“Mom, why doesn’t Dad visit me?”
“Mom, why does he always care about Raffy more?”
“Mom… did I do something wrong?”
I remembered every question. Every lie I told just to soften the truth. Every truth I swallowed so he could still smile.
But Vincenzo destroyed him anyway.
He froze my accounts while our son was dying. He chose another child over his own without hesitation.
I pressed my forehead against Gabriel’s and whispered, “I’m here, baby… Mommy’s here. Don’t leave me.”
But it was already too late. He slipped away without waiting for his father, without hearing Vincenzo’s voice one last time, without the treatment I couldn’t afford.
Ever since Lena came back—crying softly, acting fragile—Vincenzo changed. I became the enemy in my own home. He locked me inside the mansion, called me unstable, told everyone I was jealous, irrational, dangerous to his name and his empire.
“You harmed Lena and her son,” he once said coldly. “I’ll make sure you pay for it.”
And he did. Slowly. Quietly. Until my entire life was emptied out.