ELENARealizing that I had made such a grave mistake kept me on edge. I hadn’t heard anything implicating from the media or Rogerio, but I was still nervous.I had stayed away from the public eye and ensured that my return to the city hadn’t made any headlines. It was enough that the topic had shifted from my disastrous wedding to the attack on the Thuthai estate and Maria’s death.The news hadn’t mentioned anything about Charlotte, and I started to wonder if Rogerio had brought her up just to rattle my nerves.“Well, if that was his plan, then he succeeded,” I muttered to myself, wondering if I had gone too far in ordering the men to attack his vehicle.I hadn’t wanted anything serious to happen to him, just enough to make him come back home and give up his search for his ex-wife. But the silence from his end over the past few days was starting to bother me.I didn’t want to show up at his mother’s estate uninvited; she must be irritated with all the chaos surrounding her family, and
CHARLOTTERogerio was the type of man any woman would dream of. I spent my time doing things I thought would make him happy. Today, I asked the cook, Maria, to prepare his favorite meal in anticipation of his return for dinner. However, he had not arrived yet.“How many times have you seen a rocket in the sky?" I asked aloud.“What?” Maria asked and lifted her head to meet my gaze. “I don’t understand.”“A rocket, Maria. Do you know what that is?" I questioned, arching an eyebrow.“Of course,” she answered with a knowing smile.“Good. How many times have you seen one?”“Barely," she replied, her expression shifting from curiosity to confusion repeatedly.“Yeah. That’s how much I’ve seen Roggie in this house,” I acknowledged, and an awkward silence filled the room.“He doesn’t like to be called that,” she said after a long time.“I know. Perhaps that’s why he’s angry? And he hasn’t come home. Have I let out that name unknowingly?”“I doubt it,” she responded dryly and lowered her gaze.
CHARLOTTE“Rogerio,” I whispered as he shut the door behind him and stepped into the night. The clock ticked softly in the corner of the room as my heart pounded against my chest. I clutched the sides of my stomach to steady my body as a sharp pain shot up my spine, and my eyes ached terribly.I stood up a few seconds later to look at myself in the mirror again. My reflection stared back at me as my heart broke into a million pieces.“I did everything right!” I yelled and sobbed loudly. I heard the door open and looked up, expecting to see him and hear that he had changed his mind, but it was the door that led to the staff quarters, not the one he had walked through.I felt whatever was left of my dignity shed as Maria stepped into the hallway. “Signora,” she said and ran towards me, enveloping me in an embrace. “Let’s get you out of here.”“I did everything right, Maria,” I repeated in between sobs. She sighed and patted my head.“Let’s get you into the bedroom. This has caused quite
CHARLOTTEI woke up to the sound of hurried footsteps moving through the house and voices yelling in unison. Too disoriented to make sense of it, I struggled to block out the noise coming from the engines of trucks revving in the distance. Yawning and stretching my arms, I sat up, looking around the room with a confused expression.My mind felt like a blank slate for a hot minute, delighted yet frightened at the prospect. But a few seconds later, the feeling dispersed as my brain started to recall the events of last night.I sighed and smiled sadly. Life had taken a different turn, one I couldn’t deny I hadn’t foreseen as the days rolled by. I remembered the terms of the marriage that Rogerio and I had. We hadn’t started our relationship on the basis of love, but I could swear we were great friends.When I fell in love with him, he never made it feel like it was an unrequited love. I felt safe and secure, like I had found someone who was ready to stick with me through thick and thin u
CHARLOTTEI was too stunned to make any sudden moves. My life was crumbling before my eyes, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I slid onto a couch next to the door and sobbed quietly.My heart raced, and my body trembled terribly. I had finally lost everything that was important to me. It felt like life enjoyed playing cruel tricks on me. First, it was my dad and mom dying, leaving me to fend for myself in a world where everyone operated on a different set of rules than the one I had been raised with. Now my husband was gone.“This can’t be happening,” I said to myself as tears streamed down my cheeks. “It’s all a bad dream, and I’ll wake up from it soon.”I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. I wiped my face and slowly opened my eyes, hoping to meet different circumstances. My resolve wavered as I opened my eyes and the house became silent. I was still in the library; nothing had changed. The silence made it worse; it was easier to deal with this when I could still hear people talki
CHARLOTTE“Maria?!” I yelled, my voice echoing through the empty house. “This is sad,” I added when she didn’t respond, and I started walking to the front door. Then I stopped in my tracks, turned around, walked into the room, and picked up the tray containing the dishes I had just used, proceeding to stack them in the kitchen sink.We were the only ones left in this deserted estate, and I couldn’t let her do all the work while I wailed about how much of a failure my life and marriage were. Plus, I needed something to do to keep my mind off the present as I made plans for the future.Today, I had one mission: find Rogerio and uncover the reason behind our separation. I had always assumed it was my fault, or that I was constantly making mistakes. However, upon reflection, I am starting to realize that there may be other external factors at play.First, I thought about his parents; Rogerio had grown up under the care of his grandfather, Don Huilo, and his mother, Penelope. I had no idea
