Beth

Since our arrival in Lucas’s secret room, we immediately head to our search. Skimming from one file to the other, grabbing one drawer to the other. With the limited light above our heads, reading the stained pages is difficult. From an endless number of papers we have to read, I didn’t notice my ruddy fingers accumulated from the dust.

I sigh and wipe my sweat with my wrist as I grab one drawer, pulling pieces of aged and crumpled folders. They’re crunchy as a fresh baked tart. I pull and place them piece by piece on the table, on top of the other folders we have read before.

There is nothing special about the folder except it’s a bit thicker than the others. When I open it, I see the old, crunchy papers stacked together in a fastener.

The stench of the old room, as well as the scent of the papers I hold, overpower my nostrils. I don’t like this at all. But I don’t have a choice. I have to do it. Besides, Kaiser already make efforts to help me out with the case.

I squint, rubbing my nose with my hand and open the folder. I skim the pages as careful as I could, skimming one file to the other.

The next few pages reveal something. My eyebrows knit together. I hold the paper closer to my eye, trying not to misread the contents. In one page, there is an old photo of someone on the top right part glued to the paper. Below, typewritten contents show the complete profile. His name down to his specific assignments.

“Name: Giuseppe Antonio Monti. Aliases: Joe Adonis, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Arragos,” I mumble more details written in the file. After finishing one page, I immediately proceed to the next page with the same setup. Majority of the old photos are men alongside their comprehensive profiles.

I open more folders and read more papers stapled on top of the other. Names. Aliases. Description. Addresses. Localities frequented. Family background. Criminal associates. Criminal history. Business. Modus Operandi.

What are these?

I recoil, releasing an exasperated sigh. I open it and read everything the Mendiolas wrote here. “Name: Monsour Dela Calzada. Aliases: Old Boy, Old Man, Mon San Diego. Description: Born January 4, 1949; Tondo, Manila. Height: Five-foot-eight. Weight: eighty kilograms. Eye color: dark brown…” I continue muttering the contents. “… localities frequented: abandoned factory nearby river, Alexandrino Hotel, Madame’s Club, A+ Bar.”

That’s the nearest five-star hotel in the town. “Criminal history: Case number 00452, Case number 09567. Record dates from the 1990s. Crimes include robbery, murder, liquor smuggling, illegal possession of firearms, extortion, assault, and others.”

Murder?

I blink for a moment with a disturbing thought. In each person, how many people had they killed? How did their profiles end up in Lucas's shelves?

While scanning for significant clue, my eyes land on the note in bold letters. “Modus operandi: Powerful mafia figure.” I muzzle after reading that line. I return the previous files to the folder while grabbing another one. Yet, something about these names had me concerned.

“Name: Fabian Montenegro,” I whisper. My chest tightens, as I fix my sight at his photo. A Montenegro?

After pulling myself together, my mind rushes theories. Later, Kaiser may have seen in me in a disturbing puzzle and decides to approach me, tapping my shoulder. But I make no movement and stare at the folders without a word. Without noticing it, I still hold Fabian Montenegro’s file.

“What’s this?” Kaiser grabs the folders, skimming them as careful as he could but fast. He shakes his head. “This is a mafia’s master file.” Then, he shakes my shoulder. I jerk and return to my senses, wide-eyed. “Beth, where did you get this?”

I turn my head and point to the drawer where I got the papers. He shakes his head again, jaw-dropped. He covers his mouth with his hand and places his other hand on his waist. “Why, Kaiser?”

“Didn’t you realize what kind of papers you’re holding right now?” He sputters. I shake my head. For real, I didn’t know what these are. I shrug telling him of my naivety. “Come on, this isn’t an ordinary case we’re dealing with, Beth. This is about the mafia. My family’s involvement with a mafia.”

Mafia. That sounds a big word. Is that bad enough for him to react like that?

He repeats, “You don’t get what we’re doing, Beth, do you?” I shake my head. He sighs aloud out of frustration as he plants his big hands on my shoulders, fixing his sight on me. Patience.

