Disclaimer: We all know how this goes. I own Felicia but the Robina name, as far as I know, belongs to rockstar games, as well as Umberto Robina and Pepe Robina. Etc Etc, I'll make it short. The end.
"Felicia..." The voice spoke on the other end of the phone. "Felicia it's me," he continued.
"Yeah, Pepe, what's wrong?" It was Pepe, one of two of her brothers. She could hear the trouble brimming in his voice as he spoke.
"I have bad news, hermana. It's about mom." Felicia's heart dropped to her stomach. She could tell by the tone of hisvoice that something was severly wrong.Her body began to tremble as she tried to keep a grip of the receiver. She'd never felt so nauseous in her life. No, she took that back -- only once.
"What's wrong?" she asked with a shaky voice. The line was silent except for the faint static of her brother breathing on the other end.
"She died, Felicia." Suddenly she found it hard to breathe herself. She hadn't been to see her mother since she left for college, and here she was, still in her Liberty apartment, regret filling her entirety. She closed her eyes and forced back the flood of tears that threatened to break through as she tried to maintain her balance. She swore, for just a moment, her heart had stopped beating. If only. "Felicia? Felicia are you there? Are you okay?" the voice of her brother called from the other line. Felicia nodded briefly before realizing her brother couldn't see her through the phone.
"Yes, yes I'm here." She knew she should say more, but the words wouldn't come. Why? Why didn't she take a weekend and visit her mother? Why didn't she pick up a phone and call her to tell her she loved her? Just why? All these questions overflowed into her mind, yet somehow she couldn't force them from her lips. She'd always known death came too quickly, she'd always known she had to take advantage of the time she had. God, how she knew this. So why didn't she?
"You're going to the funeral, right?" her brother's voice piped in once again. This time she'd almost forgotten she was on the phone at all. After a silence apparently too long for her brother's preference, he spoke again. "You owe it to mom, hermana. You owe it to her." Felicia nodded once again; not to her brother, but to herself. She did. She owed it to her mother. She'd be on the next flight from Liberty to Vice City as soon as possible. Her mother deserved to look down and see the love she had so earned. Felicia deserved one last goodbye, and by God she would get it.
Felicia remembered that day all too vividly, and now, all of a sudden, here she was standing in front of her mother's casket. Her face, though made up beautifully, looked pale and cold. Just like...
"You came." Felicia turned around to see Pepe's sombered face staring at her through sunglasses. She knew he had been crying, and damned if any Cuban would be seen crying -- even at their own mother's funeral.
"Of course I did," she replied. "Mother deserves to see receive every bit of love she gave, even if it's too late for her to receive it in life." Pepe nodded. Before Felicia could say anything more, Pepe leaned forward and wrapped his sister up in a much-needed hug. As her brother held her a single tear ran down her cheek. A tear of sorrow; of regret. Soon she pulled away from her brother's grip, sniffling hard to bite back the flow of tears that threatened to gush. No, I won't cry. Not here, not now.
"You know, pop is here," Pepe stated. Felicia sighed heavily, indicating to Pepe that she'd rather not know that. "You made a mistake with mom, hermana. Don't make a mistake with pop too." There were times when she hated how her brother could read her mind. Then there were times when she appreciated it more so than anything in the world. Anything she could have, anyway.
"Nieta!" called a voice from behind her. "Nieta, usted esta aqui." Felicia turned around to greet her gray haired grandfather, coming at her from behind with arms outreached and heart wide open, as always. Felicia loved her grandfather, he was always good hearted like her mother, but he had a patience that, Felicia would imagine, no other Cuban possessed. He was a saint in his own right, and she loved him more for it everyday.
She extended her own arms and embraced her grandfather. He smelled of Barbasol and "old man" cologne, but the fragrance was familiar and welcoming to her.
"Si," she began as her grandfather pulled back and held her at arms length, looking at her as if he were eyeing her up for any deplorable changes, "por supuesto, abuelo." Her grandfather, after a long stare, finally nodded and smiled. He continued to speak to her in his native tongue, as he didn't know very much English. Felicia was a bit rusty on her Spanish, but she understood nearly every word he said.
After a somewhat long conversation with her grandfather, a small group of men in the shady shelter of a palm tree in the distance caught her eye. She stared at the small group of men who seemed as if they were exchanging something, until she made out the large, round figure in the middle. Her eyebrows furrowed and her fists clenched at her side. She had a notion to walk over there and lay into him, but she wouldn't disgrace her mother that way. Not today, not on this day of all days.
