I turn the night light on that dimly lights the room with different sized stars.
I kiss Dahlia on the forehead and I lightly smile at how angelic and peaceful she looks when she sleeps. I love her so much I would die for her. I would absolutely do anything just for her to be safe and happy. I love her and no one or anything will ever separate me from her.
I take the baby monitor to listen in case she wakes up and starts crying. It also has a small screen with a camera so that I can check on her. I have a horrible anxiety leaving her alone so this gift from my sister is very helpful.
I walk out our bedroom, and I make my way downstairs where Catalina just arrived from work. It's surprising to see her home early sometimes because there are times where she just has to stay at the hospital all night. The progress she was starting to make with Orion has disappeared since she is barely home now. The boy has begun to resent her again and it makes me so sad sometimes.
"You're still up." She states pulling me into a hug the moment I reach her.
"Yes, it's still early and I see that you're home kind of early too." I tell her, watching her take her wavy hair out of her bun.
"Yeah, I'm not needed right now...yet." She sighs kicking her heels off.
"Is Orion sleeping?" She immediately asks me.
"He went to sleep about half an hour ago." I inform her and she slightly nods.
"I'm going to shower and put my things in my room. You can go to sleep if you're tired." Cat picks up her heels from the ground.
"I'll wait for you and accompany you as you have dinner." I assure her and she smiles before heading upstairs.
I make my way to the kitchen to heat up dinner for her. She must be exhausted and she's also letting me stay in her home so it is the least I could do.
__
"Mama told me that our father has been spending time with Orion again." Catalina speaks as she takes the first bite of her food.
"He has." I confirm it.
"He's undoubtedly putting so many things in his head again and the fact that I'm busier now isn't helping. It's like he has had this all planned out and is determined to make my life a hell knowing how much Orion means to me." She slightly rants taking a drink from her cold glass of water.
"Orion is still young and just a little confused. I'm sure that if not now there will be a time when he will realize how much you love him." I try to reassure her. Her very faint smile tells me that she appreciates it.
"Papa purposely made me choose between med school or law school. He knew that whatever career choice I made would be enough to consume all my time so that I wouldn't be around my son."
"He is such a petty-"
Banging from the front door cuts her off before she gets to call our father a bitch. I do wonder though what she means by petty.
"Are you expecting anyone?" Catalina looks at me in confusion.
I shake my head as there is more banging. Cat lives in a private community and she has guards and a strong security system, I'm sure it can't be anyone we don't know.
I watch her stand, taking the knife she was using, and I follow her out the dining room. She motions for me to stay behind her as she goes to the door and slightly opens it. Cat then sighs and fully opens it before stepping out the way.
Eric appears, he looks pissed off and relieved at the same time when he sees me. He immediately walks toward me, pulling me tightly into his arms and kissing my head.
I am now the one to be confused as I look at my sister who doesn't seem too pleased with my husband's presence.
"Thank God, you're okay." His words are quiet but full of so much relief.
He pulls away from me as I feel more confused on what he could be talking about. My confusion leaves when he tries to kiss me on the lips, and I move my head in time for the kiss to land on my cheek.
"Good evening, Catalina." He looks at my sister who is trying to hide a smile. She finds my rejection toward him funny.
"Good evening." She responds, closing the huge front door to her house.
"Where is Dahlia?" He questions taking a strand of my hair around his finger.
"Sleeping." I reply coldly pulling my hair away from him.
"I need to talk to you." He glances over at Cat. "Alone."
A tight-lipped smile appears on my sister's lips. She looks at me for approval and I slightly nod.
"I'll go finish my dinner." She excuses herself and immediately leaves.
Eric stands even closer in front of me. There is a smile on his face but it's a pissed off one. I have a feeling of what this might be about.
"What the hell were you thinking when you decided to burn down our home?" He takes one of my hands in both of his.
"It's your home and I didn't want to live there anymore." I reply with no shame or any intent to hide the fact that I did it.