ROGERIOThe sun had just begun to set when I arrived at the penthouse. The movers had completed their task of hauling the properties I had brought from the estate. Once they finished, they dispersed as swiftly as they had gathered, leaving me with the staff members who had packed up their things and moved with me. I studied them for a few minutes, waiting to see if anyone would speak up, but none did. It dawned on me then that my decision to divorce Charlotte had brought about unforeseen consequences.First on that list was her refusal to sign the papers. She claimed to love me, but I doubted it. Our relationship was built on different terms—love was never one of them. We both knew it, so I couldn’t fathom her delusion. It was pointless, considering we both acknowledged that our union wasn’t working. I attempted to push the encounter out of my mind and focus on what I could currently control, but the expressions on the faces around me made it futile.I stood in the corner of the room,
CHARLOTTEThe drive back home was slow and excruciatingly painful. I had to park by the side of the road a few times to convince myself that I would arrive at the estate in one piece. My body trembled slightly as the recollection of seeing Rogerio propose to his ex-girlfriend remained permanently etched into my memory.I barely knew her, but from the conversations we had when our relationship was still hopeful, I knew she had shattered his heart into a million pieces with her disappearance. I had thought our marital issues stemmed from an issue between both of us, one we could work on, but this was something different.It wasn’t a marriage that was done because one or both of us had issues that could not be fixed or tolerated. He had simply returned to the woman he truly loved. For the first time since we were married, I truly comprehended what unrequited love felt like.My thoughts shifted to the first night we met at the bar. He had walked in looking dejected, and I knew that he nee
ELENARealizing that I had made such a grave mistake kept me on edge. I hadn’t heard anything implicating from the media or Rogerio, but I was still nervous.I had stayed away from the public eye and ensured that my return to the city hadn’t made any headlines. It was enough that the topic had shifted from my disastrous wedding to the attack on the Thuthai estate and Maria’s death.The news hadn’t mentioned anything about Charlotte, and I started to wonder if Rogerio had brought her up just to rattle my nerves.“Well, if that was his plan, then he succeeded,” I muttered to myself, wondering if I had gone too far in ordering the men to attack his vehicle.I hadn’t wanted anything serious to happen to him, just enough to make him come back home and give up his search for his ex-wife. But the silence from his end over the past few days was starting to bother me.I didn’t want to show up at his mother’s estate uninvited; she must be irritated with all the chaos surrounding her family, and
ROGERIOThe sun’s rays beat against my face and I put out an arm to block it, then looked around. The last thing I remember was getting off the plane and the car somersaulting several times in the air.I didn’t know where I was or what exactly had brought me here. I got up from the ground and tried to brush the sand off my clothes when I realized that I was injured in a few places, but it was nothing serious.The car, however, lay turned on its back, tires rolling in the air, which smelled of petrol and something else. I looked at the car and realized that there were people trapped inside. I wasn’t sure how I had gotten out, but I had to help them out too.I tried to move and realized that I had sprained my ankle. I didn’t realize how terrible it was earlier because my body was still recovering from the shock.As I tried to move my limbs, my body let me know that it had gone through much more than I could reckon. I couldn’t move as quickly as I wanted to, and I wondered if I would be
CHARLOTTEHe started by explaining how he had sent the plane to the last destination where I had been dropped off, but when his guards searched for me, they couldn’t find me.He made them comb the city from the airport to the outskirts, and when the results were unsatisfactory, he decided to take extra measures to find me.“Why was it so important for you to find me?” I asked, trying to conceal my irritation.“I was worried when the pilot reported that he had dropped you off in Milan. At first, I was comfortable because it was a familiar ground. But when the guards couldn’t find you, I started to worry. When I called and we spoke, you didn’t seem fine, which made things worse. So I asked my… detectives to trace the phone signal.”“That feels like a breach of privacy, Thiago,” I responded, and he shrugged.“It is, but you left me no choice. Ignoring my calls made it worse. At that point, I had to do something.”“How…” I began but decided to rephrase my question. It suddenly dawned on m
