C1 Joana

I woke up with Britney Spears singing on my cell phone speaker.

Due to the erotic dream I was having, I could even imagine that the music was part of the striptease I watched. However, as I had programmed for my cell phone to always turn up the volume every second it took me to turn off the alarm, that striptease show started to hurt my head and I was forced to open my eyes.

Overall, I was always a haughty spirit who thought that sleeping was always a waste of time, and with that I mean that I always woke up well before any animal, and always slept well before what people my age would consider a good tone.

Born in a family with five daughters, I was the one they all called an elder, even though I wasn't the oldest. My night habits were unique, because I slept too early, but not enough to be fully rested, so I spent half the day complaining about sleep or stressed with someone.

Of course, the only person who could be blamed for all the stress the next day was myself, because insomnia was part of all my days, and when I finally fell asleep, it was time to get up. Like that day.

The night before, I had given in to my sisters' requests to go to a very trendy nightclub in the city "even if our mother's recommendations were that we not expose ourselves so much, considering our enemies always ready to harm us", and had drunk beyond the bill.

The fact is that not even our security guards kept their composure during the night. Only our driver remained sober, because someone had to drive the limousine and avoid fines or accidents. However, when we got home, we still had to endure all the sermon of our mother and matriarch.

"It's an unparalleled irresponsibility," she said, almost releasing smoke through the sales of so much anger. Our mother was a woman known for her kindness and patience, for her to be in that state, it could only mean one thing: "Are you aware of how much the media is thirsty for any slip in your image? Why do you insist on acting like children, since they were raised in this world, and do you know how it works?”

And when she referred to "this world", she wanted to say about the fact that we always belonged to high society and surrounded by journalists who looked more like flyflies who waited for failure to be able to diminish us. Our mother always tried to give us an education that went beyond the basics of other parents. From a very young age she taught that each of us should be aware of our actions and choices.

However, my sisters were always able to take me to the wrong path. Worst of all, our mother swore that Jackie, the younger sister, was always the victim of the situation. She barely knew that Jackie was always conniving and even suggested the escape plans. But the one who took the blame was always Jessy, for being our older sister.

"Mom, we just wanted to go out a little," Jessy grumbled, pouting. She was still drunk, and so was I, because I started laughing for no reason. Jessy hissed asking for silence. "The last time we asked to leave, you allowed without making scandals.”

"Yes, but the last time you left, none of you came home in this state of calamity," said our mother, crossing her arms. She observed the condition of one of our twin sisters, Janine, who was about to fall from her chair. "And I want to know why after a single request to go out, did you think you could really attend all kinds of nightclubs throughout the week?”

"Mom, we are young," Jessy insisted.

"Yes, I'm not preventing them from living their youth," said our mother. "I'm just trying to make you all aware that your actions will have consequences. You know that the media hando us, that there is much more than just photographers wanting a slip to expose in the tabloids. We are celebrities, girls! You can't act like that.”

All the sisters kept quiet. Jessy was our spokeswoman. Since she always took the blame, she ended up trying to defend herself and defend us in the process. I just tried to keep my stomach in place for as long as possible.

The whole world was spinning, and my head was already hurting. I hated having a hangover. Lately, they were frequent. Because, when insomnia reached me, I drank a few glasses of wine and lay down waiting for a miracle.

I didn't know if all my sisters had the same sleep problem. I had a slight suspicion that each of us was trying to relieve ourselves of the problems in some way. But no one had more reason to drink and sleep badly than our mother. However, she still remained integral and firm.

"Mom" I began to say, clearing my throat a little to try to clear my mind. "We will learn from our mistakes. It’s not cool that we’re going to nightclubs during the week, since we all work very early. However, we could not avoid the curiosity of knowing the world out there, without travel and glamour. We just want a few normal moments, you know?”

What I didn't understand is how I was so convinced to speak, even drunk. It was a gift of law, I thought. Even my mother was silent, looking for loopholes to be able to continue with her sermon.

A month ago, when in a meeting between sisters we decided that we would go to a nightclub, our mother made no objection. In fact, she had said that we didn't even need to ask for that. But everything was before an almost kidnapping that had occurred with Jessy.

Well before we had evidence that a new crime was rising within our family. Before my mother was tormented by the fear of losing another member of that family.

That wasn't a subject we talked about out loud. Not the reasons for our mother to keep us in a bubble surrounded by security guards. That's why she gave up, saying that she would leave the subject for the next day. That was a victory.

At least that night we could still sleep without pain in our ears from listening so much to our mother’s complaints. As we dragged ourselves to our rooms, there was only the notion that the next day would suck.

Between drinks and noisy songs, our night ended far beyond the time I used to start a work routine in the early hours of dawn. However, I only realized that fact when my head hummed with the many doses of tequila taken, and when my feet could no longer support each other inside the heels.

And when I got to my bed, I collapsed right into Chris Hemsworth's arms, in a wonderful dream in which he showed me the power of his magic hammer, dressed as Thor.

In that erotic and incredible dream, Thor scolded me for drinking beyond the account, and said that that headache of mine was all because of my fragile human blood. Nothing made any sense in that dream, but just seeing Chris Hemsworth in those tight clothes of the Nordic God, I was already more than happy.

So waking up that morning was particularly difficult, but with the fifth ringing of the alarm clock, I had already pushed my legs out of the sheets and sat down. I stretched out, feeling my muscles still sore from dancing, and my head still spinning from alcohol.

It was not cool for a respectful lawyer to get carried away by a night out in the middle of the week. My luck was that my co-workers and parliament never attended those places to even imagine that I could be there.

Not that I had to give satisfactions of anything in my personal life to my co-workers. Everyone knew the Jones sisters. Everyone knew that we did our best and made the best profits in our own way.

I was the second of the older sisters in a family of powerful women. Before me, with two years of advantage, there was Jessy Jones; our enviable businesswoman. I was the lawyer, the one who was always with a briefcase under her arm and an arrogant smile to solve my sisters' shit.

We all follow, in our own way, some of the branches of the genealogical tree of our successful family. We had cousins who lived in foreign countries; those who fled Brazil in the first opportunity for growth; whose professions they chose that served as the foundation for the empire that the Jones family created. In general, formed by lawyers, entrepreneurs, digital influencers, bloggers, press officers, and journalists.

Our whole family was involved in our career. It was a base of which few could say they had the same. Much was speculated on the internet about our power and what we would have done to acquire it. Public opinion was from witchcraft to the sale of organs; because they swore that it would be impossible for an entire family to be so lucky in success like this.

But the truth is that it wasn't luck. We were never lucky. The Jones family was marked by trauma. My father had passed away twelve years ago. He was not only killed, but also tortured, threatened, and his body was so deprecated that anyone could say that he had been held captive for days, but it was not true. They needed only a few hours to commit this dark crime. My father suffered from the beginning to the end of his life.

Our father was a fair, good, sincere man. He never hurt anyone. My father started a career in criminalistics, defending poor innocents who could not afford a good lawyer. He made a name, and became a target for enemies that we never discovered the names.

That day, I would start my name. A new era. I didn't know it yet, of course. My daily routine was very simple. Go to the office, issue some powers of attorney, get in touch with my colleagues in parliament, find out how many processes I had already filed, and probably celebrate the success of another winning cause.

However, on that day, I would have to visit a total stranger and make sure he was released from jail. I had no evidence of any innocence, I did not even know the appearance of the individual "to have any expectation that his complicity guaranteed him a vulnerability before the court of justice ", but I had accepted the task for a request made by my sister.