MATEODid I leave unreasonably early for work today?Yes, I did.Was it because I was trying to avoid, Clara? As much as I’m ashamed to admit it, the answer was yes.I don’t know what came over me last night. I just blurted out that I didn’t care about the contract, which raised a lot of questions for her. These are questions that I didn’t have the answer to. So I did something I’d never done. I ran away. From a woman nonetheless.Damn, if Dominic knew about this, he was never going to let me live it down, which means he must never know. I was keeping this embarrassing bit of information to myself.The only downside to me leaving way early was I couldn’t send, Alina on her merry way but I was hoping my words sunk in well enough and she got the hell out of my house as soon as she woke up.Alina was trouble, and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with her spoiled ass. Even my mother was angry with me because of her, and I still haven’t figured out how I was going to get myself back into
CLARA"Are you sure about selling your eggs?" the doctor asked as I sat in his cramped office. His voice was calm, almost too calm, as if this was just another routine day for him.I glanced at the stack of paperwork in front of me. My hands were trembling as I grabbed the pen. I didn’t want to be here. This wasn’t what I wanted for myself.But my phone buzzed again in my pocket, and I knew exactly what the message said without even looking."If you do not pay within three days, your aunt’s operation will be canceled."Three days. That was all the time I had. And I barely had enough money for food, let alone the operation fees.I sighed heavily and shoved the phone back into my pocket. Aunt Maggie’s medical bills were piling up, and the hospital wasn’t going to wait for me to figure things out.“No,” I admitted quietly, “I’m not sure about this.”The doctor’s face softened. “You don’t have to go through with it. There’s still time to back out.”Lucaa, sitting next to me, leaned forwar
Chapter 02~ A Tough DecisionCLARAI sat in the bathroom, staring at the pregnancy test in my hand. Positive.I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. How could this have happened? I hadn’t… I couldn’t… It didn’t make any sense.My thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.“Clara? ” Lucaa’s voice came in.“I don’t understand,” I called, my voice shaking.She walked in and shut the door behind her, her face was pale. “I need to tell you something. And you’re not going to like it.”I frowned. “What is it?”She hesitated, running a hand through her hair. “The clinic… they made a mistake.”“A mistake?” I repeated, feeling my stomach drop.She nodded, guilt written all over her face. “They did the wrong surgery. You didn’t have an egg retrieval, Clara. You had a fertilization operation.”For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. The words didn’t make sense. “What are you saying, Lucaa? That I… that I’m pregnant because of this mediacal incident?”“Yes,” she said quietly.I stared at her, m
CLARA It didn’t take long for the whispers to start. “Did you hear about Clara?” someone would say at the market. “She’s pregnant and not even married.” “She used to be so involved with the church,” another would chime in. “What a shame.” I tried to ignore it, but it was hard. The church had always been a place where I felt safe, but now, even the pastor’s wife gave me cold looks. It wasn’t long before I stopped going altogether. Every Sunday morning, I would hear the church bells ringing, and my chest would ache. But I reminded myself that I didn’t need their approval. My focus was on my baby. At my next antenatal check-up, Lucaa smiled as she looked at the screen. “The baby’s growing well,” she said, pointing at the little shape on the monitor. “It’s ten weeks now and stable.” I couldn’t help but smile. Seeing the baby made everything feel real. But then Lucaa’s expression turned serious. “Clara, it’s still not too late to think about your options. You can choose t
MATEODeath had a smell.Tears, blood, sweat, and fear.The room was cold, dim with the little lightcoming from the single overhead bulb that flickers every now and then. The manin front of me was trembling, his wrists tied to the arms of the chair, and hisankles bound to the legs. His face was already bruised, his lips splitfrom the last hit. Yet, he still had the audacity to lie to me!I crouched in front of him, with my gunresting lightly against his temple. His breathing hitched, his body stiffened,but he still wouldn't talk. "You know," I muttered, tapping theside of his head with the barrel. "Loyalty is a virtue, but lying? Lyingis a deadly sin." "I swear, I don’t know anything," hesobbed, with his eyes wide with terror. "I told you the truth! I don’tknow who the donor was or who the sperm was sold to. Please, believeme!" I chuckled, shaking my head. "Believeyou?" I repeated. "You think I’m stupid? You work in that clinic. Youhandle the records. Yet you expec
CLARA The blinding white light of the hospital room made my head pound as I slowly opened my eyes. My body felt heavy, and my limbs refused to cooperate. The events of last night rushed back, leaving a sinking feeling in my stomach. Before I could sit up, my uncle’s angry voice filled the room. He was pacing, muttering to himself, his face covered with anger. “You’ve ruined everything!” he spat, spinning around to face me. “Pregnant? You’re pregnant?” I didn’t respond. My throat was dry, and my heart was pounding so fast. “For all the years I’ve put up with you, this is how you repay me? You’ve destroyed everything!” His voice grew louder as he stepped closer to the bed. “What are you talking about?” I managed to croak, my voice barely audible. "What am I talking about, huh?" He leaned over me, I could perceive the smell of alcohol reeking from his breath. “I'm talking about this bastard in your womb. You're getting it out as soon as possible." "Uncle Mark..." Be
