Chapter 5
The Market and the Gangster
It was one of her nightmares that woke me up that morning, three years later.
I sat up in bed, my hands curled into fists, as I registered the surroundings.
Home, I was in my apartment, in my bed and I wasn’t alone. Two naked, blonde women slept beside me, their arms snaked around my body.
Blondes, brunettes or redheads, it didn’t matter. It all felt great at night after the fights, after a few drinks in the dimness of the club, but in the daylight things changed.
Something felt off, the sight of them rubbed me the wrong way.
They weren’t what I was looking for. They weren’t Andrea.
Air, I needed some air.
I gently peeled them off, feeling suddenly the need for a glass of water.
Naked, I strode past the living room, past Joe- who was sleeping on my couch with two women beside him- and entered the small dark kitchen.
The water felt so fresh in my mouth, I gulped down two glasses. I'd had one heck of a night.
Three years and still fighting. I hadn’t lost a single match. I was the only fighter in the city to hold the record and rivals from all over the country came looking for me, to challenge me in the ring.
My opponent from the night before had been tough. They called him Scarface, because of a long, ugly scar that cut through his left cheek- from his neck to his left eye. I recognized the hands behind that horrifying piece of ‘art’.
The Mafia.
And it meant one thing and one thing only.
Scarface had been punished for something big, something serious. The scar had been his yellow card. Next time, he wouldn’t have had a scarred cheek to cry on. Next time, they would have taken his life.
Scarface had been hard to beat, one of the few fighters that had put on a real, extenuating fight against me. My reflection on the kitchen cabinet said it all.
I had been hit several times, my face was black and purple. My chest was either tattooed, bruised or scratched- slits of dried, dark-red blood meshed with my abs.
“Motherfucker, you are going down” Scarface had snarled at me, slapping my hand on the ring before the fight, refusing to shake it.
I had stared at him, emotionless as always, not giving away the slightest bit of resentment or anger.
“Your face is going to look pretty once I am done with you” I had told him. “Fresh, new scars” I had said to him at the very end, when I had kicked him down to the floor, his face smeared with blood.
I never did the cocky talk first, I always kept cool until the very end, until I knew I had the other fighter in my hands – doomed.
I opened the freezer and took out some ice. Slowly, I placed it on my cheek and cringed.
It burned my skin.
I was still Sebastian the Killer, nothing had changed. It was the same story every morning after a fight. And it was late. The clock said one pm.
Without making much noise, I showered and dressed, leaving my short black hair a little wet.
I needed to take a walk, I needed food. The house was a mess and I didn’t want to be around when the girls were going to wake up.
Joe would have showed them out, maybe fucked them a little more, if they were still eager and willing. I would be home late anyway. I planned on staying out all day, doing nothing but clear my head and maybe train.
First though, I needed my breakfast.
The sun hit my bruised face and the burning feeling was back.
It was still February, cold and windy, but the sun was out and it had started getting a little warmer.
As usual, I took a seat at the bar, just one block from my house.
Café Luigi.
“Ristretto, no sugar, honey croissant,” the man there knew me too well.
He served me breakfast and handed over my usual newspaper.
I skipped all the national news, I didn’t give a damn. What really interested me, was the local section, what was going on in Rome and who had been caught doing what.
As I drank my coffee outside, I observed the life around me.
Beggars, camping on every angle of the streets. Prostitutes, wiggling their asses in the middle of the day. Dirty men, coming back from constructions sites, trying to earn some money with temp jobs.
The buildings seemed the perfect setting for a Second World War movie. They were battered, old and hideous. The streets smelled of urine and dirt.
A drug dealer walked back and forth, right in front of a bus stop where kids were getting off after school.
Welcome to The Market, the neighbourhood of lost souls, the abandoned part of Rome. The side of the city no tour guide talks about, but always the first to be mentioned in the news line up.
I watched a group of tourists exit the metro station and gape at the surroundings.
That’s right people, I thought. It’s shit. Welcome to hell.
Their puzzled faces made me wonder, what would become of them if they had wandered around The Market for a few hours. The least that could have happened was being robbed.
After a moment of confusion, I saw they went back down the stairs, back into the metro station.
“Wise,” I mumbled and finished off my coffee in silence, observing those that surrounded me. Same people as always, I knew everyone and they knew me.
Rome had been my home for over three years now and even if I had often changed apartments, I had never left the neighbourhood.
The Market was my home, everyone knew me, everyone respected me. I was a quiet one – with the eyes of a demon, I heard someone say about me once.