CHARLOTTEThe past few days had been harder than I expected. I spent most of my time awake during the day, and at night, I wandered through the city streets.It felt strange to be outside without Sonia’s watchful eyes monitoring my every step, but at the same time, it was freeing. I was in a new place, a different city where I didn’t know anyone, and no one knew what I was up to.Not that there was much to know. I was grieving.The walks helped, if only temporarily. They took my mind off the image of Maria’s lifeless body, an image that seemed permanently etched into my memory.For fleeting moments, the thrill of being somewhere new replaced the weight of my sorrow.I realized I hadn’t made any plans beyond securing a place to stay, and to be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to doing anything special here.“She’d want you to be happy,” a woman’s voice said from behind me.I spun around, startled, my heart skipping a beat at the unexpected interruption.My eyes met hers, and my face tw
ELENAI decided to call Rogerio. With the way things were going, it was evident that I couldn’t go back to Milan right away, and staying in contact with him was the only way I could make sure things hadn’t been blown out of proportion.But I knew I couldn’t show how I was really feeling. It was important to maintain a nonchalant facade and hope he said something that would give me a hint or let me know what was going on.He picked up on the first ring, but the background noise was too much, so I hung up and decided to call back after a few minutes. I paced the room, thinking about what could’ve possibly happened in the last few hours.After he called, I reached out to my father’s men, the ones who handled work he didn’t want linked back to him, to clear up anything that could put me in the middle of the mess Rogerio said was brewing. But they hadn’t gotten back to me yet.I sighed, picked up the phone, and called Rogerio again. He answered immediately but seemed a little distracted.“
ROGERIOSpeaking to Elena had infuriated me more than I anticipated. She didn’t admit to being responsible for what had happened at the estate, which was expected and smart. It would be foolish to say, “Yes, I sent people to harass innocent people,” but I knew that if she was truly behind it, she would try to cover her tracks.Perhaps being in Mauritius was the first step in removing herself from the suspect list. She had an alibi; she wasn’t in the city when it happened. And if I knew anything about her relationship with Keisha, it was that her friend would stand solidly behind her, swearing she had nothing to do with it.Now that I had gotten that conversation out of the way, I had to make sure this wasn’t linked to my family in any way. I also had to find a way to see Maria. I knew she was angry that I hadn’t paid the issue any real attention when she pointed it out to me, but I knew her, she could only stay angry for so long.I’ve never taken her forgiving heart for granted, but I
CHARLOTTEI was in a daze, unable to fully process what had happened. All I felt was the detective’s hand on my arm, pulling me away, and my feet followed him until we reached the car that had brought us to the restaurant.He opened the door, told me to get in, looked around, then entered and instructed the driver to move as quickly as possible.Our driver, pale and visibly frightened, obliged as I kept looking back at the restaurant. The sound of the ignition starting and the engine revving pulled me back to the present, and I stared at my hands in shock.There were droplets of blood on them. I could feel something sliding down my forehead, but I was too terrified to check what it was.“Maria,” I muttered, turning to look at the restaurant, which had faded into the distance as the sound of police sirens grew louder.I lowered my hands, turned to the detective, and swallowed hard. I wanted to ask him if this was all just a dream, but his grim expression gave me the answer I was too af
CHARLOTTENo matter what I did, my mind always wandered to the picture of Thiago and me. I couldn’t place the feeling I had upon seeing it, but I knew that the night he had taken me home, I saw him take out his phone to do something.I had been drunk from the party and thought it was just a fuzzy memory at the time, but the more I thought about it, the clearer it became. Thiago had taken a picture of me, and then he had taken another of both of us.I could bet that in both pictures, I had been too inebriated to stop him.That was in the past now. The question that lodged itself at the back of my mind was, why?I desperately wanted to confront him about it, but I knew it was neither the time nor the place to do so. There were more pressing issues at hand, and I needed to attend to those first.We had gone through the gifts that had been sent earlier, and just when we thought it was over and things had quieted down, more gifts poured in.It irritated me as much as it fascinated me. I ha
ELENAThe day was going better than I had anticipated, and I hoped nothing would change that. I hadn’t spoken to Rogerio in a while, and quite frankly, my mental health had improved.I was still annoyed about being stood up at the church, that was a grudge I intended to carry for the rest of my life. If he wanted me to feel what it was like to be made a fool in front of everyone, he had succeeded.But now, it was time to stop playing games and actually set another date for the wedding.He seemed reluctant to do that, and it made me angrier by the minute, at least until Keisha suggested we take a trip out of Milan for a few days. She had some business to attend to in Mauritius and felt that a change of scenery would do me a lot of good.I reluctantly agreed but asked for two days to put some things in place. When I was certain that everything I wanted was going according to plan, I packed a few bags, and we left on her husband’s private plane. Well… it was hers now. He was dead, and ev