Chapter 1

As mama and I returned from the Sol family dinner, I loved going to family dinners, “wait here mi amor let me get your father downstairs so we can eat the leftovers from the party,” I watched her walk away.

Few minutes later she came back. I ran upstairs trying to know what happened when I saw it. 

Mama passed me with a Gun in hand and rosary around her neck, she reached for her bedroom When she entered, my father  was screwing another woman.

“So I’ll be dead by the holidays, cabrón?”

She shouted as he was, scrambling from the bed to his feet, naked. 

“Maria! I can explain everything!” Dad shouted back as his accent shifted from British to Southern mid-sentence. He pulled on his pants, and she let him. 

“Please, calm down! And for goodness’ sake, put the pistol away.”

Lightning flared, matching her mood. I finally understood the phrase “seeing red.” because that was my mother’s eyes at that moment.

She pointed the gun at the woman frozen on the bed. “Who the hell is she?”

Papa raised his palms. “Talk to me.” dad didn’t like my mother's attention on her? 

“She’s an old friend who was passing through town.” His blond brows drew together. 

“This didn’t mean anything. I just missed you so much, darling—I was momentarily weak. I was so stupid. But we can work this out. You are the one that I love.”

He was good. Papa lied too good Well, he's a lawyer, aren't they all liars?

The stranger stood, wrapping a sheet around herself. She was tall and slender, with long sandy brown hair and porcelain skin. “May I get my clothes?”

Lightning flashed again. “No. You move closer to him. NOW, puta(bitch).”  waved the gun, and she hurried to his side. 

Even in this situation, they somehow looked dignified together, a sterling couple.

Mom turned towards dad. “If you lie to me again, I will shoot you in your scrawny dick. Since when has this been going on?”

“What are you talking about! Have you lost your mind?” Dad eyes appeared stunned, as if she’d sprung this information on him—out of nowhere. 

“This is just a momentary lapse of judgement.” he repeatedly said

How could he be so believable? For the tiniest instant, I thought to myself, Well, I did know that. I shook my head. 

“ Well I've had people following you for months as you've been trying to get my inheritance and beaches to your name?”

Papa looked shocked.

 “You’re accusing me of theft? When I’ve never wanted a penny that belonged to you? I’ve never even raised my voice. Everyone knows how much I adore you. All our friends talk about my devotion.”

In other words, if I cried, “Murder plot!” no one would believe me. Mama shouted with tears running down her eyes “What’s in the case in that safety-deposit box?”

“Case? Now what are you going on about, darling? How did we go from my—admittedly stupid—screwup to murder?” There was that reasonable voice again. Trying to get mom to believe him I've heard it over the years

How much had he been gaslighting me and mom in the past? “I heard you two having sex and plotting, cabrón. No one’s celebrating my murder in Aspen this year.”the strange woman was unraveling. “I told you this one was trouble!”

I sneered to her, “With a capital fucking T, Puta.” Back to papa. Mom cocked the pistol, movie-style, and aimed it at his groin. “Try lying to me again.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You won’t shoot me. If you do, all your money—now my money—will go to me. You signed over everything to Anna a year ago.”

“Then you’re right. It doesn’t make sense to shoot you.” she  turned the gun to the mistress “I should shoot her. She’d be your heir, no?”

“Maria !” His breath left him, his voice scaling higher as he said, “Don’t hurt her. Please.”

The most shocking revelation of the night? This monster truly loved his mistress.

“Don’t make me hurt her! Answer my questions.”

Staring down a gun barrel, the mistress said, “I will answer them for you. We can talk about this. In this case, there’s a syringe. It was the injection that is supposed to be given to you tonight.”

My lips parted. He wanted mama dead.

She continued, “We targeted you for the land. Charles, no Lucas —knows how to break the trust and split your money.”

Shock muffled our faces, but I needed to stay sharp. Why does his mistress admit these things? I gazed at them through watering eyes.

 The two were farther apart from each other. While she stalled, he’d been sneaking closer to his dresser!

He has a gun in there.

 “Stop where you are, Lucas.” Mama said Keeping the pistol trained on him, she moved toward the dresser.

 “You got a gun? I’ll be taking it, as well as the key to that safety-deposit box.”

She  pulled open the top drawer, taking her gaze off them for a split second—

Lightning blazed; he threw a lamp at mama. 

Everything happened so fast.

She deflected with her arm. The old pistol went off. BOOM!

A dark spray arced across the room toward me, splattering my face and chest. Blood? From the mistress’s throat??

Her hands clamped her neck to stem the spray, but it kept welling up in spurts. Her body collapsed.

Papa dropped to his knees beside her, frantically clutching the wound, as if trying to put the blood back in.

 Coated in crimson, he yelled over his shoulder, “What have you done, Linda ?” Dimly I realized his accent had changed again.

 “You bitch! What have you DONE?”

His mistress Linda made ugly, wet sounds. 

Before I could process that fact another BOOM went off and mama’s blood was sprayed across the floor.

I ran out of the house as fast as I could and never looked back.

That night I found out my father was a con man and my mother a murdered heiress and my father also had a mistress.