Alessandro DeLuca

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – MILA /ZAHRA

This day has been filled with more twists and turns than I could have seen coming. Despite all that has occurred, I’m about to face my biggest life challenge.

“Stop. You’re worrying yourself for nothing. Trust me when I tell you that she’s been talking about you almost since the day I met her,” Alessandro says when I start pacing the floor for the hundredth time.

“But…what will she think when she sees me? I don’t look the same at all.”

“She’ll love you regardless.”

Alessandro’s family hasn’t left. Instead, Alessandro and I have gone to the guest house, waiting for Sabrina to bring Bianca.

It’s going to be hard to get used to calling her that.

There’s a light tap at the door, and my stomach knots. Alessandro rubs my back and kisses my lips.

“It’s time to reclaim what’s been stolen from you, Bella.”

I smile at him and walk to the door. The blood drains from my face when I see a man standing before me that I’ve never seen before. In front of him is my child, and he has a gun pointed at her head.

“I like reunions,” he says, laughing.

“Ti ucciderò, Colombo!” Alessandro growls behind me.

This is the man that I’ve hated for two years? He looks nothing like I imagined. Long overgrown, brown curly hair with streaks of grey curls around his collar. A thick brown and grey mustache and beard cover most of his face, and his clothes are rumpled. He looks like any homeless man you might pass on the street, except there is humor in his cruel blue eyes. Colombo rubs his long, hawkish nose as he steps into the house, closing the door behind him.

“Papà!” my baby cries out.

My heart wrenches in my chest because she's now calling for someone else. She doesn’t even know how close I am to her. Shouldn’t her heart feel something?

I can’t help but drink her in despite the fact this asshole has a gun pointed at her.

In my mind, I’ve always seen the chubby-faced little pudgy girl she always was, but the reality before my eyes is different. Gone are the long ponytails that I used to fashion and in their place is a mass of inky, thick hair pulled away from her face by a headband hanging to her midback.

There is a remnant of the baby-faced features that I once adored, but mostly her face has thinned out. Eyes that look exactly like her father’s, Carlo, are filled with confusion but for a moment.

She keeps looking between Alessandro and me.

Colombo and Alessandro argue back and forth in rapid Italian. Though I understand and can speak some Italian, they’re talking too fast for me to keep up, but something that Colombo says causes my daughter’s eyes to widen.

“To the moon and back,” I say.

She stares at me, her mouth drops, and tears stream down her face.

I don’t know how this will pan out, but I have to save my baby. We didn’t come this far for it to end badly.

“You will not get away with this!” Alessandro says.

“I already have,” Colombo laughs. “Your bodyguard, Bones? Let’s just say he and his wife are now singing in a heavenly choir. I killed his driver and took his place, forced that bitch wife of his to drive us over.”

I feel the energy shift in Alessandro, although he doesn’t speak a word. I know this hurts him.

“Let her go, Colombo. This is between you and me now.”

“No, it’s not. I’ve been watching you because I was informed the girl was still alive. Not sure why you kept her alive, but it wasn’t worth spending money to do anything with. But when I received the call that this bitch was still alive, that raised another threat. I don’t know if it’s been a setup; I don’t give a fuck at this point. But you’ve all got to die.”

“Mommy?” she asks, her forehead furrowing.

“Yes, baby. It’s me,” I say.