Page 1 of Desperate Needs

Prologue 1-Clementine

Fifteen years ago.

I heard the pounding of my father’s footsteps as he raced towards where the bad men were holding me.

The room smelled bad. Like cigarettes and beer. I recognized the smells from when I visited Uncle Nico’s bar with Pop.

It made my nose itchy, but one of the bad men slapped me when I sniffled earlier. I was scared, so it was okay to cry. Or so I thought.

The bad man said crying was for babies, and I was too fat to be a baby.

So, I hid my fear. But when I heard Pop’s angry voice roaring my name, I knew it was going to be okay.

The door busted open, and the bad men stood, scrambling to get away as Pop and my uncles came rushing inside.

There were other men with them, too. Men outfitted with guns and knives, who worked for my father.

Violence erupted around me like Mount Vesuvius. I learned all about the volcano that destroyed Pompeii in the year 79 AD.

We watched a video about that in school last week and I remembered the way molten lava shot from the mouth of the mountain and rained down terror on the unsuspecting people below.

I liked history. But these guys should have known this was going to happen.

I didn’t know a lot about my father’s or my uncles’ business, but I knew they were respected and feared. I saw it in the way other adults, like my teachers or my friends’ parents, looked and the way their expressions changed when they found out who I was.

Clementine Aziz. Daughter of Josef Aziz, head of Sigma International.

“Clementine! Are you okay?” Pop asked.

He was kneeling at my feet, cutting through the ties that held my hands and ankles together with a wicked looking knife. His face was covered with sweat and blood, but it didn’t scare me.

I knew it wasn’t his.

“Clemmy mine? Honey? Answer me, baby, are you hurt?” Pop asked.

I shook my head. I was going to need time to process everything that had happened, but I was feeling angry now. More than anything else, I was mad. Especially since the worst of it was over.

“Can you talk? Shit. Call a doctor!” he yelled at one of the men.

But I shook my head and narrowed my eyes.

“I don’t need a doctor, Pop.”

“I think you should get looked at,” he said, and tilted my head side to side.

His chest rumbled angrily as he took in the side of my face where the bad man had hit me.

“I am so sorry you got hurt,” he said, and gritted his teeth.

I knew he meant it. This year had been hard on all of us. Mom was sick, and Pop was splitting his time between work, us kids, and being there for her. I was eleven and the oldest.

I didn’t understand exactly what was going on, but I tried to keep my younger sisters calm. Pop was serious about our security, but there must have been a mix up.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Practice was canceled, and I thought I was big enough to get home alone,” I murmured, ashamed by my actions.

This was all my fault, and even as I acknowledged it, I wasn’t ready to feel so much shame.

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