curl to it. Mercedes sat down, waiting for the prisoner to enter the room. Today was the day that Alana had been put up before the parole board.
The door opened up, Alana walked into the room with two security guards by her side and her hands cuffed behind her back. She rocked the cuffs around her ankles too, causing her to walk abnormally as she came into the room. One of the guards unlocked her handcuffs from around her hands and ankles. Alana took a seat and her facial expression quickly changed, when she saw Mercedes sitting across the table with a devious smirk on her face. Alana smirked and thanked her by putting her hands over her chest and then placing them back into her lap. Mercedes did a quick nod as she looked around the room, wondering if anyone had noticed.
Shateeya sat a couple of chairs down from Mercedes and Hazel was sitting closer to Alana, dressed up like a man with a mustache on. It took Mercedes all that she had to keep from busting out laughing, Hazel looked funny dressed up as man, but she wanted her identity concealed.
After the board had read Alana’s case from a white piece of paper, one of the parole members asked, “So why do you think you should be set free?”
Alana sat up, folded them, and placed them on the table as she licked her lips. “I know nobody is perfect, and neither am I. I was seventeen when I first came in here and now I’m twenty-nine. I would love to live and see the rest of my life. I know I made a mistake, but I learned a lot of morals and principles while I was in here. I’m not the same Alana that I am from when I first stepped in here. Just give me another chance; that’s all.” Alana reclined her back against the chair and bit on the bottom of her lip.
“Thank you.” One of the parole board members smiled. She told all of the parole members to step out of the office to deliberate on if they should release Alana or keep her in prison for another ten years. After a few minutes of deliberating on the decision, they stepped back into the room and sat down.
“The parole board thinks that Alana is still a menace to society and we cannot let her back onto the streets yet, so she must serve another ten years.”
Mercedes sat there as she watched Alana get to her feet. The two security guards placed the handcuffs on her. She held her head down, and as soon as she turned to walk up, Mercedes got up from her chair and laughed.
“Menace to society?”
“Excuse me, Miss?” one of the parole members inquired.
“A menace to society? Alana didn’t kill anybody!” Mercedes informed them. “She sold and transported drugs back to the U.S. I’m a menace to society. They killed my boyfriend, they killed my father, my uncle, and my best friend, and I’m seeking revenge.” Mercedes smiled as she looked around the room and watched the people look at her with fear in their eyes. They trembled with fear as death passed their way. “Fuck the government, fuck the judges, fuck the DA and all these stupid-ass parole members who don’t know shit about the streets. Fuck y’all!” Mercedes barked.
“Ahhhh!” People screamed as Mercedes removed her gun with the silencer from under her seat and shot up the whole parole boardroom.
Shateeya stood by Mercedes and popped off her little gun, leaving a woman dead. Hazel had her gun too and she shot up everybody sitting at the table. Even if they were already shot, she shot them again, because no one would be able to testify against them if they even had the chance. Hazel quickly shot the two security guards, leaving them dead with a bullet to their heads, as she noticed them trying to escape the room with Alana. Alana ducked as the bodyguards dropped to the ground. She looked back and saw a security guard sitting in the back of the room and reaching for his gun,
“Watch out!” Alana yelled to Mercedes.
Mercedes looked over her shoulder, positioned her gun, and shot him up. His body jerked up and down and his gun fell to the ground, leaving his body looking like Swiss cheese. Mercedes ran over to Alana’s side. She took one of the keys from the security guard’s waistband and unlocked Alana’s handcuffs.
“Let’s go!” Mercedes chanted.
Mercedes turned around and saw people on the floor dead; some people were slumped over on the table and profusely bleeding from their heads. The four of them ran down the corridors of the jail and then ran through the front of the jail. There were cops on top of the roof shooting at them as they ran towards the gate. Mercedes turned around and started shooting at the cops on the roof and Hazel joined her, knocking off several cops. She watched their bodies collapse. Chamari was waiting in front of the jail facility in a tinted-up black truck. They ran towards the car and hopped in without looking back.
“Yo, Mari, pull off!” Mercedes barked as she banged the gun on the dashboard.