I was calm and kept to myself, until I was in that ring during fights or until someone crossed me. That’s when I became a whole different person- hard, rough.
The Killer.
I had spotted the black car parked at the curb in front of Café Luigi, a good half an hour before someone dared to step out of it. It didn’t take me long to realize someone had been spying on me. Must have also been because I had the feeling of being followed around all week, but I had known better that to make the first step.
Low profile, low key. I had learned the lesson by heart by now.
I had been living on the streets since I was five.
The lesson had kept me alive and strong thirty years later, so I knew better to confront someone until it was absolutely necessary.
Two well-dressed men, with designer jeans and jackets, clean shaven -and with the stance of those who know they had their back covered- crossed the street and walked towards me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I examined their stride. It was slow, calm, confident, not aggressive or menacing at all, but my hand gently slid under the table ever the same.
I kept it on my hip, where I hid my knife. For a minute, I cursed for not taking Joe’s advice, to always take my gun with me.
I hated guns, the sight of them made me angrier.
Growing up, seeing my friends die in the crossfire in the streets of Naples, I had developed this hatred towards firearms. I thought they were weapons for the cowards, for those too afraid to engage in real combat.
You didn’t need to be strong or smart to fire and win a fight. You just needed a gun and a little training. Physical combat was a whole different story. All the muscles and training in the world didn’t mean shit, if you didn’t use your head.
The two men stopped right in front of my table and I saw a few people sitting around me, dash inside the café.
Better safe, than sorry.
I looked up from my newspaper, pretending to see them for the first time, not giving away a single emotion, my hand steady on the knife.
“You must be The Killer,” one of them said and I cocked my head at him.
“That’s what they call me,” I nodded. “Who wants to know?”
“You need to come with us. Someone wants to speak to you,” the other one said, his voice flat, like he was bored and didn’t want to argue about it.
“Can’t this person sit here with me, at my table?” I asked but they both let out a breath. The tallest one rubbed his chin.
“It can’t be discussed here. For safety reasons. You need to follow us to the car.”
Who’s safety? Not mine.
My eyes went to the black vehicle again. The passenger’s window was slightly open, but I couldn’t see anyone behind it. The glass was tinted.
As I stood and walked towards it- knowing I couldn’t argue about this, without getting into trouble- I examined every little detail of the car and noticed it was bullet proof.
Fuck, I cursed under my breath.
I knew only two kinds of people that had bulletproof cars. People escorted by the police and powerful gangsters.
Just before I stepped inside the car, I felt one of the men grab my shoulders.
As a reflex, I pushed him back but the other one had already placed a gun behind my neck, the barrel pressed against my nape.
“Don’t move, motherfucker. We need to get weapons off you, before you step inside,” and theirs hands were all over me.
They found the knife on my hip, the one on my ankle and then I was pushed inside.
“Buongiorno,” “Good morning,” the husky voice was immediately familiar.
I had never spoken to him before but I knew the man in front of me.
I had heard of him, seen him around, heard about his drug trafficking and prostitution in The Market, but never had I spoken to him directly.
Alejandro De la Crux, the leader of the most powerful clan in The Market – the De la Crux family- was staring at me in his three-thousand-dollar suit.
Dark, Colombian man in his forties, his family had moved to Italy many years ago and they had taken over that part of Rome in just a few years. His father had earned the nickname ‘The Bloody Colombian’. He hadn’t spared men, women, children.
“I am sorry for interrupting your breakfast,” he told me, taking a drag from his cigarette.
I shook my head a little.
“It is not a problem, Mr. De la Crux. But there was no need to take my knives away,” I said to him and watched him nod. “I only use them to defend myself and I don’t think I need them now.”
“No, you don’t,” he admitted and turned to look outside the car window, his long black ponytail fell on his shoulder. “But my men are very cautious these days. You’ll get them back as soon as you get out of the car, I promise you that.”
I nodded and didn’t say another word. I wasn’t there to talk, I knew I was there to listen.
“So, you are Sebastian, The Killer,” he mumbled, squinting a little as he puffed out smoke from his nostrils and lips.
“Yes, that’s what they call me,” I confirmed.
“I have heard a lot about you. And I watched you fight a couple of times. I wanted to meet you in person.”
“I am honoured,” I said to him and watched his lips curl into a smile.
“You are invincible.”
“So far,” I kept my comments to a minimum, not showing any emotions, while deep down I wanted him to get to the point as quickly as possible.
