Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
She put her hands together and smiled. “I prayed every single day that they were fine and they got out.” She took a deep breath, and I watched as she closed her eyes. “And they did.”
That smile, this woman, was an anomaly. An angel amongst devils. The only one willing to act to save someone else.
“Why did you do it?” I asked.
“What?”
“You didn’t need to do it. Your sisters didn’t help. They made it difficult.”
Alba looked around the room, and she opened her mouth and closed it. “It wasn’t right,” Alba said. “Nothing I heard was right. Why would you protect them? Isn’t this life what you’re about as well?”
I accepted that.
“I’ve done a lot of things in my life, Alba. A lot of things I’m not proud of. A lot I am.”
I stared at my wife, and I made the decision. I had intended to keep this from her, but at every opportunity, Alba had shocked me. She had shown me loyalty, she had been honest and truthful.
“Twelve years ago, my sister was taken,” he said. “I was twenty-eight at the time. My sister was eighteen. She had gone to the doctor as she felt ill. My mother was the last to hear from her, and it was to say the doctor felt like she had flu. That was it. No other call. My sister did not come home that night. Nor the next. We never heard from her again. At this time, I was working for my dad in construction. We were not wealthy by any means, but we did good. He had a great reputation. I was good with my hands. I had a bit of a temper, and I had trained. My sister didn’t come home, nor did she call. The cops didn’t even try.”
I looked at my wife, as she folded her arms across her chest.
“You haven’t always been this person?” she asked.
I shook my head. “There was a time I was a regular joe on the street. I got up, went to work, paid my taxes. Had a beer with the guys, partied. Fucked and had fun. Then, I woke up, and I realized these streets were not for regular joes. My sister being taken, kidnapped, and the police losing the evidence, hiding it, being bought off, that was when I realized something shitty was going on. So, I started hunting for information. I used to be a fighter, and I didn’t mind a little pain. I delved in and went in hard, and I discovered that the Serra Mafia amongst many other things, was into human trafficking. Every year, they have a special list. A list for wealthy people, those that seem to get away with everything, because no one would dare rock the boat. My sister’s description matched that.”
I saw the shock and horror in Alba’s eyes.
“All I wanted was my sister back, and do you know what the Serra Mafia did?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“When they realized who I was, and what I was doing, they sent a couple of men to hurt my parents. They killed our dogs and burned down their home. They went to my home and did the same. They destroyed my father’s business. While the debt was running up, they made sure the insurance couldn’t cover the hospital bills. No one was coming to help my parents. They were a law unto themselves. Only, they made the biggest mistake of all. My sister’s body was discovered in the river, naked, and before they could destroy the true autopsy report, I was there. The abuse my sister suffered went on for months, long before they slipped her a drug overdose and dumped her in the river. That was their first mistake. They killed my dogs, that was their second, and when it came to my parents, they said it was an accident. An explosion in the hospital that happened to kill both Kemp parents. They took everything from me, and in doing so, I realized I had nothing left to lose.”
“I’m so sorry,” Alba said.
“The Serra Mafia have not even begun to pay for what they did. My sister is in a long line of victims. Some older, a lot younger. I am going to destroy every single person in the Serra Mafia, and I am going to make them pay for what they did.”
“I’m Serra,” she said.
“No, in all things there are exceptions to the rule, and the one constant in the people I have saved from them, is you,” I said.
“Me?”
“Because you are good. Possibly the only good thing that came from evil,” I said. “You’re the only person I am willing to save. You’re the only one who attempted to be good and kind, when others treated them like dirt.”
I moved toward her and didn’t say a word as I stared at her.