Chapter Eight
THE HISTORY OF ALABASTER ISLE
Part II: Ivory
Upbringing shapes a person. Family, lineage… it matters.
But it doesn’t have to define you.
I believe that was what my father was trying to make sure I understood.
Yea, it didn’t really work out.
But we’ll get to that.
I was born in Cartagena, Colombia, to Sebastían and Mariana Blanco.
My father was in construction, and my mother made jewelry, which obviously didn’t bring in much money, but she didn’t do it for that.
My father’s work supported our family, she just liked feeling like she was contributing, while doing something she enjoyed.
My parents were big on everyone pulling their own weight. As soon as I was old enough, I helped take care of the house and did side work with my father. He wanted me to learn the value of a hard day’s work, independence, and utilizing your skills to build your empire.
But make no mistake, when my father spoke of empire, he didn’t mean becoming wealthy.
He believed that a legacy could look different for everyone.
It could be raising your children right, starting a successful business, providing for your family.
Whatever gave your life purpose, and having purpose was being rich in my father’s eyes.
He was a man of principle, and integrity. What he did not believe in was lying, cheating, and stealing to make a buck. And because of that, he was vehemently against involvement in the Colombian cartel.
His brother, my Uncle Ocho, did not share that same sentiment.
Carlos Ochoa Vasquez was my father’s half-brother.
They were raised together from the time my father was four and my uncle was three.
They considered themselves brothers, despite having different fathers, and for most of their lives, they were inseparable.
It wasn’t until it was time to go off to college and/or start working that their lives began to shift, and they grew apart.
Uncle Ocho was still always very present in our lives. But as soon as I was old enough to understand the bigger picture, I understood why my father always insisted that I never get involved in my uncle’s business.
You see, Ocho didn’t share my father’s ideals when it came to hard work.
He was more interested in getting rich, and the benefits that came with it.
But more than even wealth, Uncle Ocho was always interested in the power that came from winning; from defeating an adversary, and enjoying the spoils of the victor.
Especially if those spoils belonged to someone else first.
I believe I inherited that spirit from him.
Realistically, my father and my uncle couldn’t have been more different. Padre was a genuine, grounded person with generosity and loyalty in his marrow. And Tío Ocho… Well, he was none of those things.
He was angry at the world. The father who left him as a child, the country that made it so difficult for its people to become wealthy, the brother who still had both of his parents—who was better, stronger, and smarter than him at most things… And who stole the girl of his dreams.
My mother went to grade school with my father and uncle. The three of them were friends, but my mother always had feelings for my father that were more than friendly. After they graduated, my father began tecnológico—trade school—while my uncle began hustling.
You know how some girls find bad boys hot? Yea, my mother was not one of those girls.
She was more interested in my father, and the way he was going to school to make an honest living. This, of course, enraged my uncle. He was always in love with my mother, and was driven insane with jealousy that my father won her.
What he didn’t understand—or maybe he just didn’t care—was that it wasn’t a competition.
Love wasn’t something he could win simply by being cunning.
The fact was that my mother probably wouldn’t have picked him if he were the only man on earth—I don’t know this for certain, I’m just guessing.
But that didn’t matter, because I’m also guessing that it wasn’t even really about my mother.
It was about envy. Coveting.
Wanting what my father had, until it drove him to do something rash.
When I was sixteen, both of my parents were killed tragically. Shot, assassinated while shopping in the city. Pronounced dead on the scene.
Naturally… I was devastated. More than devastated, though, I was overwhelmed by a fury so potent, I could smell it. Like gunpowder and blood.
I wanted answers. I wanted whoever was responsible to pay for what they’d done. Taking my parents, the most important people in the entire world to me, long before they should have been taken.
Who knows… Maybe if they were still around, my life would have ended up different.
Alright, I’m positive it would have, in at least a few key ways.
My uncle told me that my parents’ killers were connected to the cartel in Medellin. Because my father was part of a trade union, which were often the target of violence from the cartel. Money shit.
