Three days later, I returned home with few of my daughter’s personal belongings and her death certificate, ready to talk to Dominic about a divorce.
The moment I stepped inside, I noticed that belonged to me from the master bedroom upstairs had been thrown out into the hallway like trash.
Inside my room, Zofia and her daughter were cheerfully unpacking their suitcases, arranging their things as if they owned the place.
My blood boiled.
I stormed in, ready to toss every one of Zofia’s belongings out the door. “Get out! Who told you you could move in here?”
Before I could even touch her, she wrapped her arms around Clementine in a dramatical show of fear.
“Ah—Nico, help me!” she said.
“Uncle Dominic, this woman is trying to hit me and Mommy!” said her daughter.
Suddenly, Dominic grabbed my wrist from behind and twisted it hard in the opposite direction. Pain shot up my arm, my face going pale—I was sure I heard a bone crack.
Through clenched teeth, he spoke, “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming back. Who told you to report that the kidnapping was staged? Now they’ve stripped Zofia of her first-class merit award, Clem can’t get into the elite school! So, are you happy now?”
I hadn’t even had the chance to explain.
“Let go of me! It wasn’t me—I came back to—”
Dominic cut me off sharply, his voice thick with barely restrained anger.
“I’m the one who let them move in. Clem is my goddaughter now, which makes her a family. They wanted this room, so you’ll give it up. You ruined her chance at that school, so, you owe them."
He added, "Touch them and I’ll break your hand.”
His cold words sent a chill through my spine.
We hadn’t always been like this. There were days, in the beginning, when we were happy.
During his startup days, we were so poor we ate plain bread every night and I lost ten pounds from the diet. He felt so guilty, that one time, he’d secretly put a cheese slice in between my bread.
Though life was hard back then, I was content.
Then his business took off—and Zofia came back into the picture, divorced and with a daughter.
Zofia Reid was Dominic's first love, the one he’d never been able to have. After that, he started coming home later and later, always with the excuse of “business dinners.”
We fought about her endlessly.
On our wedding anniversary, I found a brand-new necklace in his suit pocket. I thought it was a surprise for me—until he stormed in, ripped it from my hands and snapped my right wrist.
“This is Zofia’s birthday gift! You have everything already—why steal from her?”
Later, he got onto his knees and apologized, saying he hadn’t meant it.
If it weren’t for the fact that Dominic had once nearly died saving me, I would never have forgiven him, never given him chance after chance to hurt me again.
The memory of that broken wrist made me instinctively take a step back now.
However, Zofia used the moment to stumble backwards instead and hitting her head against the cabinet door. She dropped to her knees in front of me, clutching the small cut on the back of her head.
“Hannah, you’ve destroyed Aina’s future already, are you trying to kill us too? Please, spare a poor widow and her daughter!”
“What nonsense are you talking about?” I realized something was wrong.
Before I could say more, Dominic growled. He kicked me hard on the chest.
I crashed into the table, knocking over a vase and several glasses. They shattered against my back, sharp fragments slicing into my skin. Warm blood soon trickled down, mixing pain with cold fury.
“Zofia, drop the act! You and the kidnappers are the ones who killed Aina!"
"And you, Dominic, you’re no better. You had my daughter kidnapped just to make things easier for that woman!”