I had kept so low profile over the last few years, that I wasn’t used to being picked out of the crowd. I felt like Alejandro De la Crux was studying me and It could mean no good.
“You know who I am?”
“Yes, sir,” I nodded.
“Very well. Then this makes things easier,” he crossed his legs and leaned back on the seat. “Do you own a gun? I know you can shoot.”
“Yes,” I told him.
“Yet, you don’t take it around with you,” he pointed out and I nodded.
“I don’t need a gun to protect myself. I can use my hands.”
“I know you can,” Alejandro smiled again, playing with the gold chain around his neck.
My eyes went to the pendant: a cross with snakes and roses.
The De la Crux emblem.
“I know how deadly your hands can be. Which is why I wanted to speak to you,” he paused and rubbed his chin.
“I am going to have to make a run. I need to go into hiding for a while. I have people after me, people from another neighbourhood- The Ruins. Do you understand what I am saying?” he said and I simply nodded.
Of course, I knew what he meant. Maybe Mr. De la Crux had killed someone or had had someone ‘taken care of’ from another clan. I knew the Chinese mafia ruled The Ruins.
Or maybe Alejandro had overstepped the border or stolen from their profits in the drug market. It was something big anyway, for someone like Alejandro to make a run.
“I need someone like you, strong that can address one on one combat,” he went on.
“I am a fighter. I fight in a ring. How can I be of any help, sir?” I asked.
“I need a personal bodyguard. Not for me. I am going into hiding. But I have family,” Alejandro squinted again, as he took in another drag and the car filled with burned tobacco. “I need you to protect my family. They won’t come in hiding with me.”
The air got stuck halfway down my throat.
“For reasons I cannot discuss now, I won’t take them into hiding with me. But they need protection.”
“I am not a soldier, Mr. De la Crux,” I started to say but Alejandro cut me off instantly.
“I don’t need another soldier. I have soldiers. They know how to fire. My family already has four with them. I need a bodyguard. Someone that will protect them with his body, with his life. I need a fighter. Someone fearless, someone invincible. Someone deadly like you,” Alejandro said and I noticed his voice had changed.
It wasn’t calm anymore, it was a little nervous, tense.
As I thought of a smart way to pull myself out of this, I watched him open an envelope and take out a shit load of money.
My eyes scanned the notes, roughly three or four thousand euros.
“This is for kindly accepting the deed,” he said, an evil grin stamped on his face. “I know I am asking a lot from you. This means no fights until I am back. This inside here is for the job. Five hundred thousand euros. You’ll get twice as much, when the job is done in a few weeks. I need to find the fucker who wants me dead, get him killed before I can come out of hiding. In the meantime, you’ll keep my family safe. Do we have a deal?” and he handed me the envelope.
I took it, but didn’t say yes. I stared at the money in the envelope, evaluated the options until I caught sight of something in the brown bag.
My hands dug inside, as Alejandro eyed me content.
He thought I was counting the money, he thought I had been offered my price, when really I was looking at something else.
A picture.
I would have recognized those eyes anywhere.
Sad Eyes.
It was Andrea. Andrea and a little boy.
“I need you to protect my son. Protect my woman, while I am gone.”
He went on, as I looked up from the envelope trying to mask my surprise.
His woman.
“I am putting the most precious things I have in your hands, Killer. Nobody is to lay a single finger on them. Do you understand me, Killer?” Alejandro pressed on.
“I understand, Mr. De la Crux,” I nodded.
“Good. Do we have a deal?”
“Deal,” I said holding his stare, but my mind was elsewhere.
Andrea.
I couldn’t believe it was her.
I stretched out my hand to shake his and watched him smirk.
“Very well, Killer. Suspend your fighting from today. I need you on this starting now and for the next couple of weeks. They go out, you go out. I want you to be their shadow” and I was handed a mobile phone. Further instructions would follow, Alejandro reassured me. “I will be in contact”
I watched him drive away, as I quickly readjusted the knives on my body.
Andrea, I thought, holding on tight to the envelope, while I walked home fast.
Andrea was Alejandro’s wife.
I had slept with Alejandro’s wife.
Chapter 6
The gangster’s wife
“You can’t do this to me” Joe said the minute I set foot in the house.
The women were gone but he was still walking around, half naked in my apartment.
