Chapter 9

I could quite easily have settled into my life with Sofia, once I had accepted that the woman/girl I was intimate with was fifteen years old, yet more experienced than I was. But, the other men inside the walls made sure that I knew my place. I was only a bit more than a prisoner and they all had probably visited my 'girlfriend, ' at the time when she was still working. Some of the comments they made between themselves were downright rude. It took all my concentration not to show that I understood what they were saying. Inside the house, though, they left Sofia alone. I guess that my work was considered so important that 'el jefe' wanted to keep me satisfied.I decided to do my best to confirm my new criminal status. I decided to propose a new business area to my boss. His business - or family - was not big, but it was tight. It was also famous for the quality of the products it delivered. As I had been working with international financing, I had some contacts around the world. Of course, those contacts could not be used directly, as I did not want my presence to get known to anyone. But, after gaining his permission, and with two months of negotiations, his quality products began to be exported to the top-of-the-line customers in Asia. Even though they had their own production of all kinds of substances, what we offered was product of the highest quality ... to those who could afford it.

This new success gave Sofia and me some slack ... not much, but some. When 'our family' had a party after the first payments from the new customer were received, both Sofia and I were included. However, despite some slack, our status had not changed much. The other men tried to get me drunk, and used every opportunity to cop a feel of Sofia. I made sure that I looked more drunk than I actually was. Once it was time to go to sleep I made sure that Sofia came to bed with me. Back in our room, she thanked me in all the ways she knew.

Afterwards, I took some time memorizing what my boss, 'el jefe', had said in the party. This time, he had used some English when he repeated his words about loyalty, trust and the importance of man keeping his promises. The only problem was that I could not remember him promising me, anything. I decided that I should start up to build my physical endurance. I'd also need to find out if there was any way to teach myself some self-defence ... or something more dangerous, if possible.

Some of the local news became national before they started to wind down. Carl yelled about conspiracy and everything else possible through his lawyer, but as soon as they got someone from the factory talking about the drugs, he was gone. That is, he would have been gone if the Feds had let him go! There was not much chance of that. He was the biggest fish they had ever caught, while doing child pornography raids. He had thousands of pictures of under-age girls hidden in his home computer, together with files handling the drug deals. The final 'icing on the cake' was the videos of his own daughter undressing, and pictures of him having sex with very young girls. Of course, that's not to mention the recording in which he rapes and kills Ana. I guess that if the story is shocking enough, there is always someone who leaks it to the press, and there always is someone who will print it.

It was a bit more than a week later when the story leaked out, and Hanna was truly shocked when she read about it. Once she found out about the videos she came to me.

"Joel, I need to know. Are those your doings or are they real?"

By the way she looked at me I knew that there was no reason for lying to her. I took her hands in mine and looked directly into her eyes when I replied.

"Hanna, I assure you that all those videos are real. There was no need for me to fake them. If you want to blame me for something, blame me for that DEA raid."

She looked at me for a moment, and gradually started smiling.

"You are not lying."

Then she hugged me fiercely. I really was happy that I did not have to lie to her. It really didn't bother me at all that I did not tell her the whole truth: how all the material ended up on his computer. After all, he had done all those things and there were lots of weirdos out there who collected trophies of their doings.

The DEA paid us a visit a few days later. They did ask me a couple of questions but once I started asking them if there would be any possibility for me to get my money from the company, they decided that it was almost time to leave. When I finally asked them how am I going to get employed in the future, when the only company that I have in my resume has that kind of reputation - well, they almost looked sorrowful. Almost.

What I had not taken into account, was that Hanna got worried about that, too. Even if our house was free of any mortgage, she was sure that in the long run, her salary would not be enough. When I smiled to her she got angry. God, I loved to see that. I had missed it. Of course, that made her even more angry. It took some time, a whole lot of touching and petting to get her calm down. Finally, I was able to talk to her.