Maria's POV
My heart skipped a beat, for every second Jordan made steps towards the wardrobe. I thought of the inevitable ill fate that could happen if he finds me. What was I going to say? What would be my answers to his questions? What about my plans? How was I going to give justice to all, they've wronged?
I couldn't compose anything meaningful and he was standing right before the wardrobe. About to slide it open. I kept praying to Santa Maria in my heart, to pass the cup of death over me.
I couldn't imagine my carcass dumped in the trash. What worse, the news of my death would never get to Fernandez, Detective Andres or Jojo. Until my carcass begins rotting away. As the doors began sliding open, I went deep into the extreme adjacent end of the wardrobe. Where the slide would stop and I would still be seen. I shut my eyes tightly, ready to accept my fate.
"You!" The moving slide stopped. My eyes still shut but my mouth, ready to mumble out my senseless defense. "You.... My boy" I heard. "Huh?" I said underneath my breaths as I opened my eyes. Jordan wasn't before me. I looked through and there stood my Savior Mama Emilia. "Why haven't you had your tea?" she asked, walking fully into the room. "It's been sitting here since ten minutes ago" she stressed further am Jordan opted mumbling some defense.
"I sure this must be...." she said, dipping mercury in a glass thermometer into the cup of tea and then exclaimed, "15°!....Com'on my boy", "Let's go make another cup."
Holding him by the hand, she led him out of the room. I too was surprised as to why mama Emilia was special to Jordan. Unlike Aunt Lucille, he's father's sister. Their relationship was more like a business kind. They were never chatty or had any informal conversation that didn't require crime or the business. I believed, since she couldn't force her way into Jordan's life, she tried dominating Bianca's.
It was a narrow escape. I wished I could thank Mama Emilia for saving me in an inch of time. But of course, nobody could know what I was up to. I left his room discreetly, leaving the slide the exact way he left it. I got into my room the exact one Bianca specially requested I move in to. From the staff quarters, I graduated to owning a room in the mansion. I was impressed by 'Lady Bianca' as I called her. So much that I didn't only get a room, but regular monetary gifts. Usually five hundred pesos.
To handing expensive dresses. Ones I could afford when they didn't ruin my life. And all the while Aunt Lucille watched, she hated Bianca doing things for me. "I see you've walked your slimy poverty self into my niece's heart" she said startling me after I got out of Bianca's room. "Ma'am...Lady Bianca is just being nice to me" I responded and she looked at me with disdain. "I see how much you try to impress us....Me", "But that would never happen", "You know why?" she added, making that hypocritical smile. "That's because, I've got no change to spare", "And no gold to share", "So..... STOP TRYING!" she concluded and walked away.
Even the heavens knew how much I badly wanted to speak back. I always wondered how a woman in her fifties could be so cruel. But in Rodriguez mansion, no one was a saint, not even Bianca. Bianca had a long line of criminal history unrecorded. Via my investigation, she used to be a good drug Barron until she began administering tons of hard drugs into her bloodstream. I heard one time, she lost her mind and killed two guards who hindered her from stepping out in her terrible state. Not quite long before I was captured, did she return for a mental rehab center.
I picked up my cell phone and called Detective Andres. To discuss the new development with him. It was absolutely a good opportunity to nib the secret Mafia Prince in the bud. To uncover the face behind the mask. At times, when the government failed to give into their demands.
Misleading the police and intelligence agencies. They'd carry out their operation of planting explosives in strategic locations. Leaving the cops to run like a dog whose tail is on fire. At the end of the day, it still gets burnt. Since I began as an imposter/spy of the police and intelligence agency. Things were going to be a whole lot different. And so that night. I slept like a baby.
I woke up the next morning like I had laid in a pile of clouds. I was certain that very day was going to end Jordan's tyranny. That very day marked my twenty one day stay in the mansion. And I was glad that the collar placed on me by Andres would soon be taken off. "Apprehend one, apprehend all" I said to myself and busted out laughing as I grasped the cup of coffee.
"Are you alright?" an unfamiliar voice asked. And I froze for a few seconds. "Young lady?" the voice spoke on. I turned around and saw a man in his late forties with a briefcase in his hands. Who was he?
"Yes?" I answered, returning back to my senses. "You're talking to yourself?" he asked, seeming so nosy. I had just five seconds to write one or two meaningful sentences in my head. And the only word that flew into my head was "Yoga... I was just doing yoga. Since I've got little time for myself. I do yoga all around the place" I replied in my usual senseless manner. In a bid to shake him off my tail.
