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By Aurora Pereira
Lisbon is still beautiful, full of charms, it is good to review my land, I left Algarve very young, after the incident with my uncle,my family and I have settled here. Before I turned nineteen, I demonstrated to my family that I wanted to follow the religious life, after the trauma that I suffered, which brought on me an intense depression, and only the faith could bring me the peace that I needed. I tried suicide twice, and before I really got my life over, I asked my family for help and I told them that I could not handle that mark, that sadness in me. My parents supported me until I go to live in Rome with Aunt Paulina, my father's sister. She took me to the convent and talked to Mother Filipa, asking her to accept me as a novice. Five years as a nun, dedicating my life to faith. Am I ready to live this love story with Ken? No, certainly not.However, the remote idea of living away from his love that chills me, fills me with life and hope of a new future, that is too unbearable for me. Today, after walking through the historical center of Lisbon, we went to my parents' house. After the initial introductions, in which my father inquired Ken in every way, my little family, made up of my parents and an older sister, laid down their arms and welcomed him with affection, as if he were an old member of the family, things of Portuguese hospitality...
My parents live in an old colonial house, we sit on a porch bench that faces the rose garden and Ken broke the silence, holding my hand, without looking at me:
"You couldn’t have given me more proof of love than to come with me, so it's fair that I be honest with you and reveal the truth about my life. I don’t know why I entered the crime world, there was an uncle of mine who was from the Japanese mafia, but the truth is that I’ve never had any influence to choose this wrong way. Today I want to live lawfully, I haveenough money saved to live comfortably, without ever having to go back to the wrong way. I stole things from art, collectors, famous museums, art galleries and resellers on the black market. I enriched them, Aurora, those men who stabbed me and thought I had died were the thugs of LuiggiFiorentino, an art collector whose I stole two very expensive masterpieces, I didn’t know, but he's involved with the Italian mafia, he's a dangerous guy. We couldn’t continue living in Rome with that man on my trail. I want to become a better man, if you help me, I think we can be happy, Aurora.”
This night when Ken stripped his life of lies and surrendered to me, we made love for the first time... And for the first time, as we joined our bodies and our souls, I felt like a woman.
The next morning, we said goodbye to my family and took an express train to Brussels.