They had been eager for a second round in the morning, he said. I didn’t know if it was true, Joe was a professional liar but he was loyal to me. Or maybe he hung out with me for the women, the money. I couldn’t blame him for taking advantage. Everyone took advantage of someone in The Market, especially if you weren’t strong enough to survive on your own. And that was just Joe’s case.
“I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks. I’m going back to Naples,” I lied to him, while I put some stuff in a bag.
“What about the fights, man? You can’t just leave like this” he whined, following me around the small one-bedroom apartment.
“Reschedule them. I am off for two weeks. I need to go home,” I had to lie again.
Nobody had to know where I was going, who I was working for. Nobody had to know about Mr. De la Crux and my task. And Joe couldn’t be trusted with such a secret.
While I showered I could still hear Joe grunting and talking on the phone. He was cancelling my fights, as I had asked.
The hot water hit my shoulders and I winced. I had a couple of bruises on my back and the pain hit me again the minute I stepped into the shower.
It didn’t matter. I had no time to deal with the bruises. No time to waste. I gulped down two painkillers and slipped on a clean pair of jeans and a shirt, my head elsewhere, my mind already miles away with Andrea.
She had a house in one of the poshest neighborhood of the city.
I had hardly ever set foot in the Hillside- too clean, too middle class for a rotten, society dirt bag like me.
As I drove through the streets and the scenery began to change all around me, I started to think of how it would be to see her again, what she would say once she saw me.
It had been a while now, but I hadn’t changed. She hadn’t changed. Her delicate face still looked innocent and pure. Her cold blue eyes were still sad. Nothing had changed.
Except now she had a son. Her husband had a name. And it was Alejandro De la Crux.
I stopped the car right in front of a white, new two-storey house. All around it, was a little garden.
There were so many other houses there but I could tell that was the right one. There was a car parked in front of it and two men outside her door.
Alejandro’s soldiers.
The men eyed me suspiciously, but I walked towards them, hands up behind my head defensively, until I was close enough for them to hear.
They had been informed I was coming, they knew who I was and what I looked like. The men only asked If I had my gun with me.
“Yes,” I told them.
I had brought the gun, the knives. Everything to protect Andrea.
With my heart in my throat, I knocked on the door and waited for someone to open.
It was only a matter of seconds, before this slender, fair skinned, beautiful woman opened the door.
Andrea blinked at me, speechless, just a small whisper escaped her lips.
Yes, It’s me.
“What…?” she murmured stunned but I spoke up before she could say anything we could regret. Too many people around, listening.
“My name is Sebastian. Your husband sent me. Can I come in?” I spoke slowly, my voice calm.
I tried to look cold, detached but inside I was screaming. My hands were aching to reach up to her face.
Those lips, that mouth, I thought recalling her moans, how her hands had clawed behind my back.
“Sebastian…” Andrea said my name and her raspy, sexy voice made my stomach twist.
I thought I would go crazy, seeing her lips tremble like that.
She was staring at me like she had seen a ghost, a ghost of her past.
“My husband? Why did he send you?” she asked, her face hardened.
“We can talk inside,” I insisted and finally Andrea moved to the side, letting me through.
The house was immense. Well, not immense but four times bigger than anything I had ever lived in.
I noticed how refined and elegant it was- cream coloured walls, high class furniture and it smelled like fresh, clean laundry throughout.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded to know.
I took a good look at her and my scrutinizing eyes must have made her feel uncomfortable, because Andrea crossed her arms over her white shirt and looked away.
“Your husband Alejandro De la Crux sent me.”
“Alejandro De la Crux is not my husband,” she spat out, her cold eyes digging into mine. “Not anymore.”
Not anymore, the words echoed in my head, but I went on.
“He sent me over to protect you and your son.”
“I told him I don’t need more guards. This is my house. I don’t want his protection. I want him to leave me alone,” Andrea raised her voice and I watched her move around the living room, her body tense, her face worried.
“You need protection.”
“I can’t believe you are one of his soldiers” she shook her head, disappointed.
Andrea bit her lip and held back a tear. She might have been able to stop it from rolling down her icy blue eyes, but I saw it. It was there. I remembered her tears. Every single one of them.
“I am not his soldier. I don’t work for anyone, I don’t work for the mob,” I said.
I wanted her to know this. I had never worked for an organization, for a gangster.
In any other circumstance, I would have never have said yes to De la Crux. But I had to say yes, because It was for her.
I wanted to see her again and I wanted her to be safe.
It was all for her.
“They want him dead and you are his family. You are in danger, too,” I tried to explain, but Andrea shook her head.
