Page 68

Valeria

Z yon’s resurrection shook the entire New York. His face was everywhere. Reporters again camped before our main gate and occupied the driveway. It was impossible to leave the house without someone with a camera following us.

I became a person of interest, too. My relationship with an infamous mob boss filled the pages of every newspaper, not to mention I was still married.

People took photos of me when I went for a run or when I decided to drive my daughter to school. I was happy bodyguards were constantly with us because the media was crazy. They didn’t let me breathe without their regular presence.

“Do you remember the project we did for art class?” Zara asked in the car, leafing through her schedule for another week. Zyon wanted to move her to a prestigious private school, but I wanted to wait until the end of the term.

“Yes.” I looked into the rearview mirror, checking where the vehicle with our security was. “Did you submit it on time?”

“Well…” She cast me a wide smile, looking too guilty for my liking. “I forgot, and today is the last day.”

“Zara,” I sighed, parking the car before her school .

“Sorry, Mom.” She leaned between the front seats, blinking at me innocently. “Will you bring it? Please.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I shook my head, realizing I had no idea where the project was.

“I found the note about it this morning,” she replied, showing me her notebook. “I really forgot, Mommy.”

“It’s okay.” I smiled at her. “I need to download the school app on my new phone to get notifications about your forgotten projects.”

“Why? Zyon already told me about the new school,” she announced, her face lighting up. “It is in the national championship in math.”

“Amazing,” I told her, noticing her bodyguard waiting outside. “Where is the project?”

“In our old apartment,” she answered, gathering her stuff. “Under my bed. I put it there to dry and forgot about it.”

“Okay, I’ll bring it,” I promised, touching her hand.

“Thank you, Mommy.” She stuck her head in front and kissed my cheek. I exited the car with her, waving at her before she disappeared inside the building.

“I need to make a detour,” I said to the bodyguard who was assigned to accompany me. He left the car with his colleague and joined me in my car.

“No problem.” He shrugged, looking into his phone. He checked something on the GPS, not paying attention to where we were heading.

The ride was silent because the guard wasn’t a chatty guy, and my mind was preoccupied with thoughts about Chester.

I was confident he had fled the country, but returning to our apartment after everything that had happened there felt bizarre.

It wasn’t my life anymore. I escaped him, yet I was still anxious about opening the front door.

“Stay here,” the bodyguard ordered when I stopped the car before the front gate.

He used my keys to unlock it and checked the perimeter.

I saw him disappear inside the building, and the window in my former bedroom opened two minutes later.

He showed me a thumb-up, and I released a deep breath.

Chester wouldn’t be hiding there. Zyon’s men would have found him instantly.

This was the first place they searched after the attack .

I got out of the car and crossed the front yard. An old neighbor from the apartment above ours stuck her head out from behind the curtain, waving at me. I waved back, intending to pay her a quick visit.

The lady was in a wheelchair, and the nurse caring for her usually attended to another patient and returned around lunchtime. The lady’s family didn’t come often, so she was happy for any guests.

I ran up the stairs, feeling an odd nostalgia. All in all, I spent eight years of my life here. And they weren’t only bad. There were times when I was happy to be Chester’s wife, but he killed everything I felt toward him with his lies and abusive behavior.

Thinking about Zyon instead brought me back to the present.

I pushed the door open, frowning. I expected the guard to wait for me in the entry hall, but he was nowhere to be found.

A ridiculous sensation of someone watching me washed over me, yet I pushed it back.

The apartment had been checked. Everything was okay.

Attempting to find the art project, I gripped the door handle into Zara’s room when something in the bedroom caught my attention.

I came closer, stopping in my tracks on the threshold.

On the floor, beside the bed, lay my bodyguard, unconscious.

The blood from the wound on his head soaked into the carpet, and his arm was twisted at a strange angle.

Covering my mouth with my palm to mask a desperate scream, I realized I had seen a thumb-up from my car but hadn’t seen the face. Veering around, I wanted to run toward the front door when a familiar, chilling voice froze me on the spot.

“Well, well, well. Who do we have here?”

Chester walked out of the living room with a maniacal grin on his bearded face.

His hair was longer than usual, and he looked decrepit.

There was no sign of my handsome, elegant, and confident husband.

The man standing before me was thin, like he hadn’t eaten in days.

His usually perfectly manicured fingers were dirty, and his sunken eyes looked crazy.

The hunt for his head forced him to hide like a rat, taking its toll on him.

“What are you doing here, Chester?” I asked, trying to hide the tremor in my voice. “If Zyon finds you, you’re done.”

“Don’t pretend you care for me, you cheating bitch!” he snarled, his face contorted with bitterness. “You chose him over your husband. ”

“You chose hookers and slot machines over your wife and daughter first,” I countered, sensing the anger bubbling in my stomach.

“I did it to give you this!” He threw his arms in the air, pointing around us. “You wanted a child, so I gave you a child! You wanted an apartment, I bought you an apartment! How did I become the bad guy when you got what you wanted?”

“You controlled, manipulated, and abused us the entire time,” I hissed, glaring at him. “It was never the life I wanted.”

“Do you think Zyon is better than me?” Chester asked, taking a step closer to me. I instinctively backed away, noticing the closed front door and the key in the lock.

“It’s not a competition,” I pointed out, watching him cautiously. He could attack me anytime. I had to escape.

“No, it’s our daughter’s life,” he said, lowering his head. “How is she? How’s school?”