He takes a deep breathe in and explains. “A mafia is a large, organized syndicate, Beth. This group of people involves in big crimes. Like..." He pauses. "...protection racketeering, disputes between notorious criminals, and illegal businesses and transactions.”

He presses his lips without breaking his eye contact. “In general, I mean …the Mendiola is in a large criminal group. And I assume the mafia involved Uncle Lucas. And…Giovanni.”

I am jaw-dropped when he said Giovanni’s involved with this kind of crime and its scale. “This is from someone named Fabian Montenegro.” I show him the file. “It says there he has a child named Alexandra. Five years of age. That makes him a member of Uncle Lucas’s syndicate, am I right?”

Without saying a word, Kaiser looks at me and nods. I add, “Alexandra’s story is bigger than how I pictured it. This might be the reason Aunt Jessica wants us to uncover her life story ourselves. Because there are a lot of people involved with it.” I sigh, placing my hands on the edge of the table. “I didn’t expect we discover something like this.”

“Me, too," he exclaims, placing his hands on his waist. "It's hard to believe that Uncle Lucas was once a cold mafia boss. Because he doesn't look like that when I last saw him."

“How can you say he’s a mafia boss and not a member of the syndicate?” I say. He grabs a piece of paper with a typewritten letter from someone sent to Lucas Mendiola. The content doesn’t make sense to me except the last line. “Boss.”

I gulp and fix my eyes on him. Especially when Kaiser grabs a photo of a young Lucas at his prime—in his early twenties. He wore black unbuttoned tux, standing beside around ten or fifteen men in the same attire. He looks younger than the photo I saw in Aunt Jessica’s house. He exactly looks like Kaiser. I glance at my best friend and back to the Lucas in the photo.

“I know. We both look exactly the same,” Kaiser whispers. “Scheiße,” he cusses looking at the photo in my hand. “What else did you find in the book?”

“In Chapter 3, she wrote Monsour in the same coding system,” I show him the page where Alexandra scribbled. She used the same method in the first chapter. “And I saw him in one of these pages as well.” He looks at me with a surprise. I grab the previous papers I saw before I focused on Fabian’s profile. After a few pages, I saw Monsour’s. “Here.” I point my finger at his face on the page I hold.

He grabs it because of the aged paper, in fear he might damage it. “Name: Monsour Dela Calzada. Aliases: Old Boy, Old Man, Mon San Diego. Description: Born January 4, 1949; Tondo, Manila. Height: Five-foot-eight. Weight: eighty kilograms. Eye color: dark brown eyes." He sighs and continues muttering the profile. "…localities frequented: abandoned factory nearby river, Alexandrino Hotel, Madame’s Club, A+ Bar.”

He continues reading with his mouth but in a whispering manner. “Criminal history: Case number 00452, Case number 09567. Record dates from the 1990s. Crimes include robbery, murder, liquor smuggling, illegal possession of firearms, extortion, assault, and others.”

After reading his profile, Kaiser gazes at me and asks, “Why was he included in the clue?” I shrug. “What’s his involvement with her life?” He sighs and adds, “That’s something we should know, too.”

While he focuses on the profile, I turn and see a book with a different look from the rest of the books on the shelves. For a hardbound cover, using a leather for the material sparks my curiosity. It looks different from the others and stands out. I grab it and open the contents.

There I find stacks of newspaper articles glued on blank pages. They are about Alexandra’s surrender back in 1999. “Belladonna Surrenders,” I read the headlines in a whispering manner. I flip to the next pages revealing an article about her court appeal. She wanted to change the court decision to life imprisonment instead of a death sentence. “The government denied Montenegro’s appeal. This is due to the grievous crimes she committed as Belladonna, the infamous night slayer.”

The next few pages are disturbing. They are photos taken shortly before her death sentence in January 2001. I couldn't help but release a frustrated sigh. I imagined her difficult life inside the prison at her young age.

She was twenty-two years old when she surrendered to the authorities and imprisoned. At the same age, the government sentenced her to death. We’re almost at the same age. But compared to her hardship, my hurdle with my family and academics are nothing against hers. At least, I don’t have to question how long I should live.