Pepe, noticing his sister's near loss of control, walked over and placed his hands on either of her shoulders from behind.
"This is mom's day, hermana. Don't let your temper get the best of you." Felicia nodded. She had already decided he was right before the words left his lips. After allowing her a long, hard stare at the ground, Pepe hugged her shoulders and shifted his weight to nudge her away from the scene under the palm tree.
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Hours after the funeral had ended, only a few relatives remained scattered over the grounds. Felicia, of course, was one of them.
Why did he have to do this, today of all days? How can he disrespect a woman he was meant to love for so many years? I will never be what he is. Never.
Felicia sat alone on a chair nearest the brick wall of the building next to her. She didn't even recognize the place. It had only been 3 years since she left, but ever since she got back everything seemed so unfamiliar and out of place. After all, she was happy in Liberty. She was away from the Cubans and the Haitians, the killing and the crime. Granted, Liberty City was by no means an angelic paradise but at the very least she didn't have to be wrapped up right in the middle of it. Sure, there were drive-by shootings every once in a while. You'd see the occasional pimp with his ho's, the occasionally drug dealer doing his thing in the shady confines of the inner-Staunton park.
But most of all, she didn't have to know anything going on in Vice City and her family. Of course she loved her family, that was unavoidable, but in all honesty part of her wished Pepe wouldn't have called her. She could've just gone on living her life in total oblivion. No, she was wrong. She didn't want to not be informed. But she wasn't sure she wanted to be informed either. Hell, the bottom line was she didn't want her mother to die. She didn't want anybody to die, not on the behalf of what so many men were dying -- money, greed, hatred; the reasons were endless, as were the body bags. She hated every inch of it.
"Ahem," came a burly voice above her. Felicia's jaw tightened and her muscles tensed. "Oh Lord, not now," she begged. Slowly her chocolate brown eyes rose from the floor to the face of the husky man in front of her. She felt as if she stared hard enough she could burn a hole right through him. "Felicia..." the voice began. "Daughter." Felicia's skin burned at the word. How could he?
"How could you?" The words escaped her lips before she had the chance to choke them back. "How could you disrespect mom like that? You loved her, but you'd perform the very thing that killed her right at her funeral?" She figured she'd already started, why not finish?
"Felicia, she died of a stroke..."
"Yeah, sure, that's what medically killed her. But you know and I know what really killed her." The stocky man just dropped his head and sighed. "You killed her, dad. YOU killed mom. And you didn't even have the decency to give her one last day of peace." The chocolate brown eyes that matched her own narrowed at her, and a finger was pointed in her face.
"You don't talk to me like that, hija. I am your father!" he snapped.
"And my mother is dead because of you! Because of the things you do, you refuse to stop. She hated those things and you wouldn't even give her the rights she had to have a peaceful, crime free funeral. Her last day of peace and you corrupted it." Her father scowled at her.
"You say that now. YOU SAY THAT NOW! But one day, daughter. One day you might have to do what I do."
"Never. Never! I will NEVER do what you do." Felicia took a step forward and thrust her self up in his face, lowering her voice to a near growl and snarling at him through clenched teeth. "I promised myself years ago when Philippe... You will never suck me in like you did Pepe. I never would've come back if it weren't for Pepe. Mull that over on your next drug deal, daddy," she spat. Her father's eyes widened as his heart sunk the rest of the way into his stomach. He couldn't believe his ears.
Before he could speak Felicia turned and stormed away, fading out of sight into the nighttime shadows. He had to admit, she had her mother's strong will and courage, but her mouth was too big for her judgment. No less, he turned the other way and began to fade away in his own direction as he headed for the Café Robina. There he would talk the night away with his own father.
A/N: I've taken a break from writing Three Deadly Fates for a while. I think, reading back on the story, I've lost sight of why I started writing the story. So I've decided to try and write a purely Romantic fiction between Tommy and an original character and see how that goes. I've also decided, after reading an article on here, that I'll put my authors notes at the bottom. I also can't remember for sure if Pepe is Umberto's son in the game or if they make reference to Pepe being his only son/child, since I couldn't open the game because my comp is a piece o' crap. I had to use a translator for the majority of the Spanish in this chapter, so if I'm off on anything or you don't understand what they're saying just hit up any old translator. :)