YARA’S POV
Life is really unpredictable and paradoxical and crazy like a roller coaster spinning out of control, if you had told me this is how… how everything would go some years back I would have definitely resented you for mocking me.
In high school I was what you would describe as a scwany little nerd; always nervous, insecure with a terrible fashion sense, in fact if a person’s dressing could kill I would have killed everyone who looked at me with the way I dressed. I remember always wanting to be the ‘IT’ girl, wanting to be part of the popular girls, girls like Maddie and Katie and my twin sister Zara. I wanted to be Zara so bad, she was the cooler twin, I was cuter no doubt but she has always been more popular because of her daredevil attitude, how she was never afraid of doing dangerous things especially if it would guarantee a shit load of attention.
There was the time we started attending this really posh boarding school right there in Maryland, that was around the time my father suddenly became a millionaire and my mother an addict who was eventually institutionalized.
Let me let you on a little secret, something people don’t know about my family. You see we were not always the super rich suburban family we were (until dad incurred that debt from Diego Fernandez, until I stole that money and got him killed) Quincy (my brother), Zara (my twin sister) and I grew up quite humble, really poor, we lived on food stamps for a while, that was until my father finally succeeded in getting his degree in marketing and he got that job that allowed him earn some money… enough for us to cover very essential things like school and rent and sometimes food.
I liked my father then, my hardworking immigrant hero, I liked him when he was just Papa then he became Alfonso Adeyemi, a stone cold mafia king who was so different from the dad I had once known.
He picked the name Alfonso because he thought it made him sound powerful and since his Surname (Adeyemi) is one only a few can pronounce he kept it because if there is one thing that narcissistic likes it’s being mysterious.
I turned to look at the man beside me Raphael Fernandez, who would have thought that a shy nerd like me would be able to get someone at powerful and influential as Raphael? I guess life is pretty unpredictable.
“Are you fine with this?” Raphael asked me looking concerned with his hand wrapped around mine. We have never gone to a strip club together, me and I. Sometimes I feels like he still sees me as his little goddaughter Yara and… and that bothers me because I am not that girl anymore, I am the confident, smart, sexy woman who he loves.
I sat up straighter.
“I am fine.” I said with a smile.
“This is just my kind of scene.” I added with the smile. He nodded and then I watched him turn his full attention to the stripper on the stage, I can’t really see her face because of how far from the stage we are but there is something about her that just seems to lure every guy here to her including my Raphael.
There is also something about her that seems very familiar… like I have met her somewhere before.
VALENTINA’S POV
I can hardly move with him staring so intensely at me, I can hardly move, my limbs feels stiff and immotile and rubbery. I can not seem to look away from him, he seems upset, I can tell with how clenched his jaw is. Well I shouldn’t care that he is upset, he did not care about my feelings when he sent those orders to those employers which made them not want to hire me.
How could he try to sabotage me like that? And to think that he watched me go into those interviews hopefully, he watched me disappear into cold saddening despair after not getting all those jobs, he saw me go through all those emotions and still continued to stop those people from employing me.
I tore my glance away from Diego and continued my definitely PG 18 pole dancing, I am not one to give lap dances but something about Diego being here, watching me with that glare in his eyes make me want to indulge, to push him just a little bit more over the edge, to make him feel how I did when I found out about his involvement in my constant rejection by employees.
I took a little break, went to the dressing room. There was a box containing the names of people who had requested lap dances. I shaked it a little and while looking away I picked a name. Raphael. I guess we have a winner.
YARA’S POV
Please tell me this stripper bitch isn’t here?! I tried to swallow in my angry, no sorry scratch that my rage as the stupid bitch caressed my Raphael’s face and then traced her finger down his neck. I placed my hand over Raphael’s willing him to look at me, to tell her to get her ugly grimy fingers away from him but he dismissed me by moving his hands away from mine and tracing those hands up against the stripper’s body.
I stood up angry, confused, hurt and walked away. Raphael did not seem to mind, he did not chase me down instead he continued what he was doing with the bitch. I felt tears streaming down my eyes, how does he not care how I feel?
I was about to leave through the exit door when
“That is enough Valentina!” I heard someone say, I turned to see Diego pulling the stripper by her arm. Wait this is Valentina…as in the Valentina?
DIEGO’S POV
I have given her too much freedom! that ends tonight! I don’t think she knows the gravity of what she has done. As I pulled her away, I caught a cursory glimpse of him. Dad?