“We are not his family,” Andrea said and looked away, her voice full of resentment. “I want nothing from him. Eddy and I are doing fine on our own. I don’t want those men outside and I don’t want you here.”
“They want to kill him,” I pressed on. “And they’ll try to kill you, too.”
Andrea went silent for a moment. She sank on the couch, her hands over her eyes a second later.
“I want Alejandro to leave us alone. I want nothing to do with him,” she mumbled, still holding her face.
“You know that’s not possible,” I told her, as her head snapped back up and she looked at me.
I could tell she was going to say something, but a little boy entered the room, running towards his mother.
“Mommy, mommy,” he giggled and jumped on the couch. He leaped in his mother’s lap and wrapped his tiny arms around her neck.
Mommy – my chest went heavy, as I noticed Andrea’s eyes softened, her mouth opened slightly in a half smile.
Just seeing her son, had changed her completely. She seemed less tense, warmer, sweeter but I knew deep down she was hiding the tension, the fear. She was trying to protect her son from everything that was happening around her.
Eddy, his name was Eddy and he had the most innocent, big, blue eyes I had ever seen. His bright, pure stare would dig right through you, making you question everything, even your own intentions.
I don’t think I have ever had those eyes- so innocent and joyful.
I must have had, before I realized the horrible things that life had set out for me. I just couldn’t remember having that stare, I couldn’t remember looking at life the way Eddy was looking at me then.
He wasn’t afraid, he was happy and not at all doubtful. He didn’t know what pain was like, what suffering meant, how it could change you.
I watched Andrea hold him tight and realized she must have done everything in her power to protect him from the rotten surrounding world.
From Alejandro’s business.
“What’s your name?” he asked me, tilting his head to the side.
“I’m Sebastian,” I replied, never looking away.
“Are you mommy’s friend?” Eddy asked, with the same joyful tone he had addressed his mother moments before.
Andrea and I exchanged a look.
Lovers. We were lovers, for one night- I thought but just nodded.
Andrea
“Stay the night,” he had said to me. “Stay. I want you all night”
“You know I can’t,” I had moaned, my lips trembling as he slid into me again from behind, holding me tight against his body. His body rocked into me, faster and I moaned again.
“Come back to me then,” he had insisted, pressing his lips against my shoulder, as our bodies swayed against one another.
“Forget about me, you have to forget about me.”
I remember everything, everything we had done that night. Every, single thing.
How he kissed me, slowly, every inch of my skin. How he pulled at my hair a little, while his thumb rubbed my chin, only to move all the way down to my neck. He loved my long neck, he had said to me and then he had planted a kiss there, right where my chest began. I had panted, my stomach burning with desire.
I remember the feeling of his big, rough hands all over me and how surprised I was, when I realized how gentle they actually were with my body.
We were hot, sweaty, tangled in one another, our breathing the only sound in the room for a while. I can’t forget how the fire spread across my chest, when he touched me. I can’t forget how his lips felt on mine.
“Who are those men after you?” Sebastian had asked but I hadn’t told him.
I hadn’t told him anything about me. Not one thing. Not my whole name, not where I was from, who I was with. Nothing, apart from what I really was.
A prisoner.
“I’m not allowed to think, I am not allowed to talk, I am not allowed to breathe without permission. I am just a beautiful object to look at and use from time to time” I had confessed.
In silence, I had stared into his dark brown eyes, as the cruel truth sank into him.
“You are beautiful, that you are,” his grip around me had tightened. “But not like something to worship, something to keep locked up somewhere. I can see it in your eyes, what you want, what you need. You want to live, you want to feel. You want to be loved, fucked, possessed. You want to live. You are wild. I can see it in your eyes”
I had wanted to tell him he was right. I was wild. I wanted to live but I just didn’t know how to anymore.
When someone threatens not just your life, your everything, how can you fight to take back what’s yours? There are worse things than death. I was sure Sebastian knew that already, but somehow, I didn’t have the courage to tell him everything. To tell him my story.
“I’ll protect you,” Sebastian had murmured then, causing me to sit up straight.
That had been my wakeup call. I was back to reality, back into my living hell. It was time to go back to my cage.
“You can’t. And I don’t want you to,” I had kept my eyes down, my hands busy tying up my ankle boots. “It’s time for me to go”
“Eddy, would you like something to eat?” I asked my boy, with the sweetest voice I could manage.
He nodded and his soft, little, brown curls bounced up and down, over his face.
