Chapter 31
The air froze in my lungs.
A strong wave of panic traveled through my body, slammed into my brain with the force of a tsunami, twisted my nerves, and dug deep into my heart. I went still. I was trapped in my shock, captive to terror as I moved my disbelieving gaze between Norah and Heithor.
My heart picking up speed…
Glasslike eyes, cold with a demented chill and holding a contained fury, caught me and froze me to the marrow, as if my blood had been drained in those few seconds we stared at each other.
“Wait for me here.” I heard the thunder of his authoritarian voice wrap around me, cold, hard, and distant, as if he had shouted, although his tone was frighteningly low.
Still trapped in that fog, I watched the man I had, until that moment, believed loved me say something to that woman, and then they left.
Stunned, I watched them walk toward the office.
As if someone had pressed “start” somewhere inside my head, my breathing grew heavy as I fixed on that wretch’s face.
A new wave hit me. A mixture of panic and latent rage growing fiercely inside me.
But before I could shape the words on my tongue, she left the mansion.
However, the stench of her filthy presence remained impregnated in that room… in us.
Heithor turned to me, distant in so many ways.
From several feet away, he pulled the floor out from under me.
“H-How… How could you?” I verbalized my horror, incredulous that he would allow that wretch to set foot here. “How could you bring her into the house… under the same roof as our son when you know what she did?”
Heithor narrowed his eyes, his face colder and more hostile. Repelling me. That branded me with fire and iron.
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
“I’m his mother, Heithor. I would never hurt him!”
“I wonder how you can be so fake, shameless, and false. Can you answer that?”
“I didn’t do it.” My head swung from side to side, frantic and distressed, as tears fell. “I didn’t do any of what they made you believe. She lied, Heithor. I swear on my life. She lied. I don’t know how she did it, but it was her.”
He crossed his arms over his chest in an offensive posture.
“Your life? Since when do you value your life, Antonella? Do you expect me to believe you after confirming she wasn’t even in the city? Did Pietra tell you even Josie confirmed they were all together on a couples’ trip?”
I stood. “She found a way, Heithor! Norah is a snake. She always has been… She found a way to be here that day. I’m not lying. I swear to God! I would never cause an accident to hurt our baby. I love him.”
“Says the girl who already tried to kill him before he even had a chance to develop, and if I hadn’t shown up at that damn clinic, there would be no baby today?”
If his intention was to drive a dagger through my heart and twist it in the process, he had gone beyond his aim. Everything in me hurt. I shrank back.
“How can you say that, like that, in such a cold and cruel way after everything we lived through? After I showed you countless times how sorry I was? That I love our baby? That I love you? How can you even think I faked all that time we were together?”
“That’s what I ask myself every day after finding out you’re still the same selfish, slutty little shit I unfortunately fell in love with when I stepped into this fucking place.
” If he had slapped me, it wouldn’t have hurt as much.
“I’m not an easy man to deceive… very few have managed that feat even once.
So few I could count them on one hand and still have fingers left over, and none of them were unprepared men.
But you, a shallow, spoiled girl, did it not once, but twice.
So I should congratulate you for that, shouldn’t I? ”
“I never deceived you, no matter how awful my actions were. Norah deceived you hundreds of times, and you, like a perfect idiot, are falling for it again.”
He let his hands fall, fists closed at his sides. Very aggressive, dark. The ice in his gaze fed my despair into a deep anguish.
“You’re right about one thing. I am, or rather, I was, a perfect idiot for believing you had changed and become someone decent, that you loved me when you were only pretending.”
“I never acted! Shit. I loved you… A-And I still do, even after you made me go through hell alone in that hospital.” I sobbed and added slowly, in a low voice, “Did you remember me at Christmas? On New Year’s, Heithor?
Did it bother you to know I was there, discarded, suffering alone?
… What am I saying? Why would you worry about me when you had already sentenced me without the right to a defense, right? ”
Heithor laughed, low and brief. The sound was pure scorn while I sniffled, unable to accept that this could really be happening.
“Of course you loved me. The thing is, your love for me is poor, cowardly, measured, and petty. I don’t want it.
