Chapter 34
THOR
Damn her!
She wanted to confuse me with her words, ensnare me in her treacherous webs, and make a fool of me one more fucking time. The cold spray hit my head like a severe lash, quieting and relaxing my body, but not the tangled mess of my emotions and thoughts.
I ran my hands over my face and through my hair. The strong stream of water massaged the back of my neck while my mind ran wild.
Could she be telling the truth? Could I be wrong?
Could I?
No…
I scrubbed my face, destroying that stupid little thread of doubt that only served to torment me more and intensify the constant pain in my head.
I finished my shower, then wrapped the towel around my hips. And, not knowing whether to pray she was still there or not, I returned to the bedroom.
Empty and cold, like my chest.
I exhaled sharply, bracing my hands on my hips, and lowered my head.
Silence and more silence.
Pain and more pain.
A ton of longing.
I loved her. Bitch or not. Liar or not. She was the one I wanted. Without shame, I admitted she was the one who held the reins of my happiness, of what was vital for me to keep breathing. I loved her to the point of aching and burning for her.
Antonella was my incurable addiction.
The antidote to everything that afflicted me, just as much as she was my poison.
I lifted my head, dragging my hands over my face in frustration, and then focused on the small red box on the bed.
I moved to it and sat on the edge of the mattress.
In the room shut off from the outside light, I stared at the engagement ring I would have given Antonella on Christmas Eve. Moisture stained my face.
I didn’t fight the tears.
That jewel represented everything I had thought we felt and wanted together. It would seal our lives forever. Our love, our veiled promise in one small piece, which I would have given her after asking the question I had rehearsed for weeks.
Instead of silly smiles, passionate kisses soaked in happy congratulations and wishes of joy from our loved ones, I’d had maddening despair and then a shattered heart. More wounds and bleeding. Another fucking time.
However, now Lucca was actually here. My son.
Even that Antonella had taken from me.
It was impossible to look at him and not see her, not see the emptiness of that black hole that had broken into my chest and stolen my happiness, not see everything we could have been, everything she had made me believe we could have had and then undone herself.
Incomplete. I was happy for my son, but it was as if I weren’t, as if that happiness were asleep, waiting for the other half to wake.
How the fuck could I forgive her?
How could I ignore the risks to Lucca when he could pay a very high price if I dared to do what the man in me was asking?
I wasn’t being the best father in the world at the moment, but that didn’t erase or minimize my love for him.
I loved my boy beyond any measure, just as I loved his mother, but unlike her, Lucca was pure.
I couldn’t let the man in me override the father.
I would be fucking damned if I allowed my son to be harmed more than he already had been and still would be by the absence of a mother.
“It was her, Heithor. Don’t you see? Dio, stop and think. Remember everything we lived through… all those months. Would I deceive you for that long? Could I?”
I closed the box and put it away in the back of the nightstand drawer.
I inhaled and exhaled hard, holding my head in my hands.
Of course she could.
She had always had the gift of manipulating me according to her desires, and she knew it. Love, affection, and making her happy above all else, even above myself, made me blind, deaf, and mute. That was what she wanted. If Antonella was happy, so was I.
While we had been together, that had always been my goal: making her happy.
But then her words, her gestures, the emotions reflected in her face and in her eyes moments ago were etched into my brain. They made that little thread of doubt resurface again, leaving me disturbed.
I wasn’t wrong. There was no way I could be.
Or was there?
I had surrounded myself with evidence, and all of it was against her. Antonella had only words and memories in my mind, a few in her favor and so many against, while the evidence told me she was lying without shame.
I massaged my aching temples, too restless.
There was no way I had forgotten something.
Or was there?
---
“I want to know what you did.”
I narrowed my eyes, confused. “What?”
Pietra rolled her eyes before pinning them on me, hard and fed up.
“What the hell did you do?”
“What are you talking about, Pietra?”
“Antonella. What did you do this time?”
“Enlighten me.”
Pietra planted a hand on her waist and pointed a finger at me.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Heithor. Antonella has been out of the house for three days.
She hasn’t called, and she isn’t answering her phone.
I want to know what the hell you did and where she is.
And I hope you didn’t throw her out of the mansion or… ”
“I don’t know anything about her, and I have no idea where she could be.”
Her gaze examined me. I cursed.
“Well, I really hope you haven’t done anything to her.”
I wanted to know where she was hiding too.
“She must be having fun, Pietra,” I pointed out, weary and wounded that Antonella seemed to have returned to her old routine. “She’s probably enjoying everything she couldn’t enjoy because she was pregnant and tied to me.”
Pietra clicked her tongue and shook her head in denial. “Heithor, Heithor… have you considered that you might be being unfair to her?”
“I’m not,” I cut out darkly.
“And what if you are? Do you think Ella will forgive you? Honestly, my brother, I don’t know whether I should pray she proves her innocence or not, because if she does, I don’t believe that…”
“If I were wrong, believe me, I wouldn’t mind asking for her forgiveness for the rest of my life if necessary,” I said sardonically, wanting to put an end to that nonsense.
“Do you think she’ll forgive you?”
“What do you want from me?”
“I just want you to be sure you’re not committing an atrocity worse than the one you’re accusing her of, Thor.
I may have had doubts at first, but I know Ella and I believe her.
I know she didn’t cause the fall. Ella might be telling the truth about Norah.
What if she managed to fool all of us and found a way to be here? ”
“That’s impossible,” I ground out between my teeth, refusing to consider it. “I checked everything. Nothing. I didn’t find anything in her favor.”
“Not even your feelings?”
I turned to leave.
Pietra grabbed my arm. “And what if you made a mistake? What if, because of the nerves of the moment, you let your doubts blind you? That… that can happen, can’t it?”
I swallowed hard, feeling my chest tighten.
Bzzzz! Bzzzz! Bzzzz!
Without taking my eyes off her, I grabbed my phone from the front pocket of my pants.
“Castellammare… When? No, it’s hers… Yes… thank you for letting me know.”
I hung up and shoved the device back into my pocket. A pang of uncontained fury punched my chest.
“Heithor?”
“What, Pietra?”
“I have to go to class, but think about what I told you, please.”
The insistence in her eyes made me uneasy inside.
“It costs nothing to check again. Maybe you let something slip because of the moment, I don’t know. Just be sure you’re not being unfair. I don’t want you to suffer even more if you discover too late that you were her executioner.”
I sank into the chair and put my hands on my head.