“Why don’t you go up to your room. I’ll be there in a minute with a sandwich,” I smiled a little and patted his back.
Eddy skipped away, small toy in hand, and waved to Sebastian, before heading up the stairs. My stomach tied in a knot.
I can’t believe he is here- my throat felt suddenly dry, I blinked a few times and stared at him in silence, like it couldn’t be true. Whatever tricks this life was throwing at me, this was the least expected. The cruellest.
So many times, I had thought of him. Of us together.
Countless times- I studied him warily, at a distance, like I was scared to be anywhere near him.
It would have hurt, I knew it would. I couldn’t let the memory of that night walk back into my life, into my present. It had been just a one-night thing. I had gone back to my life after that. And so had he.
Why is he here?
I took in a deep breath and found the courage to walk towards Sebastian, my cold, blue eyes were back on him again, full on. No smile.
If you were mine, I would make sure you’d smile every day. I’d never let you walk away from me without a smile, the words he had said to me years back came to mind as I stopped in front of him and raised my hand.
“I want you to leave. Now. You can tell Alejandro we are fine. We don’t need him,” and I pointed to the door, furious all of a sudden. “I am not going back to this shit. I am not going to make my son live like this. I’ve taken him away from Alejandro’s house, from his lair. I don’t want to get involved in his business.”
“You are involved. You are his wife” Sebastian’s words dug a hole in my chest.
“I am his ex-wife.”
“You fucking married him” he snapped and I watched him curse under his breath, as I raised my hand again, this time aiming at his face or at his shoulder. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.
I wanted to push him away, kick him out. I wanted to tell him to leave.
I was so angry for some reason, I felt the rage tear me up inside.
Deep down I knew I was really angry at myself, for all the mistakes I had made in my life, but that day Sebastian’s presence was taking me back to the same place, I had so desperately tried to move forward from.
He’s really here- I thought.
My moment of freedom, my one night of hope- the man that had changed the entire course of my life- was right there, staring at me again and he hadn’t changed one bit.
Same bruised face, same piercing dark eyes.
His broad shoulders, his deep voice calling my name.
“Andrea!”
Sebastian was quicker than me. He grabbed my wrist and took in my worried, troubled eyes.
The way his face softened, I knew the last thing he wanted was to give me something else to worry about, something else to be sad about, but he was there for a reason and he wanted me to listen.
Gently, he guided my arm down without letting go and I enjoyed the roughness of his skin against mine.
“Listen to me, Andrea. Listen to me very carefully,” and I did. I swallowed down everything I wanted to say, suppressing my anger, my rage.
“They want to kill Alejandro. They’ll look for him first, then they’ll come for you,” he paused seeing I was shaking my head. “Look at me, Andrea” his voice came out hard, a little harsh, it made me jump. I looked at him, eyes wide. “These people could do anything to you, to Eddy to have their way and get to Alejandro. You are his blood. They want his blood. Where do you think they’ll start looking, once they have realized he is nowhere to be found? You should have left with him.”
“I am not going into hiding. I have done nothing wrong. And I am not letting Eddy live in a prison,” I told him and jerked my wrist back. I stormed out of the room, panting, his words a thousand shards to my chest.
Eddy’s life was in danger, the hell with mine, his life was all that mattered to me. I wanted nothing, but for Eddy to be safe.
I should be the one paying for the bad decisions I have made, not Eddy -I felt a tear run down my cheek, but I wiped it off immediately.
Sobbing in silence, I set everything in the kitchen to make my little boy his snack, thinking I had to calm down, I had to take control of my emotions again. He couldn’t see me like this. Eddy didn’t deserve this, any of this.
I had been the stupid one, to run off with Alejandro.
I had married him. I had been naïve enough not to see what he was like, what he had his hands deep into. And I had been punishing myself ever since, every single moment of my life.
It wasn’t fair, but I could handle it. Until it was just me, I could live the miserable life Alejandro had set out for me- I was his prisoner, his personal sex toy, his pretty doll to show off at dinners and meetings.
I had convinced myself my life was over, survival was all that was left for me. But then I had found out about Eddy.
He was hiding in my womb, I hadn’t even realized, for how spaced out and empty I felt.
Suddenly, everything was different, everything had a meaning, a purpose.
That line on the pregnancy test had changed everything, it had woken me up from my meaningless existence. I had to do it for him, for my little baby.
Maybe I deserved to pay for my mistakes, but Eddy deserved to be happy.