CLARAHe stood there, his cold, dark eyes were now fixed on my uncle, who stood frozen like a cornered rat. My uncle wasn't expecting to see him, no one was. At this point, Uncle Mark left me completely, taking a step forward with something he called… boldness.“I’m from the Iron Fang Syndicate gang,” my uncle blurted out, trying to sound tough but failing miserably. “You better leave if you know what’s good for you!” The man—Mateo, I remembered—tilted his head slightly, having this unreadable expression. Then he spoke again, his deep voice sending chills down my spine. “This woman owes me,” he said, gesturing toward me. “She’s not going anywhere without my permission.” Uncle Mark shifted his gaze at me, and before my uncle could respond, Mateo took a step forward. His men fanned out, surrounding the room. I could feel the tension that came with it. It was suffocating. “What are you talking about?” my uncle stammered, walking steps backward. I've never seen my uncle this sca
CLARA I woke up to the sound of low voices murmuring nearby. My body ached, and my head felt heavy as I blinked against the harsh light streaming into the room. As my vision cleared, I noticed two men sitting by my bedside, dressed in expensive suits and wearing a serious expression that immediately put me on edge.“Good, you’re awake,” one of them said, a little softly. He was holding a folder, and the sight of it made my stomach twist.“Who are you?” I managed to ask, feeling my throat run dry.“We work for Mr. Mateo De Luca,” the man replied, as if that explained everything. “He asked us to give this to you.” He handed me the folder, and I hesitated before taking it. I could feel my hands trembling as I opened it, revealing a thick stack of papers inside. “What is this?” I asked, not taking my gaze off the folder in my hand.“It’s your employment contract,” the man said plainly. “For the next two years, you will work as Mr. De Luca’s personal doctor. Your duties are limited to en
MATEODid I leave unreasonably early for work today?Yes, I did.Was it because I was trying to avoid, Clara? As much as I’m ashamed to admit it, the answer was yes.I don’t know what came over me last night. I just blurted out that I didn’t care about the contract, which raised a lot of questions for her. These are questions that I didn’t have the answer to. So I did something I’d never done. I ran away. From a woman nonetheless.Damn, if Dominic knew about this, he was never going to let me live it down, which means he must never know. I was keeping this embarrassing bit of information to myself.The only downside to me leaving way early was I couldn’t send, Alina on her merry way but I was hoping my words sunk in well enough and she got the hell out of my house as soon as she woke up.Alina was trouble, and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with her spoiled ass. Even my mother was angry with me because of her, and I still haven’t figured out how I was going to get myself back into
CLARAI froze in shock at Mrs. Antonia’s words. I knew she couldn’t stand, Alina, but that was the last thing I expected her to do, and it seemed I wasn’t the only one shocked by her.“That better not be me you’re referring to as trash,” Alina said to her.“You’re the only trashy person I can see here, and it pans out because it’s the trashy ones that refuse to admit that they actually are trashy,” Mrs. Antonia fired back. “I’ve had enough of your nonsense, and since my son has failed to handle you, I don’t mind doing the job for him. You’re not welcome here.”“If anyone is unwelcome here, it would be this nobody and her kid!” Alina screamed, pointing at me. “I’m going to be your daughter-in-law. You can’t treat me like this.”“I already have a daughter-in-law, and you’re looking at her. Even if she wasn’t in the picture, there’s no way my son would ever end up with someone like you because as annoyed as I am, I like to believe that I raised him right and he can discern good from evi
CLARAMateo and I didn’t get to talk.Christopher told me that he left for work really early in the morning before any of us woke up.I was disappointed because all I could think about all night was the statement he made in his office and what he actually meant by it.I guess I’ll just have to wait until he gets back home. Luckily, I had some of mine and Ale’s clothes in Lily’s room so there was no need for me to go into the master bedroom.Alessandro was fed and bathed, looking like my little bundle of joy. It turns out that Lucaa was right, I was being paranoid for no reason. There was no way my son would be scared of me. He was literally my whole heart and even though it was too soon. He had to know that.Today, Mrs. Antonia had the bright idea to take, Ale to the park. I was against it at first because he was still so young to fully experience a kids’ park. All he was going to do there was sit in his stroller while she fawned over him.Besides, I didn’t want him to have his first
