Chapter 17 #2
“That look of being in love says it all.
There's nothing more beautiful than seeing how much you love each other.
I'll tell you something—when I met you in Mykonos, I was certain you would be significant in my life.
I never imagined it would be through my brother; I simply thought we would end up being great friends.
But life not only gave me the chance to have you as a friend, you're my sister, you'll be the mother of my nieces and nephews, and I swear, I'm very happy. I love you so much, Dali.”
As I listened to her, my eyes had welled up with tears. I took both her hands across the table.
“I love you too, Niky, and I’m so happy to have you in my life.”
“You’ll give me several little nieces and nephews, right?”
“I don’t know,” I said, emotional, “I hope life blesses us with one or more children. Actually, I don’t even know if Henry wants more than one.”
“He better get to work right away because my brother is already getting pretty old.”
“Don’t say that, Henry is very young,” I insisted.
“He is, but if you want more than one child, he should decide quickly because otherwise, his kids will be calling him ‘grandpa,’” she said, smiling.
“If he hears you, you won’t get a present,” I said with a smile.
“I doubt it. That man has such a huge ego, my comments don’t even make a dent.”
We both laughed, knowing she wasn’t far from the truth.
After a while, we decided to leave. I was eager to meet up with Henry.
When I reached the parking lot and approached my car, a strange feeling came over me and I froze.
All four tires were flat. Niky had parked next to me, and I noticed she became nervous.
“Dali, it’s a bit strange that all your tires are like this. It seems deliberate.”
“I agree with you, this is weird,” I said, examining the tires, surprised and looking for any clue that might help me understand what had happened.
“Let’s go in mine as soon as possible and then we’ll figure out how to solve this,” she stated, taking my hand and pulling me along. From the expression on her face, I could tell she was very upset.
“Why the rush?” said a very familiar female voice, and we both turned quickly.
Just a few feet away, looking at us seriously, was Sol. She was mainly looking at me, and on her face I could only see reflected a feeling of hatred that paralyzed me.
“Sol, how nice to see you. I’ve been going by your house and couldn’t find you,” I said, making a great effort to appear calm, though I must admit a strange premonition came over me.
Niky was holding my hand and I noticed she was squeezing it tightly, besides having frozen in place and gone speechless.
“Don’t pretend, let’s take off our masks once and for all. I never liked you or cared about you in the slightest. I only used your influence and your money to be close to other people who interested me,” she said with an ironic smile.
“Why are you saying that? We’ve been friends since we were little, I do care about you and...”
“Stop lying, you stupid bitch! All you’ve done your whole life is make everyone I wanted fall in love with you.
If the beautiful and good Dalina was around, nobody else had a chance at anything.
But no one was ever good enough for you, they were all beneath you, even poor Sean who goes around crying in corners because you weren’t capable of returning his feelings. ”
“Sol, you know what you’re saying isn’t true. You’re my friend and I’ve always trusted you with everything. You know things aren’t like that.”
“Shut up, it makes me sick when you try to act all innocent.”
“Why are you behaving this way?” I asked, trying to speak slowly and calmly.
“This is how I am. But let’s cut the chatter and get to what interests me.
I won’t let you take Henry from me. I met him first and he’s mine.
I did everything I could to separate you two without having to resort to this, but you always managed to trap him again.
You’re a fucking nuisance,” she said, shaking her head. “You leave me no alternative.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. I didn’t know what she was planning, but I imagined it wasn’t anything good. I had to keep the conversation going until someone came to help us. There were supposed to be cameras, right?
Keep talking, Dalina. Keep talking, I told myself.
Hearing what she was saying and seeing her in that state not only frightened me, it also caused me enormous distress and made me want to cry, but this wasn’t the time. I knew I had to stay alert. Niky was beside me and looked horrified.
“Henry is the love of my life. I fell in love with him the moment I saw him. And he was going to love me, I know it. Several times I took the elevator with him, and he would greet me looking into my eyes with a big smile. I’m sure that if you hadn’t interfered, I would be the one planning the wedding with him right now.
But you had to come along and ruin everything, you damn whore!
