13. Maricela
“You should dress accordingly,” Raven insists.
She moved in with Liam quietly without arguing, accepting her fate as a mafia princess. Raven refuses to talk to me about her life with Liam in the same apartment.
Unlike me, my friend chose to wear a pair of long, straight Padelefon black pants that fall elegantly in a long line, showing her long model-like legs, with a long-sleeved peach blouse that compliments her skin perfectly. Nothing of the goth looks she loved in college. I miss the colorful strands and the blue lipstick she used to wear.
Now that I know everything, I’m even angrier. Liam’s hatred is unjustified. She’s not guilty of anything, and this new, docile woman makes the old Maricela bubble to the surface.
“I don’t need to dress accordingly. I don’t want to go to work in his and his friends’ office, so I have no reason to make an effort. He’ll receive me in my jeans and white shirt.”
“You know what? You’re right. I’ll do what I want as well.”
I don’t know what she means by that, but I agree with her. She should do what she wants whenever she can.
“Raven, you know you can talk to me.”
I may not be the most sensitive person in the world anymore, but my friends are still important to me. I want to believe she knows that.
“My future husband doesn’t acknowledge my existence. That’s probably the best thing I could ask for. Don’t worry about me. Liam won’t hurt me. Not physically.”
“Mental abuse is still abuse. Talk to your capo.”
Yes, I still refuse to say his name out loud. I refuse to give him more power over me than he already has.
Raven just shrugs.
“Miss Maricela, are you ready?” Pedro asks as he knocks on the door of my room.
“Stop calling me that, Pedro. I’m just Maricela to you, and you know it.”
Pedro and I have talked a little, but he doesn’t pressure me. I think he’s the type of person who understands the beauty of silence.
“Mr. Killian is already at the office. He said you should come right after sending the children to school. Amado will be with Marlina for his first days. Master Killian said to tell you not to worry.”
I can see what he is doing, trying to show me that he cares. A silent protest if I have ever seen one. I don’t react.
“She’s ready,” Raven says, standing and heading for the door. “This madwoman refuses to dress accordingly for the office.”
“I’m not going to take part in his stupid demands. I’m a field photographer, not a secretary.”
“She’s still there,” Raven says with a laugh.
And with those words, I leave the room and enter the elevator with Raven and Pedro. The ride in the elevator is silent. No one talks about the grief that everyone expects from me, and no one talks about the fact that I chose to be his prisoner. The silence is louder than any words that could be said in such a situation.
Raven also gets into the car with me, and I give her a confused look.
“Liam wants me close to him, so I don’t do stupid things. I might have threatened out loud my need to run away from this life, so I need to show my face in his office every day.”
“Do you want to run away?”
“I don’t think so. This is the life I know. Sometimes, I want to run away from it, and other times... Does that make sense?”
“Talk to your capo.”
Raven shakes her head. “Killian doesn’t listen to me. And what’s with this ‘capo’ shit? He’s still Killian.” I say nothing, and Raven goes on.
“He’s angry with me. Rightfully so. What I did is considered treason in our world. I hid information about you from him.”
“You didn’t know where I was. I never gave you that information.”
“Because you knew I would tell him if you did. You were working in dangerous places, and you knew I would tell him so he would stop you.” At least she’s honest.
Our conversation moves to safer topics, such as the gallery she’s about to open for artists without financial options. I’ll never understand how the people around her don’t see her inner and outer beauty.
Pedro pulls into a reserved parking spot near a high-rise in downtown Manhattan. I know the Fierro family has owned the building for years. One look at the name on the building makes me snort. I can’t help it.
“The name of the law firm is fuckble?”
“It is. Killian chose to add Maddox to the firm despite Uncle Franco’s objection. They wanted to add the L for Maddox Larson after the K, but Liam refused. He’s a British asshole like that. So, yes, it is the Fuckble Law Firm.”
Raven sounds dreamy as she speaks of Liam. He doesn’t deserve it. It was like that back then, as well. She watched him, noticing each step he took while he ignored her—or at least that’s what he made her believe. But I see things, especially now.
If he hated her so much, he wouldn’t have prepared a room for her obnoxious cat. Baron is the king he always was, black and chubby.
We enter the building. Like any high-rise building, the place looks magnificent in gray, white, and black tones.
All the men, without exception, also dress according to the colors. My jeans, white shirt, and white sneakers look out of place. That is precisely what I wanted. I don’t want to be here.
“Their offices are on the seventeenth floor. Kai decided that was their lucky number.” Some things will never change.
I follow Raven, who knows most of the people here, and if the smiles she sends to everyone mean anything, they all know and adore her.Another elevator, another few moments of silence.
It wasn’t like that between us before. Our relationship was always free. We talked about everything, or at least everything we were willing to discuss. We both knew we were keeping secrets from each other and now I hate him for telling me some of them.
I didn’t want to know the secrets she kept to herself. I feel like I’m lying to her by not confessing what I know. Everyone lies to her, and she doesn’t deserve that.
All too quickly, the elevator opens, and we exit into an elegant reception area and from there, through a door that leads us to an office area divided into four distinct sections. I see multiple assistants behind desks in each section talking on the phone.
Raven points to a woman who reminds me of one of the Whos from Whoville, with her hair tied up in a high bun and her red sweater that looks too big on her.
“That’s Killian’s secretary, Bertha. She’s amazing.”
“Mr. Bourne, your tea is ready.”
“Samantha, how many times have I told you not to call me Mr. Bourne? That’s my father. My name is Liam,” he says while twisting his pinky ring.
“All right, Liam,” a black-haired woman answers in a too-seductive voice.
She’s dressed like a hostess in a bar, with the amount of cleavage showing. Raven, for her part, just grinds her teeth as I take her hand in mine.
“She’s just a secretary,” I try.
“It doesn’t matter. He does it on purpose.” I’m sure he does, the moron.
“Killian’s office is on the right, next to Maddox’s. Tell Bertha you’re here. I’ll go show my face to get permission to go to my gallery.” If I had any strength left in me, I would rip Liam’s neat hair out of his scalp, but I know this isn’t my fight.
“Bertha,” I say and am met with the warmest smile I’ve ever seen. Bertha is an older lady and nothing like what I expected. She, too, isn’t dressed according to the standards of your typical law office.
“Dear Lord Almighty, look at that face,” the woman says, sounding like a nanny from an eighties show I remember.
“You must be Maricela, the boss’s woman. He’s spoken a lot about you. Well, Maddox and Liam have, really. Those two like to rile Killian up. Men are such children, you know.”
I don’t correct her because I will never be the boss’s wife or anyone else’s.
“Your man is waiting for you in the office. He’ll tell you what you’ll be doing here.”
“I don’t understand. Didn’t I come to help you?”
“Oh, honey, no. You’re to be your man’s personal assistant.” The word personal comes out as a song before she rambles on.
“Could I ask you for a favor, sugar?” I nod.
“Keep quiet when you do the mambo. I’m not a young woman anymore, and there are things my libido can’t handle, or so the young want to think.”
She winks and gets up from her place to lead me—more confused than ever—to his office, which looks nothing like the office I imagined. Is that a cross in the middle of the room?
“What’s all...? Joder.”
“Bertha, you can leave us,” he says, in a tone I know—a tone I’m not ready for in any way, shape, or form.
“Welcome, Little Girl. Or should I say welcome back?”
I am so fucked.
Cabron de mierdawants to play again.