Dark Paradise

chapter eleven

C H A P T E R E L E V E N

GAVIRIA WAS GOING TO CELEBRATE HIS WIN BIG. Pablo Escobar had dug himself deeper into the hole he already was in with the terrorist bombing and along with it, he caused a massive wave of support for the presidential candidate. Thanks to Pablo, Gaviria was now the president of Colombia and he was having a massive inaugural ball in celebration of it. As kudos for convincing Eduardo to not let him get on the plane, Gaviria had invited the few top notch employees from the Embassy along with Javier and Steve. The President allowed them a plus one for the ball and knowing Steve was going to bring Connie, she begged Javier to take Celia. After all, she helped Steve at the airport to stop Gaviria...sort of.

The day of the inaugural ball came and Celia was in a panic. Unlike her sister, she hadn't found a dress yet. Colleen, annoyed with her coworker, laid on the horn one more time.

"Celia! Get in or you're never going to get ready in time! I'll lend you a dress!" Colleen yelled at Celia as Celia was glancing into multiple shop windows along the street.

Celia was walking towards the last window she was going to look into. As she was about to yell back a response, Celia eyes laid onto the dress she knew she was going to wear that night. The woman gestured to her coworker to wait a minute before she went inside to purchase the dress. Colleen begged Celia on the way back to Celia's apartment to let her have a peek at the dress.

"I already saw your sister's dress so just give me a peek of your's!" Colleen tried to rationalize with her coworker and Celia shook her head as she grabbed her dress out of the backseat of the car.

"Sorry, Colleen. You're just going to have to see it in the paper tomorrow morning." Celia responded as she thanked Colleen once again before heading inside the apartment building.

When Celia walked into her apartment, her sister was padding around her apartment with wet hair and half her makeup done already.

"Celia! Are you shitting me? You just got your dress?" Connie yelled at her sister as she shut the door behind her. "You better hurry up because Steve said the driver was going to be here for us at five and it's three so go hop in the shower."

Celia did as her sister said and after she hung up her dress in her closet, she hopped into her tub for a quick shower. The second she had walked out of the bathroom, her sister immediately sat Celia down in a chair and began to work on her hair and makeup. Once Connie had her sister's hair in a lace braided updo, she worked on getting makeup on her sister's face.

Thirty minutes before the driver was going to show up, the two woman went their separate ways to finally put on their dresses. Celia couldn't help but grin to herself at the deep red color of the floor length mermaid dress that complimented her tan skin. She ran her palms of her hand along her figure that the dress perfectly hugged before pairing her dress with a pair of silver lace up heels. Celia then moved towards her front door to grab her lock clutch. She accidentally knocked over the clutch and a file that the men had left in her apartment. Celia had left it on the table by her front door as a reminder to give it back to Javier, but it always seemed to slip her mind. As she crouched down to pick up the fallen items, she decided out of curiosity to take a peek inside the file. It was her only chance to do so considering the men never wanted them looking inside them when they were around.