"You could have just told me that. We would have looked for a new home." He angrily tells me, trying to keep his voice down.
"You committed a fucking crime, Lucia. You're lucky that I have some of the best lawyers and you're also lucky that you didn't get hurt." He pulls me into him, his arms tightly wrapped around my waist.
I try to push him away but I just don't have the strength. "Let go of me."
"Do you know how insane I would go if you got hurt or even died? You already drive me crazy now so imagine the things I would do if you were to leave me in that way." His stupid words give me that extra strength to push him away from me.
"You're fucking crazy and so stupid." He harshly tells me.
"I'm the crazy and stupid one?" I humorlessly smile.
"You're the one who has this stupid obsession with me thinking that it will get you anywhere." My words cause him to chuckle.
"It's not an obsession it's called love, but you wouldn't know what that is because you were too busy whoring around instead of trying to love me." I raise my hand to slap him because I am tired of his insults, but he immediately takes a tight hold of my wrist.
"I hope you don't have any stupid ideas of trying to leave me to go back to that fucking idiot. I suggest you smarten up if you don't want your family and our daughter to face the consequences." He shoves my hand away.
"I'll look for a new home and when I find it you and Dahlia will come back to me." He calms down, his eyes softened, and his tone changed as he acts as if nothing just happened.
"Can you leave now? I'm tired and your mere presence has ruined my night." I go to the door, opening it for him to leave.
"You did quite the opposite to me." He stands in front of me once more.
"I always feel so much pleasure being in your presence whether we're fighting or not." He caresses the side of my face with the back of his hand, and I shove it away.
He chuckles. "I love you, dear. Have sweet dreams of me."
I roll my eyes, accidentally slamming the door shut the moment he is out of the house.
__
"You're such a beautiful girl." I smile down at Dahlia who is playing with her rattle.
I feel so happy and proud to be her mother. Initially, I thought being pregnant was bad timing but now I don't think that at all. I think it was the perfect timing because she returned my happiness when it had been taken away. I'm so glad to have her in my life at this moment. Never would I have thought that I would become a mom after I was forced to get married.
I look away from the stroller and slow down my steps when I spot a familiar face.
I'm at the park on a walk with my daughter and just a few feet away on the grass is Sophie, Eric's assistant and girlfriend, with a baby boy. The dots immediately connect in my head and I slightly laugh to myself. There is no way she seriously let that piece of shit get her pregnant.
It's quite obvious, she looks a little different and the baby doesn't seem that far off from being Dahlia's age.
I decide to continue walking and I stop when I am in front of her. She looks up at me and I give her a smile. I've never had anything against her. She just hates me and it's obvious as to why.
"Sophie, good afternoon." I greet her, taking a look at Eric 2.0.
The kid looks just like him and Eric isn't ugly but lets just hope that his looks is all he inherited from him. His eyes are green just like Sophie's.
"Mrs. Donnelley, good afternoon." She glances over at my baby pink stroller.
"I haven't seen you in so long. How are you?" I genuinely question. I wonder what her and Eric's relationship is like.
Eric isn't someone you can trust and you have to be blind and stupid to love him. He's so aggressive and disrespectful.
"I'm great and I see you must be too with your baby. Congratulations by the way." The hate in her eyes that was there almost a year or less ago is gone and has been entirely replaced with some sort of sadness.
"Thank you and is he yours?" I question looking at the little boy.
"Yes, he is. I became pregnant just a few months before you." She informs me, a smile forming on her pink lips when looking at her son.
"He's beautiful like his mother. Congratulations." I say seriously and guilt flashes across her eyes.
"Thank you."
"I have to go now but I'll see you around." I smile at her and she only nods with a small smile.
I walk away with my daughter and I lower my sunglasses back down to my eyes. I feel sudden rage course through my body.
It's not fair.
He gets to have a family, but I can't. He has a woman who willingly probably wants him, and they have a son together, yet he is over here making my life a hell and keeping my daughter away from her father. It just isn't fair, and I will talk to him about this even if I know that it will be useless.