My mind starts to fill with quick ponders, failing to notice Kaiser standing beside me. He flips through the pages of the book I grab before. He looks at the photos to and fro with keen eyes. But then, something catches his eye.

A photo of the young Lucas and Giovanni beside each other, smiling in front of the building. “Both of them looked handsome. No wonder Aunt Jessica falls in love with your Uncle Lucas.” I sigh and teases him. “You can’t deny you’re relatives.”

“Fortunately, not. We look the same because of coincidence. We’re not related by blood. Look, I’m born with a German father and my mom has no direct relations with the Mendiolas. So, I could say we’re not relatives in that sense. But, I grew up with them and treated them like my family.” His explanations are clear but my mind doesn’t seem convinced because of his looks. In fact, he even looks like a young Lucas.

“Yeah, you aren’t related by blood. You got their abilities,” I say. His eyebrow rises as if he doesn’t get what I meant. “You stole your mom’s keys, remember?” I turn away my sight from him, giggling as I watch him flush.

Holding the photo in my hand, I look at the words written behind. May 1998. They took this photo a month before the classes started at San Nicholas University. A month before Giovanni and Alexandra met.

“San Nicholas University. My grand uncle ran the university until he fell sick recently. So, my brother Mike took over.”

“For real? You guys run such a prestigious university?”

He nods. “I remembered before he died, he told me once about an odd story.”

“About?”

“It was a story of a mysterious but strong woman, who was once a student in the university at one point. He said she made a big impression until she left shortly after the first semester ended. It was some kind of a legacy of whatever it was. I don’t remember,” he says.

“Alexandra’s life is becoming beautiful and interesting the longer we delve deeper into her life, isn’t it?”

He nods without saying a word and continued looking at the photo of the two brothers, who seem close. “But… because of you, I am now tied with this journey of yours,” he exclaims with a smile.

“And your aunt is an accomplice,” I say without hesitation. I staple the papers and place them inside their folders again.

“She is. Sucks.”

After he responds, I twist my ankle. I grunt as I fall down on the floor with the papers I fixed in their folder, now scattered on the floor. I press my feet because of the pain, instinctively. But when I place my other hand on the floor to support my weight, I press on something. A device, playing a recorded call.

A beep echoes the room, leaving the two of us in silence. “Gio here. Meet me at the same spot. Twelve noon.” A beeper sound again. We look at each other, both curious and amazed at hearing Giovanni’s voice from the device. In fairness, his voice sounds deep like Kaiser. But a bit husky.

As much as I want to flush out of embarrassment, the pain in my feet leaves me paralyzed. “Where’s the same spot?” I ask but then he shrugs. “Did your aunt share something about your uncle before?”

“I have no idea. But I wasn’t that interested when she tells me of her petty love story back then. And I’m no fan of such ridiculous things.” His remark somehow concludes my daydream. I have no chance for Kaiser. That is, if something romantic blossoms between the two of us after this journey together.

Never.

With my strength left and with Kaiser’s helping hand, he holds my shoulders as I try to stand again. I place my hand on the table for support, placing my feet in place. When I put a bit of my weight on my left feet, I winced. Bad move.

Staggering, I move further to the shelves. With a slightest movement, the book falls on the floor with an open page. It's the same book where we read Alexandra's news article. This time, I see her face, distressed. While kneeling on the floor, I pick up the book and notice something on the rightmost corner of the photo.

There are two women crying. They extend their hands on her but the officers prevented their approach. I tug Kaiser’s pants to check these women out. “Hey, do you happen to know these women back here?” I point out their location and immediately he grabs the book and does a closer look.

“That’s my mom. What the hell. Why is she in the photo?” He sputtered, clucking afterward. He is jaw-dropped with what he sees.

Alexandra points out Giovanni’s name in the book that leads us to Lucas’s involvement with the mafia.

Now, someone named Monsour dragged in her story. Then, Kaiser’s mom. What’s next to her story? How is she related to the country’s most notorious assassin?