Ana Oliveira Part 2

I stayed at the cemetery entrance with Josiah for several minutes, waiting for Harry, who insisted on attending the burial. Jow chose not to witness that moment, and I completely understood why. It was the most traumatic part. Those shovels of dirt on the coffin were the final confirmation that the person would never return. I was relieved that Josiah didn’t want to watch.
I never drove, but the way everyone was shaken made me take the wheel of Josiah's heavy pickup truck and drive us to Marta's house. I was on autopilot, my thoughts screaming in my mind, and the silence inside the car between Jow and Harry was deafening. I barely noticed when I parked in front of the house.
There was a silver Porsche parked on the opposite sidewalk from my mother-in-law's house, and a row of black cars in front of it. The sight of the black-clad security team outside the house made my heart leap.
It was time...
"What the hell is Cristian doing here?" Josiah yelled, his eyes darting around at all the signs of his father's presence, trying to open the car door in agitation.
I didn’t want that old bastard near my daughter, but with everything I discovered that morning, I needed someone to make Marta and Júlia safer in that house. Besides, that damned politician was part of the plan I had devised.
“Calm down!” I said, locking the doors and pulling him by the collar of his black shirt. “Look into my eyes and pay close attention!” Josiah met my gaze, seeing the seriousness in my eyes, and tensed up, his eyes wide. “I know this isn’t the best time, but we have some dirty laundry to air, some snakes to unearth, and to put an end to the power we’ve allowed to destroy us. And likely unmask the person who killed Bernardo.”
Clenching his jaw, Josiah pulled away from my hand, forcefully opening the door and striding into the house, followed by Harry.
I got out of the car, reminded of why I had called that despicable father-in-law to this moment. So much had happened that morning. That’s when I discovered who Luana truly was and all the filth hidden beneath a loose floorboard in her room.
Two weeks ago, I went into her room to discuss Isabela and ask Luana to stop sulking about me rekindling my friendship with Isa. Luana was on her knees on the brown plank flooring, hiding something underneath it before covering it back up. I knocked on the door and pretended I hadn’t seen anything to avoid embarrassing her. I was so blind and foolish that I didn’t even suspect what might be hidden there. But yesterday, when Harry told me every detail of what Luana had said to Josiah, from the maternity ward to his brother's funeral, I knew that bitch had done things to keep me away from my boyfriend. She had lied to him about many things, including preventing him from entering the maternity ward while I was giving birth. Damn her!
And I wanted every damn detail, every single thing that slipped past. So when Luana left this morning for work, under the excuse of having trauma from funerals after her cousin’s death, I sneaked into her room and went straight to her hiding place. My heart was bleeding with rage, sadness, and a huge feeling of having been made a fool. When I retrieved the transparent plastic with the small USB drive, my heart nearly escaped from my mouth, sweat pouring down my temples. While Júlia, dressed in a pink onesie, slept cuddled up to her father on the huge bed in his room, I snuck over to the desk, plugged in the USB drive, and opened that vault of dirty secrets.
And I almost vomited.
When I saw that array of folders, I grabbed Josiah's laptop and went to the living room to watch those infamous videos without waking them. The first video was dated many years ago.
Luana and Lucah... very young, filming themselves while having sex on a large rock by a waterfall.
Among all the things I imagined finding there, I would never have guessed that the cousins had an affair. I could feel bile rising in my throat as a single tear of shock rolled down my cheek. My heart was heavy, and a tight knot formed in my throat. I wanted to scream, to roar in frustration and shame for doubting Jow's word.
“So, I strangled him until he started foaming. A weakling... I only didn’t kill him because I heard my mom coming out of her room, as the coward screamed when he saw me dressed up in front of him.”
A young Lucah said, while Luana turned the camera towards herself. She was naked, her long hair cascading to her hips.
“Why do we have to hate Jow?” Luana asked, smiling and turning the camera back to her cousin, who was now swimming in the greenish water of the waterfall. His blonde hair was a bit long and floating in the water. His gaze... There was no trace of the kind man I knew. It was an emotionless, dark look, a completely forced smile. Had he always been like that and I didn’t notice?
“Because he’s a loser. My dad sucks up to him, says Jow has a bright future. And when my brother didn’t exist, that bastard Cristian treated me well, he... didn’t insult me like he does now.”
“But Uncle Cris also hits Jow...”
“Are you going to defend him now, you bitch?”
That was just one of many videos of them, some planning schemes against Josiah, videos and videos of their sex, sometimes with other men...
Another thing on that USB drive was a folder called Dossier. Inside it were several things about Lucah, indicating that Luana was gearing up against him. There was a folder on children, messages exchanged on a sketchy site where he seemed to sell those photos to other criminals. Photos of Luana completely battered, including a video of them having sex where she asked him why he insisted on being with Jonas. The camera was set up to film the bed, and I got the impression that Lucah didn’t know he was being filmed, in a room I didn’t recognize, probably a motel due to the red, circular leather bed. He assaulted her after the question, leaving her unconscious.
God! How did Lucah manage to keep up such a façade of being a good guy? I was horrified by what I saw. I cried out of fear, guilt, and rage... Because I had lived under the same roof as two psychopaths. Because I called them friends. Because I let them be so close that they completely destroyed the most beautiful thing I had in my life. To the point of ending my relationship with the man I loved.
In the dossier against Lucah, there were many things about Cristian. It was clear that my brother-in-law saw the father as an enemy he wanted to defeat. There were numerous proofs of embezzlement, overspending on public works, photos of my father-in-law with one lover after another... In other words, Cristian wasn’t an ally of Lucah or Luana; he seemed to be viewed as an enemy...