Chamari pressed her foot on the gas as she peeled off. Mercedes looked back to see if anyone was behind them or following them. She inhaled deeply. She couldn’t believe what she and her girls had just done.
“Thank you, Mercedes! I owe you one.” Alana smiled.
“Yeah, I know you do.” Mercedes smirked. “A big one.”
“What the fuck are y’all talking about?” Shateeya barked. “I know she ain’t taking Candy’s place.” Shateeya rolled her eyes as she folded her arms across her breasts.
“Man, shut the fuck up with all of that!” Mercedes barked. “This is my aunt right here! Alana is going to help me get my mother back and find the son of a bitch who killed my father!”
“What happened to your mother?” Hazel inquired. None of the girls in the car knew about what happened to her mother, except for Alana. She didn’t think it was a good thing to tell them. She just had one thing on her mind, and that was getting Alana’s help.
“The other day I came home, and she was gone. She’s been kidnapped.”
“Damn, Cedes, I’m sorry to hear that,” Hazel consoled her. “So how do you plan on getting your mother back?”
“Well, it looks like us ladies are going on a trip.”
“A trip? A trip to where?” Chamari added in.
“To Cuba.” Mercedes smirked. “Where I was born.”
“You were born there, Mercedes?” Hazel asked inquisitively.
“Yeah, girl, I was born there, but my father moved us to New York City several days after I was born. Why you think my New York accent is so heavy?” Mercedes smiled as the other girls giggled in unison.
“Word, Cuba? I never been there before,” Chamari said in amazement.
“Well, pack your bags. By the end of the week, we will be heading out to Cuba.”
“Aren’t they going to be searching for us by then?”
“I hired a pilot with a private jet that will be flying us over to Cuba,” Mercedes informed them. Mercedes nodded her head up and down with her hands folded together. “Can’t wait!” Mercedes smirked. She couldn’t wait to go to Cuba finally to come face to face with the man she wanted to find—Mr. Vicente—her grandfather.
The Vengeance,
Havana, Cuba
-Mercedes’s Revenge
Chapter Twenty-three
Havana, Cuba
Reclining in the half-million dollar private jet, with her silver briefcase filled with money beside her, Mercedes fondled her diamond bracelet. It had a diamond heart with the initials MC carved in it. Mercedes inhaled deeply. She closed her eyes and opened them back up. Mercedes wore her most expensive diamond earrings, which glistened from her little earlobes. Her jet-black hair was bone-straight, and flowed flawlessly down the sides of her caramel face. She wore some tight, black, skinny jeans that showed off her curves, with a white fitted wife beater that exposed her cleavage. To top it off, she wore some sexy Prada three-inch heels.
They were entering Cuba. Mercedes held onto her diamond necklace that her father had given to her for her sixteenth birthday, as she sat up in her comfortable chair and looked out the small window. Her eyes lit up as they flew over the beautiful water. Memories of her father engulfed her as she opened up the locket and examined the picture of her and her father. She saw herself smiling from ear to ear with a missing tooth. She remembered that day as if it was yesterday. It was her sixth birthday. Mercedes closed up the heart locket because she felt tears coming, and she couldn’t allow herself to cry anymore. She was a big girl, and big girls don’t cry.
After they had officially arrived in Cuba, the girls talked with enthusiasm as they exited the jet. Mercedes clutched her Prada bags over her shoulder and exited the jet. She placed on her oversized Prada shades and stopped in her tracks when she felt the beautiful breeze pass her and blow through her hair. She inhaled and smiled, looking around and examining her surroundings. She noticed how beautiful Cuba really was. Mercedes wished that she could have grown up in Cuba, just to see what it was like.
Cuba is a very beautiful sight, Mercedes thought. She stepped away from the girls and just inhaled the fresh aroma that lingered in the air. She stood there, just taking in all the Cuban scenery. The beautiful green palm trees danced with the wind, and she watched as the beautiful crystal-clear blue waters flowed. The buildings were tall and immaculate-looking. Beautiful people walked the streets in revealing clothes, enjoying every moment of it. Mercedes just couldn’t wait to look around Cuba. She had to get familiar with this country, especially since she’d been born there and knew nothing about it.