“You look nothing like your father,” he’d elaborated. “It’s the truth. And that’s not saying anything against your mother, may she rest…” His features shifted to an anguished wrath, before he shook it off. “When you were born, they said that’s how they knew you were so special.” He cleared his throat. “Destined for great things. A king… de el título Blanco.”
Emotion clouded my thoughts in that moment. So many things I hadn’t felt prepared to deal with.
I had no brothers or sisters… I was the last of the Blanco name, and I wasn’t sure that I ever wanted kids of my own. Sure, I was only a young man, but still. I’d always felt different.
My parents celebrated that. They encouraged me to do what I wanted to do, to make a name for myself. Build an empire that fit forme. My father knew I wasn’t interested in manual work, and he didn’t care that I was different from him in that way. He loved me as I was. And he still taught me lessons…
Like how he used to always dress up in his best attire. Any time he wasn’t working, he was in a suit and tie, and I was fascinated by it. The way people respected him, and looked at him like he was more than just a laborer. He would wink at me and I would smile.
Clothing makes the man, Salomón. You’re a king. Make sure you dress that way. Show everyone what you’re made of.
I knew that I looked different too. People always remarked on it. My light skin and white hair, dark eyes… But I was rarely insecure about it, not after a certain age. Again, because my father taught me to stand tall, and to take pride in myself. Not for bragging or boasting, but inside.
Pride is a good thing, until it’s not.
He used to say that too. He was full of all kinds of pearls of wisdom.
I just missed them so much. I had no real family left; a couple of distant relatives I never saw and didn’t know well.
Really, my uncle was it. I knew I needed to hold on to that.
So I’d asked, “Who would I say that I am?”
He blinked at me, eyes scanning my face. “El Marfil.”
The Ivory.
The name stood out to me… Raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
Ivory was someone very important in my father’s life, and I knew Ocho knew that.
It wasintentional…
I wasn’t sold on my uncle’s half-cocked proposal, so I told him I’d think about it, and I went off to school. I was studying psychology at one of the best universities in the country, and actually really enjoying it. I’d always had an interest in human behaviors. What makes people do the things they do…
And it was there that I decided maybe there was some merit to Uncle Ocho’s plan.
I was twenty-one years old the first time I met Arturo Alvarez. Just having finished school the year prior, and looking to break into the business—according to Ocho, who’d made the proper introductions.
Of course, I didn’t meet him right away. I had to rise in the ranks, which I did, rather quickly.
It started as it does, running drugs, robbing and pillaging.Violence. I saw it as an experiment in sociology.
In the beginning, it was hard. But it got easier, and quicker than you’d think. Because I knew there was a purpose to all of this. A goal I was driving toward.
I would play this part for as long as I had to.
When Ocho introduced me to Arturo, he referred to me as El Marfil. That was my name, and from that moment on, no one called me anything else.
I’d officially becomeThe Ivory.
He told them I was a second cousin or something, ensuring that they trusted me, because I wasfamily, but also that they’d have no reason to connect me to my parents.
Still, it was mentioned on occasion. Arturo would say things like,Sebastían was a good man, and,He didn’t deserve what he got.
Quite honestly, it would send me into a fit of rage, but I wouldn’t let them see it. I kept my emotions bottled up tight, and inevitably that was what made me one of Arturo Alvarez’s most trusted, and youngest, hitmen.
For years, I worked for him, studied him and learned from him. He became my mentor, and I think my uncle was beginning to grow jealous of that too.