I continue walking and I end up at a cafe. I familiarize with the street and its then that I notice the cafe at the end of the street. Good memories come to me. Its where I spent a lot of time with him. I look away not wanting to think about it anymore and I walk into the cafe that is in front of me.
I go to order a coffee before I take a seat in the corner near a window. I decide to take my little flower out of the stroller so that she can look around and stretch a little from laying down. I take her small stuffed bunny with like pink bows on its long ears. I play with her making her giggle as I wait for my drink.
I stop and look up when somebody suddenly takes a seat across from me. I don't know whether to smile or not. I don't even know how I should feel from this sudden surprise. This is the person I least expected to ever encounter. He takes his fashionable and stylish glasses off. He smirks, his dimples showing.
"Lucia, nice to see you again." His light brown eyes show honesty.
"Silas, what a surprise." I smile but I am sure it shows how nervous I have suddenly become. Why wouldn't I when this man is best friends with my daughter's father?
"I was walking by and saw you, so I decided to come and greet you." His eyes move down to Dahlia on my lap who is trying to eat her bunny's ear off.
His eyes soften and he lightly smiles. "My niece is beautiful."
The words are so quiet that I almost think I am hallucinating and just hearing things.
"What?" My heart drops at his statement. There is no way he knows.
"Your princess is beautiful." He says clearly and that sounds nothing like what I heard.
"Thank you." I don't want to ask him about it or go into the topic.
"Here you go." A kind waitress hands me my iced coffee and then a croissant to Silas.
"Thank you." I smile at her.
"My pleasure." She smiles at me and Dahlia who surprisingly smiles back at her.
"What is her name?"
I actually take a few seconds to tell him because I know he will tell his friend. "Dahlia."
"Like the flower." He states with a small smile. "It matches her considering her beauty."
I smile and nod as a silence falls between us.
"Lucia, I am no one to judge or tell you what is right and what isn't but being with that weirdo is a huge mistake. You'll regret it because he isn't the man you probably think he is." He becomes serious, but again, I don't want to talk about anything right now.
I just lightly smile and nod once more. "Even if I didn't want to be with him, I would not be able to leave because it's not a choice I can simply make."
He nods putting his sunglasses back on. Silas then reaches into his jacket and pulls out a card. He slides it across the table to me, taking a bite of his croissant.
"Call me if you need absolutely anything." He stands up and with that I watch him leave.
I look down at the card on the table. It looks like a business card which is quite funny when you take into account what his business is and what he does. I slightly chuckle to myself and decide to keep it just in case. I slide it into Dahlia's diaper bag.
__
I look beside me at my beautiful little girl who is asleep.
I sigh feeling so much guilt for keeping her away from her father and the fact that her father doesn't know that she is his. I badly want to go find him and tell him the truth of everything. I badly want to run away to him and tell him that I do love him and very deeply, but I can't.
For some reason, my life must have turned out this way. My fairytale dreams were all stupid and I was delusional for thinking I could escape my fate. It was all decided by my father, and I should have never let my mind wander to give me hope that I would be happy someday. I had hope before I was told who I was technically being sold off too.
It all vanished when I was told I would be a part of the Donnelley family. I knew I would be miserable, but I never thought it would turn into this. I would have never thought that the little boy who was so possessive over me when I was a little girl would become such a pig and a monster. I didn't think his obsession and possessiveness would cause him to physically and emotionally hurt me.
I do really wish Ace would have helped me escape before Eric would have found out. It's all in the past now and there is nothing I can change, but maybe I can change the future and find a way to save me and my daughter from Eric or just Dahlia. I would sacrifice myself just for her to be safe...and with her father.
I reach over to my nightstand drawer. I take the book inside and I open it to find the card.
A. Silas Galanti
There is a small logo of a ghost and then there is his number.
Ghost. I wonder what that means or if it is just a little decoration signifying that he kills people.
_________________________________