Chapter 25

He left me standing there like a jilted bride after I told him I was expecting his child. To make matters worse, I haven’t seen him in three days. Three long days he disappeared, and he’d left his phone on the floor. It was as if he didn’t want to be found, and I didn’t know enough about Ricardo to know where he might have gone.

Jen had been texting to say she wanted to know what happened when I told Ricardo about our baby, and I lied to her again. Again. I said I hadn’t told him yet.

I decided the only way to figure out what happened was to have Juan and Diego over. Ricardo could be gone for good, or maybe injured somewhere. I figured I’d call them over, have them in the living room, on the sofa and just get to the point.

“Can someone please tell me what happened to Ricardo three days ago?”

Both Juan and Diego looked at each other. They didn’t say a word. I knew they were hiding something, but the question was, what was it?

“Joder! Tell me, what was so bad Ricardo missed the rest of his father’s funeral and stormed out of here? What was it? I told him I’m pregnant and he didn’t even blink an eye. Are you going to sit there all day looking at me like that?”

Diego asked, “You’re pregnant?”

I hoped he would think I had some rights to know what was going on, they had to tell me something, as loyal as they were to Ricardo. They owed me some explanation as to what happened that night.

“You should sit down,” Juan said gently, and I remembered Ricardo saying deep down underneath it all, Juan was a gentle giant. Hearing his voice now made me believe it.

I turned around to sit on the black leather sofa in the living room. I’d spent nearly all day thinking they wouldn’t turn up. It was getting late and I was just about to hit the sack, as there was only so much Netflix I could get through in a day, when they finally turned up.

Diego didn’t want to make eye contact. If anything, once I told him I was pregnant, he went to the door, as if he was ready to leave.

“You should get rid of it, you should…”

“Callate!” Juan shouted at Diego. He paused, his dark eyes moved to me and away, and then he moved towards the door again. He was leaving. As I’d suspected, he hadn’t wanted to come in the first place.

“He’s young. He doesn’t understand everything, even if he thinks he does.”

“I remember when I first met Diego, he was all sweet and innocent. Now, he walks around like a bear with a sore head.”

Juan nodded. “That’s what power does to you, and especially in this business. It changes you. You forget who you used to be, and just focus on who you need to become.”

I didn’t understand what Juan meant, but I had a feeling it had something to do with Ricardo. Either way, it wasn’t what I called them here for tonight, not to figure out what was going on in the mafia business.

“There’s no easy way to say this, but I’m learning to say things differently now. Now I have…a girlfriend.”

He blushed like a teenager who’d asked a girl on his first date. It was cute, and I wondered for a split second if Ricardo considered me to be his girlfriend, or just the woman living in his house.

“Anyway, Ricardo had some sort of accident, the day his dad was killed. He forgot things, like what really happened that night, and we reminded him at the funeral.”

“What do you mean, what happened? Ricardo had always said he found his dad, and some crazy person had cut out all his organs. I don’t remember him saying anything about the night time,” I tried to think back to every conversation we’d ever had, but I couldn’t remember such a thing.

“He didn’t find his dad. Silvia, the housekeeper, did. Ricardo wasn’t there.”

I whispered, “So, all this time, he lied to me.”

Juan shook his head, “He didn’t lie to you. He just didn’t remember.”

Then, he stood, as if he’d said more than he intended to say. I could tell he was about to leave, probably uncomfortable with the conversation we were having.

“Wait, please don’t leave. I don’t get it. So, if Ricardo never found his dad… he never found him in the morning… this means he must have found him alive.”

“You need to be talking to Ricardo about this, not me.”

He was leaving, and I needed answers. I couldn’t let him leave, so I ran after him, the same way I ran after Ricardo when he was leaving.

“Why did Diego tell me to get rid of the baby? The way he looked at me, what has all this got to do with Ricardo? I don’t even know where he is, or if he’s even coming back. Please, Juan, stop, tell me. What’s going on?”

He sighed, as he turned back. “Ricardo killed his father. This is the problem, no one else did it. He did it all, and Diego and I cleared up the mess.”

I repeated, “He killed his own father.”

“Yes.”

Juan moved in the direction he was moving and left. The same way Ricardo had done, but I felt too frail to follow this time. I had money. I didn’t need to stay here. But the shock of it all was too much to handle and I dropped to the ground. There was no one to save me from this madness, and I realized why Diego had said what he did. As crazy as it sounded at the time, now it made perfect sense.

What kind of monster was Ricardo to have killed his father?