"Right...." he said, staring at me like I was some weirdo. "I'd just be on my way", "On your way to where exactly?" I interjected and inquired. "And who you are?", "Mar..." I replied, almost blowing my cover. For a moment, I forgot myself. "I mean... The marvelous Mirabelle Santos. Lord Rodriquez's caregiver" I replied cheerfully, trying to hide the earlier default. "Well that makes both of us" ," He's my patient. Here for his usual three weeks checkup". "I'm Doc Jr by the way" he concluded, extending his hands for a shake. We shook hands and went to Rodriguez's room together.
The front yard of the mansion was busy. Usually they loaded up the guns in the truck at the backyard but today, it was done at the entrance. All Doc Jr touched the stethoscope on different parts of Rodriguez's body. I couldn't help but wonder how unmoved he was with the truck load of arms.
"Guns..... The aftermath only gets us rich" he said out of the blue. "You should stay away from the business of these people" he added and then whispered, "They are really dangerous people". It was obvious by his statement, he was used to it all.
Looking through the window of Rodriguez's room, I watched the van leave. I smirked in anticipation of the news that would grace my ears, Jordan's arrest! Everything felt so graceful that morning. I even treated the old potato well knowing what was about to befall his household.
I decided to have a sound nap that afternoon when I got awoken by a chaos. I peed outside and saw the van packing at the same place it was before they left. I took up my phone and saw a zillion of calls from Detective Andres and Fernandez. "They never left?" I asked myself as the happiness in my heart began fading away.
I took up my phone to call Andres when I heard a loud scream of my name, with a familiar voice, Bianca's. I ran downstairs as fast as I could. Not because of her distress call but to validate exactly what went wrong.
On reaching the entrance of the door, Bianca rushed on me with what seemed like tears!. Had the inevitable occurred?. Then I took my gaze off her and fixed it on a shocking sight. JORDAN IN A POOL OF BLOOD!. What made it divine was that it was his own blood.
It was like watching a horror film. One that made you grin like a psychopath. It exactly wasn't how I expected the turnout of events. But watching him lay helpless defenseless and cold, they absolutely couldn't have been a better scene.
Then came Doc Jr, running out to the yard. I had left Rodriguez in his care before I went for my break. One which the blanket of sleep engulfed me. He began examining Jordan. Who kept on bleeding non stop. Bianca and Aunt Lucille harmonised the rhythm of sorrow so well, that it was like a symphony to my ears. With Mama Emilia at a corner, weeping uncontrollably.
And abruptly the weeper got up to her feet. Walking towards Diego. She laid a stinging and resounding slap across Diego's face. After she did, it was like the earth stopped. And everyone stood, watching the unfolding scene.
"How did this happen?" she asked in great fury. Pointing a finger at Jordan's body which laid on the ground. Diego, on the other hand, buried his head to the ground and said nothing. Until Bianca re-strategize. Taking a handgun from one of the men she aimed it right on his forehead.
He melted like a candle and fell to his knees. He began begging, "My Lady, we don't know how the police knew we were coming, they took us off guard. It became a mad shootout. Which took the lives of a good number of our men." "Unfortunately Jordan got shot by one of the cops severally. It was an accident". He said sympathetically.
Bianca became a different person in split seconds. She transformed into that side of her she kept hidden. A side I never saw. She began with a psychotic laughter, where everyone present feared what might happen next.
"Accident?...... .an accident Diego…...one that landed my dear brother in such a state?" the young man in his late twenties could look the Ex drug baron in the eye.
"I don't care if all of you had died, nothing should have happened to Jordan!" her voice thundered aloud. "It should have been you instead….not my brother!….." she added, sounding so selfishly. It was obvious their lives meant nothing to her.
"For this…. you'd pay with your life." " I'd watch you die slowly and painfully." "You must! Pass through the same pain my brother's feeling","If anything happens to Jordan, every single one of you would be tortured to death!", "You'd wish you had died instead of that shoot out!"
she declared. After which came the grave silence. As every man who stood, knew the formidable heiress meant her every word.
Diego held onto her feet begging. Begging to forgive his negligence and on behalf of others. But she refuses to budge, kicking him by swinging her leg forward. I sighed in relief, everyone else sighed in relief as she left where Diego and the other men stood and went towards where Jordan's body was laid. But in an unexpected twist. She turns around and shoots Diego in the knee. The masculine soldier fell to the ground and groaned in pain. She was absolutely no different from the rest of her family members. She was cruel and wicked. Paying deaf ears to a. Man who did all their dirty jobs. Staking his life on every mission.
While I thought it was all over she aimed the gun at Diego groaning in pain to finish him off. To end the chapter of his life when Doc Jr said loudly "Bianca!", " Your brother. Jordan Is.....dead!" Bianca and all who stood gasped in shock.