SEPARATED

FIFTEEN

PAULO:

My name is Christian Paulo. I was born in Rio, Brazil. My parents abandoned me in a trash can when I was only two. I was taken into a foster home where I was sheltered and cared for. When I was fourteen, I learned the painful truth about my past and my parents. One year later my parents came to my foster home and tried to adopt me. I escaped and for three years, I lived on the streets of Rio. I joined the Brazilian army when I was eighteen. Three years later I met Antonio and ditched the army to work for him.

And so now I'm a fierce, fearless, ruthless relentless, and on top of that, intelligent man. I wear a fake cowboy accent to keep the Brazilian army off my tracks and I also keep a low profile. I keep my breath bad most of the time to make myself more intimidating. Ninety percent of everything that happens in my life is planned for. I scarcely make mistakes nor give excuses.

There are very few people who are more fierce, more intimidating than I. But there is one, one who I know so well. Believe it or not, that one person who can scare even me, is Antonio. Antonio is a really nice guy, when he is nice that is. But when he isn't, trust me, you'd want to be at least a hundred miles from him.

"Swear to me Paulo that you didn't have anything to do with Sarah's escape!"

I watched him with genuine admiration as he spoke. I hadn't seen him like this in a long, long time. Yes; this was my real boss. This is the man I had longed to see, the man who trusted nobody and stood for no excuses. This is the man who had convinced me to leave the army three years ago.

"Boss you know I'm loyal to you" I said firmly.

He continued to pace angrily back and forth. I prayed to God that he didn't see the guilt on my face. Because in truth, he was absolutely right to suspect me. I had betrayed him. As strange as this may sound, I helped Jacob escape with Sarah. In fact I was practically the sole engineer of the whole escape.

I had recorgnised Jacob the very first time I saw him snooping around the cottage. I remembered him from the time I had gone to collect Sarah from her family for Antonio. In the two days that I'd surveyed Sarah and the place she lived with her family before taking her, I had often seen Jacob in her company. And I had instantly known the two were very close.

And so when I saw Jacob at the cottage, I had initially wanted to intimidate him so he never came back as I knew he spelled trouble for Antonio's relationship with Sarah. But I also wanted to get rid of Sarah so that I could get Antonio back to his old fierce self once again. And that's when I realised I could use Jacob to get rid of Sarah. And so I had chased him with the hope that he'd look back and recognise me. But he never looked back.

Two weeks later, Jacob had come back. I had seen him running for the cover of the trees the moment Antonio and I stepped out of my truck. I hadn't told Antonio then because I didn't have a plan yet. Later that evening I had found Jacob returning from the mansion. He had seen me and flung a stone in a different direction to divert my attention. I had pretended to rush to the place where the stone had landed then stealthily crept up on him and knocked him out.

I had examined the bag he wore on his back and found the weapons that lay within. I knew they would give the boss a bad impression so I had left the bag with it's contents behind as I carried the unconscious boy to my boss (Antonio) and presented him as a trespasser.

Antonio had been displeased with me. When Jacob regained consciousness, Antonio was kind to him and even gave him a job. I had pretended to be upset about Antonio's decision but in truth, it was all according to my plan.

Jacob had worked at the mansion for almost two weeks and just as I had expected, he hatched a plan to escape with Sarah. I had heard him instruct someone to book two bus tickets to Freywood over phone and he had quickly hung up when he saw me. Everything was set, but I had to make the escape look convincing.

And that's why I got the hound. The hound had belonged to a German doctor who left Freywood to return to Germany a day before the escape. I had shared a friendly conversation with him in which he told me he owned a fierce looking hound that was actually quite harmless. I convinced the man to give me his dog since it wouldn't be worth it to carry it all the way back to Germany.

And so this is the dog Jacob killed on the night of the escape. I would use it's corpse as evidence of a violent escape. It was all perfectly planned and executed. But Jacob couldn't even come up with a simple escape plan; because he forgot that you can't get to the bus station from the cottage on foot in less than an hour.

I knew that Jacob and Sarah would miss their bus and the whole escape would fail. Because Antonio would have found them before sunrise. And so I had to step in once again; when Sarah ran off and left me with Jacob I waited till she was far enough then I simply tossed Jacob the keys to my truck. Jacob who had been ready to exchange blows with me looked at me in plain confusion. I swore him to secrecy and told him never to return to Freywood.

"After all I've done for this little brat, how dare she!?" Antonio continued in his storm of fury.

"Boss, maybe her going away is for the better" I suggested.

He almost hit me. He held me by my collar and said, "Paulo... I am going to find that little girl and her beloved boyfriend and make them pay for misusing my trust! And you are gonna help me!"

For the first time in years I actually felt intimidated. I nodded gently praying that I wasn't to be the one who would pay for my betrayal.

★★★★★