I’m not that fool anymore, the one who settled for your crumbs…
And as for Norah, I advise you to go treat that hatred you cultivate for her.
Look where it brought you. In fact, I keep wondering if it was only because of that hatred that you caused the fall, or if you used it to try to kill two birds with one stone.
Can you answer that? Was it only to blame her in an unscrupulous attempt to prove your hatred had a foundation?
Or was it the means you used to attempt against Lucca’s life because you couldn’t accept him the way you appeared to have? ”
This isn’t happening, I thought, terrified.
“It doesn’t matter. It amounts to the same thing. You never wanted the baby. You resigned yourself, and like an idiot, I believed the lies you told. Spare me your performance, Antonella.”
God, it was worse than I imagined…
“You can’t take our son from me.”
“No? This mansion, as far as I know, is mine. The son is mine. That’s what we settled in the agreement you signed.
You played your part as we had agreed, and you will be very well compensated for it.
And stop playing the victim. Seeing so much shamelessness only makes me more furious.
I’m already too pissed off to put up with your nerve. ”
“You can’t do this. I have rights too,” I shouted, my voice rising higher. “He’s my son, damn it! I’m his mother!”
“You can’t, you can’t… Who told you I can’t?
Do you know what your problem is, Antonella?
You’ve always thought you were too clever and underestimated me in the same measure.
Don’t try to do that again. Don’t provoke me.
Do even the slightest thing, and I’ll show you in rich detail what I can and can’t do…
I could kill you… I want to kill you, you daughter of a bitch, for being such a coward with me, but mainly for being one with my son, with an innocent child who never hurt you at all! ”
He paused, planting his hands on his hips, shoulders aligned and rigid, and seemed to take a deep breath while I stared at all of that, imagining I was in a horror movie that would end at any moment.
“You want to talk about rights? I’ll tell you your rights: stay the hell away from my son. You’re still alive, but lay one finger on him and, by God, Antonella, there won’t even be dust left of you to tell the story.”
Who was that man?
This wasn’t my Heithor.
It was a furious, cold stranger who didn’t give a damn about me.
I drew in a deep breath and clung to the frayed thread of lucidity I still had left.
“No judge would deny a mother’s rights, Heithor. You know that, so stop being cruel to me,” I pleaded. “You’re being unfair. God, you’re being fucking unfair.”
“What rights? You lost all of them when you signed that document giving me every right in front of the notary and witnesses, have you forgotten? And you only reaffirmed it when you caused the fall. So tell me, Antonella… Who in their right mind in this world would give you any rights with the dirty record you have? With your lack of what’s essential?
The bare minimum?” He mocked me, and humiliation swept through me.
“You have no house. No money. No one. And that’s without counting the filthy stain on your life in so few years of living.
Wake up, girl! No judge, no matter how corrupt, would give you any rights, and I wouldn’t allow it either. ”
I wanted to cling to hatred, to rage, which I knew was somewhere inside me, and use it to scream at him, to think coherently, to do anything other than cry even more like a pathetic fool.
But the shock was still too great, masking the other feelings, though the pain and humiliation were felt in every inch of my body.
“All right, all right…” I looked at him. He stared back, impassive, when he broke my heart into more pieces. “I won’t put you out on the street. I promised Mother I wouldn’t do that, and although you don’t deserve my mercy, I won’t throw you onto the street.”
“Throw me onto the street?” I repeated, stunned, wiping my wet eyes.
“What do you think I am, to be thrown onto the street? An object? A thing? What? Heithor, I didn’t need you in that damn hospital.
Actually, there I needed the illusion of a man who swore he loved me, and still I survived and I’m standing here.
That has nothing to do with your pity or your fucking mercy, if you even have any idea what that is. ”
“You’re the one who should have thought before going back to behaving like a bitch. So I suggest you make this easier for everyone. Stay away from Lucca.”
“N-No… I won’t accept this.”
“It isn’t a question or a suggestion. It’s an order. If you want to stay here, follow it carefully.”
I stared at him, my red eyes expressing everything I felt, but all I received in return was a cruel look before he left the room without looking back.
“Don’t listen to what Thor says. He’s out of his mind…” Pietra said as I handed her the empty glass. “…He isn’t thinking.”