Her Ravaged Life

Ch. -1-

 I listen Dan go on and on and on how freaking important he is and how great he is as my brain is trying to wrap itself around all the information about the change of plans and Barraza. 

 I am correspondent covering crimes and criminals and Barraza is like the king of crime, I cannot believe Dan is giving this interview to me. We have senior journalist who would be lot more logical options for this high profile piece so it makes me wonder why would he assign me to it. Curiosity gets the best of me and, “but why me? I already have a story to cover and I might not have the experience for this kind of interview.”

 “He requested you, don’t ask me why, I don’t get it either,” he answers with disgust lingering in his voice. “Steph will send you your new itinerary and information. DO NOT f**k this up Gianna!” The last part comes out more like a whine than threat so I guess his ass is in the line as well.

 “Time will tell,” is all I can make come out of my mouth while my brain is on a rollercoaster with no end in sight.

 My phone goes silent and I let out a loud breath. 

 Freaking Nikolay Barraza has requested me to publish a piece on him.

 I almost start to feel proud and accomplished when it hits me. He picked me because he thinks I am inexperienced and he can manipulate me to portray him the way he wants the world to see him. Good luck to him that sucker doesn’t know what’s coming at him.

 I realize I am grinning and I am kind of blown away by my courage right now.

 Since being in the witness protection after my parents saw something they shouldn’t have crime has been sending me from early on. That’s probably why I felt the calling to let the world know how much evil and injustice we have around us. 

 Every day ordinary people get sucked into world of crime or suffer loss because of it. My family had to drop everything when I was fifteen and move across the country to start on a blank page as the Hayes family. 

 My parents let me keep my name, since it was never mentioned in any documents and it was the only thing that gave me little comfort when everything else was ripped from me and pretending became my second nature.

 I was never allowed to ask questions about the whole situation or even what actually happened. They would always dismiss my inquiries or change the subject when I tried to pry about it. 

 Even tried to research to get some answers but search on our names game up empty and honestly after a while I lost interest. Maybe it was better that way. Don’t poke the s**t or it starts to stink, as my granny used to say. So I let that s**t dry up and degrade into oblivion.

 I just went on with my life and accepted the reality.

 Gianna Mendez was dead and Gianna Hayes was here to stay.