The Arrangement

Chapter Two

"Excuse me, Chairman Villafuente."

An elderly man turns to his assistant who had walked in carrying several files in his hands.

"What is it, Benedict?"

"I have found them, sir."

Joaquin Villafuente sat down and took the small envelope his loyal assistant had handed him. It was a small wad of photographs. The first one was an old family photo that consists of four little girls of varying ages and a tall lean man carrying a chubby baby.

Vincent. Joaquin had thought as he stares at the photo for a long while. He carefully touched the face of the young man who was carrying his youngest child.

How long has it been since you've passed away Vince? He asks himself, suddenly feeling a sense of melancholy after seeing an old photograph of his oldest friend. It has been many years since he had seen him. He had not spoken a word to him in sixteen years which was why it came as a shock when he had received news of his passing.

Vincent Chu was always well known for his robust constitution. In the years that they had been friends, the man had never been ill. He was so obsessed with it comes to his health but was all for nothing. From what he had heard, Vince was diagnosed with a terminal disease. He had spent a month going to various specialists. The second month was spent going in and out of the ICU. A week later, he was gone.

Joaquin sighs. There had been many who would call themselves as his "FRIENDS." However, in his opinion, Vincent was the only one he could count on as a true friend. Being trustworthy and loyal were but some of his finer qualities. The man had stood by him when everyone else had abandoned him all those years ago.

The Villafuente family may now stand as one of the social elites but that was hardly the case many years ago. His grandfather; Antonio Villafuente; had squandered most of the family fortune on women, expensive babbles, bad investments, gambling, and fine wines. It hardly mattered to him that his family was on the verge of bankruptcy. All he had ever cared about were his whores and his wild parties. The family would have lost everything if his father; Jamie; had not done something about it.

Joaquin blinked back his tears at the thought of his father. The man had to work thrice as hard just to keep the family afloat. His father had even made certain that the family estate would be intact when he drafted several legal papers that forbade his father from selling any of the lands they had left.

He was hardly over fifty years old when he died. Joaquin thought bitterly. Even after so long, he could never forgive his grandfather for his callous disregard for his family. Thankfully the old man had died not too long after he had buried his own son. None of the family missed him. Why would they when he never cared one bit about them?

With his father was gone and his mother unable to support her eight children, the burden of raising his younger siblings had fallen on his shoulders. He had spent most of his childhood taking on various odd jobs to put food on the table. He would have stopped going to school all together but one of his father's friends had promised to support him until he graduates. To this day he had always been grateful to that man.