“She’s happy, Chester,” I answered, my gaze landing on the papers on the coffee table. He raised his head, and I immediately snapped my eyes toward him. “It’s all that matters, right? That our girl is happy and safe.”

“I won’t leave her with him, Valeria,” Chester said firmly, his eyes flashing lightning at me. “He won’t have my family.”

“It’s not your decision to make.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, baby doll,” he said in a falsely sweet voice, making my stomach churn with dread. “You’re mine.”

Without warning, he jumped on me. My reaction was quick, but he managed to grab my hair and yank me back.

I yelped in pain, fighting with him to free myself, but he smashed me against the wall.

I hit my arm and forehead, yet I ignored the pain.

Adrenaline and my self-preservation instinct were stronger.

White dots appeared before my eyes as I tried to run to the bedroom, but Chester quickly caught me and threw me on the floor beside the unconscious bodyguard.

My hand was buried in the wet carpet, and when I looked at it, it was covered with blood. My stomach twisted with nausea, but I didn’t have time to breathe it away because Chester appeared in my line of view .

“You were such a good wife before that bastard showed up,” he said, kneeling beside me and grasping my chin roughly. “Why did you have to destroy everything?”

“Me?” I whispered, yanking my throbbing head from his hold. “You lost all our money. You cheated on me!”

A hard slap came out of nowhere, making me gasp. I pressed my palm against my cheek, tears falling from my eyes.

“Stop accusing me of things I never did!” he yelled, hitting me again. “Zyon spreads lies about me!”

I covered my head from his brutal punches, so he started hitting my ribcage and stomach. Curling into a ball, I begged him to stop, but he was in a trance. All his frustration was transferred to me in the form of strikes I couldn’t avoid or block.

“You bitch,” Chester seethed, gripping my arm and pulling me along the floor into the entry hall. I kicked my legs and tried to fight him with all my might, but he violently dragged me into the living room.

My body hurt. I tasted blood in my mouth, and my right eye was swelling so quickly I almost couldn’t see through it. I touched it when Chester let go of me and hissed in pain.

All my senses were on high alert when I watched him walk into the kitchen. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted to do with me. He’d completely lost his mind. I had to be prepared for the worst.

Looking around to find something to defend myself, I noticed my phone on the floor. It was about three feet from me, but the distance seemed insurmountable. My beaten body had difficulty crawling to get it.

The sound of breaking glass interrupted my concentration on the phone and reminded me I had to be quicker. I gathered all my remaining strength and grabbed it, but I could barely see the screen. With luck, I unlocked it and called the first number I found.

“What are you doing?!” Chester roared, and I shoved the phone under the couch. I heard a male voice from the speaker, but I didn’t know to whom it belonged.

“Nothing, Chester,” I claimed in a raised voice, hoping the person on the other side would hear me.

“You lying bitch!” he yelled, approaching me with a long knife. A whimper escaped my mouth when I looked at the shiny blade. “Why are you always lying to me?”

“I’m not!” I cried, crawling away from him, but my body was exhausted and refused to cooperate. “Please, don’t kill me in our home!”

It was the best I could come up with. If someone was still on the phone, it indicated where I was and that I was fighting for my life.

“You destroyed me, Valeria,” Chester snarled, swinging the knife before my face. “Now, I’ll destroy you!”

I burst into tears, desperate sobs almost tearing me apart. The image of my beautiful daughter danced before my eyes when Chester snatched me by my hair, lifted me, and tossed me on the couch.

“Why are you crying?” Chester shouted, slapping my face again. “Don’t you like it, you whore? When Zyon tied you to the bed, you loved it! Why don’t you enjoy this?”

My heart clenched at the mention of the man I loved. No matter what craziness he did, he would never hurt me. He was my lifeline, my protector from this mad monster.

Another punch almost knocked me out. Chester hit my temple with his fist, and it was the last drop of my resilience. My limbs stopped working. My body fell limp on the sofa. The world disappeared.

Through my one functioning eye, I saw his silhouette towering over me, throwing strikes at my broken body.

But nothing hurt anymore. I felt like my soul was slowly leaving my body, and I watched Chester from far away. I was at peace with what was about to come. I only prayed Zyon would take care of Zara. She had no one to rely on except for him.

A sudden bang made me flinch. I was violently hauled back to reality, unsure of what I had heard. It sounded like a gunshot, and it was so loud I momentarily thought my eardrums ruptured.

An agonizing groan slipped past my dry lips, and I turned to the side but fell from the couch. I hit my head on the floor, weeping like a child. The pain returned with full force, paralyzing me .

There wasn’t a part of my body that didn’t hurt. I tried to move but couldn’t. All strength left me. The world spun, and I felt like I would throw up at any second. But then I detected a sound of heavy breathing. My heart clenched, expecting Chester to appear, yet no one came.

Grunting reached me from the entry hall, and I pushed myself to peek from behind the sofa.

“Zyon,” I whispered, recognizing the contours of his face. Blood dripped from my forehead into my one healthy eye, and I spit it on the carpet as I crawled toward him.

“Valeria,” he breathed, stretching his arm in my direction. “Chester ran away.”

Relief washed over me, but then I caught sight of more blood around him.

“You’re hurt,” I sobbed, unable to control myself anymore.

“It’s just a scratch,” he reassured me, leaning forward and trying to take my hand. “I already called an ambulance.”

I collapsed at his feet. He moved closer, hugging me tightly as I slowly lost track of time and reality.

“Hold on, Valeria,” he whispered weakly, trying to keep me awake, but it was impossible. It was too much. The last thing I heard was the siren outside before everything submerged into the darkness.