CLARAAfter everything that happened earlier today, I had expected Mateo’s mom to ignore me because pissed was an understatement to describe how she felt or in this case, was currently feeling. To my surprise, she didn’t even going as far as moving me and Ale into her room because in her words, it was just another opportunity for her to bond with her grandchild, like she wasn’t doing enough of that already.I was also aware of the fact that Mateo was home but what I didn’t expect was him barging into his mother’s room.I couldn’t hide the shock from my face. Wasn’t he supposed to be with his girlfriend?“Don’t you know how to knock?” his mother asked. “I know this is your house but that doesn’t give you the right to barge into my room unannounced.”He didn’t respond to her slew of angry words. Instead, his eyes zeroed in on mine before he settled his gaze on me.“Can we talk?” he asked, not taking his eyes off me.“You can see that we’re busy. Why don’t you go back to your whore and
MATEOI walked into my room and like Lily said, found Alina lounging on my bed as if she belonged there.What’s worse, she was laying on Clara’s side of the bed and I immediately saw red. She was also on a call and the moment she saw me, had the good sense to end the call.“Hey, baby. You’re home,” she said, giving me what I’ve come to recognize as her manipulative smile.That might work for an unsuspecting idiot, but not me, and she better have a good explanation for this nonsense.“What the fuck are you doing in my room!?” I growled.She was taken aback by my tone but she recovered quickly and pasted the smile on her face again.“Come on, baby. Where else did you think I would be? And is that the way to welcome the love of your life whom you haven’t seen in a while?” she asked and I couldn’t help laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.“Did I say something funny,” she asked, looking confused.“Yeah, you did. It’s very funny of you to think that you’re welcome in my house not to th
MATEO“Would that be all?” I asked, handing Dominic the rest of the documents.“Yes, I think we’re good for now. I’ll let you know if there are any other documents that require your attention,” he replied.“God, this is fucking exhausting,” I said.Dominic smiled. “The cons of running a mafia empire but you love it and dare I say, you’re fucking good at it,” he said.Well, I fucking knew that already. Why else would I be waging war against, Renzetti?Still, it didn’t mean that I had to like it. Running this business involved jumping through so many hoops you won’t even believe.Not to talk of having a legitimate business to act as a cover. Then, I have to run the said, legit business while also handling my other not so legit business.“Let me know once the money has been cleaned and our taxes have been handled.”“I’m already on it,” Dominic said. “When do you think we would be needing another shipment?”“Let’s hold off on that for a while. Bruno is still not back from his trip but luc
LILYNo, no, no.This can’t be happening. Just when things were finally going in the right direction, Alina just had to crawl out of whatever hole she was hiding in, and now things were complicated. Worse, how the hell was I going to make this right?Wait, why did this have to be my problem?This was Mateo’s mess, and he was going to have to clean it up. I just have to limit the damage.If only Mrs. Antonia didn’t say anything when I introduced Clara as a guest, but I knew deep down that there was a slim chance of that happening.Alina was the epitome of the kind of woman she couldn’t stand and there was no way she was going to be quiet while Alina acted like the grade A bitch she was.The surprising part was how calm Clara was taking everything that was happening. I had expected her to go off on Alina, especially after the demeaning way she addressed her but she ignored her and was currently helping herself to a serving of the pasta we were all about to eat.If there was anything Al
CLARAMateo followed me out of the chapel and we walked side by side towards the house but he stopped abruptly as we got close.“What’s wrong?” I asked.“I have to go,” he replied.“But I thought the whole point of you being here today was because you didn’t have much to do,” I said. For some reason I couldn’t understand, I didn’t want him to leave.“Well, life is unpredictable and things come up when we least expect them to so I have to go,” he told me.I sighed. It’s not like I had the power to hold him here against his will anyway. “Okay, then.”“Tell my mother something came up so I can’t stay for lunch,” he said, already walking away so I didn’t have the chance to reply to him before he got to his car and drove off.I stood there until his car was out of sight before I headed towards the house.Walking into the dining room, I found Lily and Mrs. Antonia, already seated. She was cradling Ale to her chest and singing a lullaby to him.Hmmm… he must have woken up in my absence and I
CLARAI stared in shock at him while Mateo was glaring at me.How long had he been standing there?And most importantly, how much of our conversation had he heard?From the look on his face, I could tell that he had heard more than enough.Still, I was going to act dumb until he proved otherwise.“Uhm… how long have you been standing there?” I asked.“Long enough,” he replied curtly.“Well, you scared me,” I said choosing to ignore his tone.“You would have noticed if you weren’t lost in your phone call,” he said.“It was an important call I must make,” I said.He nodded. “I can imagine,” he said sarcastically then asked, “Who were you talking to?”“Oh, it was just Lucaa,” I replied.“Hmm,” he said and began stalking towards me. “I don’t believe you.”I moved backward the closer he got until my back hit the wall. He looked so pissed that I wondered what exactly was the matter.I held my phone towards him. “You can check the call logs if you don’t believe me. There’s no way I would hav