Ocho also worked for the cartel, but he was a lower level falcon, which according to him, was how he’d found out what happened. He insistent that the order had been passed down by the man who was leading the Medellin cartel at the time.
His name was Arturo Alvarez.
Everyone knew who Arturo Alvarez was. He was beloved by many, feared by many more. Inherited his position from his own father, highly respected… Though, personally, I feel there’s a big difference between respect being earned, and respect simply given because of your name.
Anyway, I had very little interest in the cartel. I understood its place in our country, and its purpose in the grand scheme. But I was adamant that I wanted nothing to do with Arturo Alvarez, because my father raised me to be better than a life of crime.
“Se otorgan recompensas a los honestos, King Salomón,” he used to say to me. Rewards are given to the honest man.
He always called me that… Salomón is my middle name. In the Bible, King Solomon was a king whose riches came second to his wisdom. He wanted that for me. Knowledge as power, over vanity and pride.
So when Ocho came to me with his plan, to get revenge on the man who’d had my parents killed, I was wary. I was set to begin Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, which also happened to be where Arturo’s giant, lavish mansion was—removed from the hub in Medellin, for obvious reasons.
The way Ocho spun it was that I could still go to school, but while I was there, I could also get close to Arturo.
I thought it was a stupid plan. Despite my father not being involved with the cartel at all, it was very possible that his murder was cartel-related. If I showed up out of nowhere interested in the business, it would seem super obvious that I was seeking revenge.
“That’s why you’re not going to tell him who your father was,” Ocho had said.
I looked at him like he was insane.
“You look nothing like your father,” he’d elaborated.
“It’s the truth. And that’s not saying anything against your mother, may she rest…
” His features shifted to an anguished wrath, before he shook it off.
“When you were born, they said that’s how they knew you were so special.
” He cleared his throat. “Destined for great things. A king… de el título Blanco.”
Emotion clouded my thoughts in that moment. So many things I hadn’t felt prepared to deal with.
I had no brothers or sisters… I was the last of the Blanco name, and I wasn’t sure that I ever wanted kids of my own. Sure, I was only a young man, but still. I’d always felt different.
My parents celebrated that. They encouraged me to do what I wanted to do, to make a name for myself.
Build an empire that fit for me. My father knew I wasn’t interested in manual work, and he didn’t care that I was different from him in that way.
He loved me as I was. And he still taught me lessons…
Like how he used to always dress up in his best attire. Any time he wasn’t working, he was in a suit and tie, and I was fascinated by it. The way people respected him, and looked at him like he was more than just a laborer. He would wink at me and I would smile.
Clothing makes the man, Salomón. You’re a king. Make sure you dress that way. Show everyone what you’re made of.
I knew that I looked different too. People always remarked on it. My light skin and white hair, dark eyes… But I was rarely insecure about it, not after a certain age. Again, because my father taught me to stand tall, and to take pride in myself. Not for bragging or boasting, but inside.
Pride is a good thing, until it’s not.
He used to say that too. He was full of all kinds of pearls of wisdom.
I just missed them so much. I had no real family left; a couple of distant relatives I never saw and didn’t know well.
Really, my uncle was it. I knew I needed to hold on to that.
So I’d asked, “Who would I say that I am?”
He blinked at me, eyes scanning my face. “El Marfil.”
The Ivory.
The name stood out to me… Raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
Ivory was someone very important in my father’s life, and I knew Ocho knew that.
It was intentional…
I wasn’t sold on my uncle’s half-cocked proposal, so I told him I’d think about it, and I went off to school.
I was studying psychology at one of the best universities in the country, and actually really enjoying it.
I’d always had an interest in human behaviors.
What makes people do the things they do…
And it was there that I decided maybe there was some merit to Uncle Ocho’s plan.
I was twenty-one years old the first time I met Arturo Alvarez. Just having finished school the year prior, and looking to break into the business—according to Ocho, who’d made the proper introductions.
Of course, I didn’t meet him right away. I had to rise in the ranks, which I did, rather quickly.