18. Chapter 16
X iomara
The eggs on my plate are already cold.
I push them around with my fork, pretending I might eat them, but my appetite gave up about five minutes ago — right around the time I realized Zasha isn’t coming downstairs. Again.
It’s been three weeks since that night.
Three weeks since he touched me like I was more than an obligation. Since he held me like he’d never let go. Since he whispered words into my skin that I was stupid enough to believe might mean something.
Now, it’s like it never happened.
He’s gone most mornings before I’m even out of bed. I hear the door click shut while the sun is still trying to crawl over the skyline.
And in the evenings, he doesn’t come to the kitchen anymore. Doesn’t sit across from me while I cook. Doesn’t tease me when I add too much garlic or hum off-key while stirring a pot.
No more quiet dinners. No more almost-smiles.
Whenever we pass each other in the hallway now, we exchange a nod. A single, silent nod. Sometimes not even that. Just a glance, then he looks away. I’m tired of living like this, but don’t know how to fix it.
I’m uncertain if I should make the effort.
The reality is that I don't want to initiate the conversation. If I do, it will feel like I’m pleading for his attention—like I’m still lying in that bed, naked and optimistic, hoping he might return to me.
I refuse to become that girl. I won’t appear desperate.
Therefore, I continue to pretend that everything is okay.
I eat in silence, alone, scraping my fork across ceramic just to fill the quiet. I clean up like it matters. Wipe the spotless counter. Rinse an unused second plate that he never touched.
And the worst part?
I miss him.
I miss the man who lingered in the doorway, watching me dance in the kitchen. The one who said almost nothing, but looked at me as if I were undoing him.
I miss the man who touched me like he needed me. But maybe that’s all it was — need. A need that has been satisfied. It hurts to know I was nothing more than a release outlet. Something he regrets so much he can’t even bear to sit next to me anymore.
I rinse the fork. Dry it slowly. Set it in the drawer like I haven’t done this exact motion a hundred times before. Then I rest both palms on the sink’s edge and close my eyes, breathing in deeply.
I shouldn’t care this much. But I do. And it’s getting harder to pretend otherwise.
The sound of my phone ringing shatters my thoughts, and I pick up the device.
“Hello Mum,”
There is a long pause on the other end.
“Mum?” I say cautiously, already frowning. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Luisa.” She finally says.
I straighten, heart thudding. “Is she okay? What happened?”
There’s another pause.
Then: “She passed early this morning.”
I go still.
“She… what?” My voice doesn’t sound like mine.
“She went in her sleep, Mara. Peacefully.” Mama’s voice cracks, and I can hear her trying to pull herself together for me. “They think it was her heart. She’d been doing better, but last night she got worse. It happened quickly and she didn’t suffer.”
I sink into a chair by the kitchen island, the phone trembling against my cheek.
“No,” I whisper. “No, she was getting better. She said the fever was down, and when I visited her last week, she was walking again. She was supposed to be okay.”
“We all thought that, mija. But her body was tired. She didn’t tell you how much pain she was in, but I think… I think she knew.”
I press a hand to my mouth, trying to hold it in, but the sob rises anyway.
“I was going to visit her tomorrow.”
“I know,” My mom whispers. “I know, sweetheart.”
“I am on my way.”
“No, please do not drive yourself. I’ll ask the driver to bring you home,” she says gently. “Or I can come get you.”
“No, Mom. I will come down myself.”
“Of course.”
She doesn’t say goodbye; she simply hangs up quietly, as if saying the word "bye" would somehow make me feel worse.
I don’t move for a long time. The house suddenly feels hollow as my mind races back to my childhood, back to Luisa.
The woman who practically raised me while my parents ruled empires.
The woman who wiped my tears with the same hands that smacked a gun out of my teenage hands when I tried to follow my Cristóbal into trouble.
She called me mi amorcito every morning and made her arroz con leche with extra cinnamon just because she knew I liked it that way.
I knew she was sick.
I have been visiting her once a week, and I have always sent her flowers. I called her daily, and her response was always the same. “Tired, but better.” She said that the antibiotics were helping. That she’d be back on her feet soon, and I believed her.
My fingers fumble for my phone. I don’t even think about what I’m doing until I hear the sound of the line connecting and then Zasha’s voice.
“Yeah?”
“I won’t be here when you get back.” My voice is flat, distant, like I’ve left it somewhere else entirely.
“What do you mean?” He sounds a bit alarmed.
I press my free hand to my forehead. “Luisa, my nanny, whom I told you was sick, is gone.” My voice catches. “And I have to go right away.”
“Wait for me. I’m coming home now.” He says without another thought.
Twenty minutes later, I hear the front door open. Zasha walks in without a word, his steps slow, careful. He finds me with my arms wrapped tightly around myself.
He crouches in front of me, his hand reaching out, pausing just before it touches mine.
“She raised me alongside my mother,” I say before he can ask. “She was more like a second mother than a nanny. The only person who ever looked me in the eyes and saw me. Not a Delgado Mafia princess, but me. XioMara.”
Zasha’s eyes soften. His fingers curl around mine. “I’ll take you,” he says quietly. “Just tell me whatever you need me to do to ease your pain.”
And somehow, that’s the only thing I needed to hear.
It’s been three days since Luisa’s death.
Three slow, heavy days, and I’ve gone through them like a ghost. Eating only when someone reminds me, dressing without thought, answering only when spoken to.
But Zasha… he hasn’t left my side.
Not once.
I’ve told him every day that he doesn’t have to stay. That I’ll be okay. That he should go back to work, check in with Viktor, and do something other than sit in the same room with me while I stare at the wall.
But every time he looks at me with that steady calmness and says, “I’m right where I need to be.”
And somehow, I believe him.
The day before the funeral, Viktor, Scarlett, Lev, and Alina come to visit. They arrive mid-afternoon without prior notice. They walk through the front door like this is their home, too.
Zasha must’ve told them about my loss.
Viktor is dressed in dark gray, his expression as composed as ever, but his eyes soften when he sees me. Scarlett walks beside him, a small bouquet in her hands. Lev gives me a slight nod, and Alina reaches out gently, her hand brushing against my arm.
“Sorry for intruding,” Alina says in a soft and sympathetic voice. “We just came to say we’re sorry. Zasha told us what happened.”
Viktor looks at Zasha like he’s telling him ‘you did the right thing staying by your wife,’ then turns his gaze back to me. “You’re family now,” he adds. “Which means your loss is our loss too.”
Scarlett steps forward, placing the flowers on the console table before she pulls me into a soft, sincere hug.
Alina joins her, offering the kind of warmth that doesn’t ask for anything in return. “If you need anything,” she says gently, “please reach out. I mean it.”
I manage a small nod, my throat tight.
Their visit is brief, but it leaves something behind.
A warmth.
A sense of belonging that I hadn’t expected to discover in this cold silence of grief.
I watch them go, and for the first time in days, I feel something like steadiness begin to settle beneath the weight I carry.