I hate you, I hate you with all my being,” she exclaimed with a deranged expression.
“Sol, don’t say that, you know I care about you very much.”
“You’re lying!” she shouted, and shifted her gaze to Niky. “You understand me, don’t you?”
“Play along with her,” I whispered, but Niky was completely petrified and didn’t respond.
“Do you understand me, Niky?” she insisted.
“Tell her yes,” I whispered again.
“Yyyess,” she finally responded.
“Do you like the idea of me being your sister-in-law?”
“Yess”
“I’m sure that when she’s out of our lives, we’ll get along very well,” she affirmed with a Machiavellian smile.
“You’re right, if it’s as you say, the best thing is for me to go far away and let you both be happy,” I stated, because it was clear that Sol was completely out of her mind.
She looked at me again, but at that moment she did what I never thought she would do—she pulled out a gun from one of her pockets and pointed it at me.
Niky screamed so loudly that it startled Sol, and I was paralyzed as my heart accelerated to the point where I could feel it pumping blood at high speed.
For the first time since I had seen her, I felt real fear and began thinking about Henry and my brothers, and the possibility of never seeing them again.
“I don’t trust you. I know you’ll come back to ensnare Henry. You leave me no other choice,” she declared.
“Sol, don’t do something crazy. If you kill me, you’ll go to prison and won’t be able to marry him,” I argued, summoning a courage I didn’t even know I had.
“That won’t happen. I have everything under control,” she responded with great confidence, but I noticed that Niky’s sobs were upsetting her even more, and her hands were trembling so much that the gun was moving uncontrollably.
“Let’s do something—let Niky go. She’s very nervous, and you don’t want anything to happen to your future sister-in-law, right? Henry will be upset with you if you scare her like this.”
“Nooo,” said Niky between sobs.
I squeezed her hand to keep her quiet; at the very least, I had to make sure Niky wouldn’t get hurt. I couldn’t falter—I had to stay alert and calm, even though I was trembling from head to toe and making a huge effort not to cry.
“Why are you crying?” she asked Niky.
“She’s afraid of guns, better put it away,” I tried to convince her.
Sol let out a laugh that startled both of us.
“Better leave, Niky. If you cry about this, I don’t want to think about how you’ll react later,” she said, smiling. “And don’t forget that I’m looking after you, tell Henry I’m taking care of you as if you were my sister. Well, actually we will be sisters.” And she widened her smile.
“Go,” I said immediately.
“Nooo,” she refused, sobbing.
“Go and get help,” I whispered to convince her. “Take care and... tell Henry and my brothers that I love them.”
“Nooo”
“Please, go,” I begged, because I felt I was already weakening and tears were running down my cheeks.
“Leave now, Niky, I can’t waste any more time!” Sol shouted.
Niky reluctantly let go of me and went to her car. I could see she could barely walk because of how much her body was trembling. She had a hard time starting her car, and when she did, she pulled out so badly that she scraped several parked cars.
“It’s just us now, like in the old days,” she said and came closer.
I heard a noise, and when I looked over Sol’s shoulder, I saw four people who looked like police officers or security guards.
One of them put a finger to his lips to indicate that I shouldn’t say anything.
I tried not to show any emotion or surprise and to keep talking to distract her and give them time to disarm her.
“Sol, let’s talk like before and solve whatever is bothering you. If you tell me that Henry loves you, I promise I’ll never see him again in my life.”
“And you think I’ll believe you? Do you think I’m that stupid?” she said and began to back away.
“You can believe me. If you want, I’ll move to another country, I’ll do whatever you ask.”
“You never did anything I told you to do. You think you know everything.”
At that moment there was a noise, and Sol looked behind her.
A police officer lunged at her and grabbed her from behind, but she struggled without letting go of the gun.
I heard a blast and saw horror reflected in the officer’s face.
I managed to see Sol being thrown to the ground as two other officers ran toward me.
I felt a sharp pain and a force pushing me backward, making me lose my balance and fall to the floor.
I could only hear distant voices and screams, but they were unfamiliar voices.
Although I didn’t want to close my eyes, exhaustion overcame me and I closed them with one final thought: Henry.