He lavished her with diamonds, bought her the kind of jewelry that glittered like betrayal, and handed her a penthouse in the city’s richest district. They attended private parties together, always in the spotlight—her neck heavy with gold and stones that sparkled while I sat at home trying to piece together excuses for our six-year-old twins. His children.
They used to ask me why Daddy didn’t tuck them in anymore, why his voice only lived in phone calls and not in bedtime stories.
And when I finally broke—when I screamed, cried, and begged him to come back to us—to remember what we once had—he didn’t even blink. He looked at me like I was a stranger. Empty. Soulless.
“Stop being so damn dramatic, Isabella,” he said flatly.
That was all.
In his eyes, I wasn’t his wife anymore. Just an inconvenience that wouldn’t stay quiet.
So I did the only thing a cornered woman could think to do.
I made her disappear.
Natalia vanished—gone without a trace, erased from our lives before she could rip apart what little remained of our family.
I believed that would fix everything. That maybe he’d see clearly again.
But instead, Marco retaliated in the cruelest way—he took our twins.
“She’s in Monochalie,” I stammered, voice trembling. “The villa under my name. The one by the lake in Klarevia.”
For a long moment, he didn’t speak. He just stared at me—those dark, merciless eyes locked on mine. I couldn’t read him. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.
Then he picked up his phone.
He didn’t step outside. Didn’t even turn his back to me. Just muttered a few words in Italian, hung up, slipped on his jacket, and headed for the door—calm, collected, determined to go fetch his precious Natalia.
I caught his sleeve, my hands trembling. “What about the twins? Marco, please!”
He paused halfway, his profile sharp and cold.
“They’re at the old hospital,” he said, voice flat as glass. “Eastwood District. Go get them yourself.”
My heart stopped. My knees nearly gave out.
I didn’t wait for anything else. I just ran.
The drive blurred into chaos. I barely remember the streets—just headlights, the screech of tires, the horn of a truck I almost collided with at an intersection. My pulse thundered. My hands gripped the wheel so tight they ached. I was already there in my mind—already holding my children, already saving them.
When I reached the hospital, the world felt like it had stopped breathing. Rust clung to the gates, windows shattered like spider webs, machines rusted and forgotten. The air smSofiad of dust and ghosts.
And then I found them.
Mateo and Sofia.
Tied to chairs. Mouths gagged. Bombs strapped to their small chests.
My knees hit the ground before I realized I’d fallen.
Sofia’s cheeks were soaked in tears, her tiny body trembling. Mateo’s eyes met mine, steady and eerily calm. He shook his head—again and again—as if warning me not to move.
“No, no, sweetheart, hold on—” My hands shook so violently I could barely undo the ropes. The timer on the bombs ticked louder than my heartbeat. 03:12.
Sofia whimpered beneath the gag. I managed to free her first. “Run, baby, go!” I told her, and she obeyed, stumbling away in tears. Then I turned to Mateo. My brave boy didn’t flinch.
He looked straight at me, and in his eyes, I saw peace. Resignation.
Then he whispered, voice barely audible through the gag, “I love you, Mommy. Tell Daddy I love him too.”
Before I could react, he lunged forward—slamming his little body into mine, knocking me backward. My head hit the floor, my palms scraped raw.
“Mateo!” I screamed.
He didn’t stop.
He turned toward the bomb and threw himself at it.
“Mateo!”
The explosion swallowed my scream. The blast hurled me across the room. My skull hit concrete. Everything rang—my ears, my lungs, my soul. Smoke filled my mouth. Blood dripped from somewhere. I could taste iron. I couldn’t hear anything. Not even his voice.
---
When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital bed. Tubes in my arm. The room smSofiad like disinfectant and death. Sofia lay beside me, tiny body bandaged, hooked to wires, her chest rising and falling—alive.
But Mateo wasn’t there.
The doctor said we survived. But not all of us.
I knelt beside Sofia’s bed, resting my forehead against the mattress. Tears fell faster than I could wipe them away.
“I’m so sorry, baby…” I whispered hoarsely. “Mama chose wrong. I thought he’d protect us. I thought he loved us.”
Her eyes fluttered open, her voice weak, fragile. “You don’t have to be sorry, Mama… You’re here now.”
That broke me. I pressed her tiny hand to my face and sobbed until I couldn’t breathe. Until I couldn’t see. Until grief was the only thing left inside me.
Mateo was gone.
My boy. My brave, gentle boy. The one who called me soldier mama whenever I patched up his scraped knees. The one who hummed lullabies to his sister when nightmares came. The one who threw himself at death to save us both.
And I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t strong enough.
I had let Marco Cortez into our lives—into my heart—believing he could be the father he promised to be.
When I discovered Natalia, I should’ve walked away. I tried. Three times I drafted divorce papers. And three times, he tore them up right in front of me.
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“She means nothing, Isabella.”
“You belong to me. Always.”
I begged him to let me go. He never did.
Until now.
Because this time, I had something he’d forgotten. Something he signed without realizing what it was—back when he still trusted me enough to not read before signing.
A single document. My one advantage.
---
It happened months ago, right after the twins were accepted into the prestigious academy for mafia heirs’ children. Marco was sitting behind his grand desk, flipping through piles of documents—signing one after another with one hand while sipping whiskey with the other.
Then Natalia walked in wearing my silk robe, sliding onto his lap like she belonged there. She kissed him, right there in front of me, as if I was invisible.
And maybe I was.
So, I slipped the divorce papers quietly into the stack. Just one more sheet among the rest.
When I handed him the pen, I said, “The school needs your signature for a field activity permit.”
He frowned. “Didn’t I already sign something for them?”
“Just one more,” I said smoothly. Calm. Steady.
Natalia giggled, pulling at his collar. “Come on, Nic. Let her finish her little chores. We’ve got plans.”
He rolled his eyes, scrawled his signature without reading, and waved me off.
“Go. I’m busy.”
He never even noticed.
---
Weeks later, after we buried Mateo—no flowers, no condolences, just me and Sofia—we walked into the lawyer’s office hand in hand.
Sofia sat beside me, her small fingers curled around mine as the lawyer flipped through the documents. His brows rose in surprise.
“This is valid,” he finally said. “Legally binding. His signature is here. The divorce is final—effective immediately.”
