Chapter 13
Sara remained motionless in the middle of the room.
The knife still trembled in her hands. Her heart was beating so hard it felt like it wanted to break through her chest.
Vincenzo…
Was it Vincenzo???
After seven months.
Seven months without a single call.
Without a single message.
Without a single explanation.
He was there. Standing in front of her. In the middle of the night. As if he had stepped out of a dream… or a nightmare.
“Vincenzo…?” Her voice came out low, almost a whisper, heavy with disbelief.
He took a step forward, hands open at his sides, as if trying to show he wasn’t a threat.
“Sara…”
“No.” She interrupted him, raising the knife more firmly again. Tears were already starting to blur her vision. The pregnancy made her more sensitive, more fragile, and the fear mixed with the shock was too much. “No… this isn’t real. I must be dreaming.”
Vincenzo opened his mouth to speak, his voice rough with emotion:
“Sara, please… I need you to calm down first. I didn’t come here to hurt you.”
“No!” She took a step back, still pointing the knife, her arm shaking. “Stay still. Don’t come near me.”
She approached slowly, as if she were facing an apparition.
She stretched out her free hand, hesitant, afraid he might disappear…
or worse, that he was real. Vincenzo didn’t move.
He allowed it. He knew the shock, combined with the pregnancy, was too much for her.
He knew any sudden movement could make everything worse.
Sara touched his arm. Then his chest. She felt the warmth of his skin through the shirt. She felt the rapid beating of his heart. He was real. He was real.
And in that moment the shock disappeared… and was replaced by something much worse.
Rage.
A brutal rage. Painful. Accumulated over months of silence and loneliness.
Tears streamed down her face. The knife fell to the floor with a dull sound.
“You… How dare you…” Her voice came out trembling, almost a growl.
Vincenzo’s eyes widened, his chest tightening.
“Sara…”
She turned, grabbed the pillow from the bed and, without warning, swung her body and hit him with all the strength she had.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” she shouted, hitting him again.
Vincenzo took the blow without trying to defend himself. The pillow struck his face, his chest, his shoulders. He just stood there, absorbing every impact.
“SEVEN MONTHS!” Another blow. “SEVEN MONTHS, VINCENZO!”
She kept hitting him, tears falling nonstop, her voice growing hoarser.
“YOU LEFT WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING! WITHOUT SAYING GOODBYE! WITHOUT ANY EXPLANATION! AND NOW YOU SHOW UP HERE, brEAK INTO MY HOUSE AND WANT TO KNOW ABOUT MY LIFE?! YOU HUGE SON OF A BITCH!!”
Vincenzo closed his eyes for a second, feeling every word like a stab. He deserved it. He knew he deserved it.
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT I WENT THROUGH?!” She hit harder, the sobs mixed with the rage. “DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I CRIED MYSELF TO SLEEP? HOW MANY TIMES I SAT BY THE DOOR WAITING FOR YOU TO SHOW UP? NO!!! YOU DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT EVERYTHING I SUFFERED!”
Finally Vincenzo caught the pillow.
But Sara didn’t stop. She grabbed the cushion from the floor and threw it at him.
“YOU’RE AN IDIOT! I HATE YOU!”
The last sentence came out broken, almost a sob. Her legs gave out. Sara collapsed onto the floor, holding her belly with both hands, protective, as if she wanted to shield her daughter from all that pain.
The crying took over her. A real cry. The kind that had been held back for months.
“You don’t know…” Her voice failed, almost disappearing. “You don’t know how much I suffered… how much I wanted you to come back… how many times I stared at that door… how many times I dreamed you were here…”
Vincenzo felt his own heart break at the depth of her pain. He slowly knelt in front of her, without touching her, his hands trembling in the air.
His voice came out low, heavy, loaded with guilt and fear. “I know… My love…”
She lifted her head, her eyes red and full of tears.
“No. You don’t know.”
Vincenzo swallowed hard, the fear overflowing in every word:
“I know… Because I’ve suffered since the day I left you. When I turned around and left you behind and heard your crying… And knowing I couldn’t go back… That destroyed me.”
Silence took over the room.
It was then that Sara noticed.
The dark circles.
The drawn face.
The red eyes.
The weight he had lost.
He didn’t look like a happy man.
He looked like a destroyed man.
But she didn’t give in.
Not yet.
Sara wiped the tears with the back of her hand, her gaze still full of pain, but now also of something deeper: curiosity mixed with fear.
“Why did you come back?”
Vincenzo hesitated. The fear of losing everything again was so great he could barely speak.
“I needed to see you.”
“After seven months?” She laughed without humor, her voice broken.
He lowered his head, humiliated.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His gaze dropped to her belly and stayed there, locked, as if he saw the entire world in that soft curve. When he answered, his voice came out almost inaudible, loaded with a fear so great it seemed to hurt physically:
“Because I needed to know… if this baby is mine.”
The silence that fell was immediate. Painful. Heavy.
Sara’s eyes filled with tears again. Her voice came out low, but cutting:
“Do you think I would put another man in my bed a week after you left? After everything we lived through?”
Vincenzo felt the world stop. That answered everything. Everything. And at the same time, it relieved and hurt even more.
But Sara lifted her chin, the anger returning, mixed with an old pain. “You want answers about my daughter? Then I want answers first.”
Vincenzo nodded slowly, without looking away.
“Who are you?
How did you get into my house?
How did you find out about the pregnancy?”
She took another step.
“Who are you really, Vincenzo?”
For the first time since he had arrived there, he didn’t try to run.
He didn’t try to lie.
He didn’t try to change the subject.
Because he couldn’t anymore.
There was a daughter between them now.
Slowly, he sat on the edge of the bed.
He closed his eyes for a second, as if the truth weighed tons.
“My name is… Vincenzo Salvatore.”
She remained silent, waiting.
“And I hid who I was from the first time I saw you walk into that ballroom.”
Tears returned to his eyes. The fear of seeing her hate him was visible in every line of his face.
“I’m not just a rich businessman, Sara.
I’m a criminal…
I was born into the world of crime. My family controls one of the most powerful organizations in Italy. I’m the heir… and one day I’m going to take command of one of the most feared mafias in Italy.”
The blood drained from her face. Her entire body trembled.
“Vincenzo…”
“That’s why I left,” he continued, his voice failing, the words coming out as if they hurt. “A war started between families. To stop hundreds of people from dying, they made an agreement. And the price was an arranged marriage… I would have to marry the daughter of our enemy.”
Sara brought her hand to her mouth, tears streaming nonstop.
“My God… So you abandoned me… to live this new life?”
“No.” He shook his head hard, standing up and approaching her slowly, without touching her. “I needed to protect you.”
“By lying to me?”
“Yes.”
“By destroying me?”
“Yes… And destroying myself in the process too…”
Tears wetting his face as well.
“Because I thought it would be less painful than bringing you into my world… where I could lose you at any moment in the most brutal way possible… And I love you too much to put you in danger.”
Sara couldn’t speak anymore. Her body trembled. The tears fell without stopping.
And for the first time since he had returned…
There were no more lies between them.
Only the truth.
No matter how cruel it was.