Chapter 4 - THE DEEP CUTS
At 8:00 AM the following morning, a knock echoed through my house.
I had sent the children to stay with my sister early that morning, wanting to protect them from the fallout. When I opened the door, Luca stood on the porch alone. He didn't wear his usual pristine suit jacket; his white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, his eyes bloodshot, his jaw covered in dark stubble. He looked like a man who hadn't slept a single second.
"Where are they?" was the first thing out of his mouth.
"They're safe. Away from here," I replied, standing firm in the doorway. "You don't get to barge into my life and make demands, Luca."
"They're my children, Nia!" he snapped, his voice cracking with a terrifying mixture of rage and grief. He stepped forward, forcing his way past the threshold before I could stop him. He closed the door behind him and stared at me, his breathing heavy. "Seven years? You kept them from me for seven years?"
"You threw me away!" I yelled back, the pain I had buried for nearly a decade erupting like a volcano. "You sat in our kitchen, looked me in the eye, and told me you didn't love me! You listened to the rumors, you let your toxic family and your boardroom snakes convince you that I was damaged goods because I couldn't get pregnant on your timeline!"
Luca flinched as if I had struck him. "I was wrong!" he roared, slamming his fist against the wall. "I was a fool! I was surrounded by people telling me you were lying, and I was too weak, too blind to see the truth! But that doesn't give you the right to rob me of my children!"
"I didn't rob you of anything!" I retorted, tears finally spilling over my lashes. "I protected them! You wanted a pristine, perfect life with a pristine, perfect wife who fit your corporate image! What would you have done with them, Luca? Turned them into corporate heirs before they could even walk? Used them for press releases?"
Luca took a slow step toward me, his rage suddenly vanishing, replaced by a devastating, raw agony.
"I was dying without them, Nia," he whispered, his voice breaking completely. "Every year... every single year since you left, the silence in my life got louder. I built an empire, and it means nothing. Nothing. I sat in doctor's offices across the country being told I was healthy, realizing every single day that I threw away the only woman who ever truly loved me for a lie."
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He stopped inches away from me. The aroma of his familiar cologne—sandalwood and expensive leather—hit me, evoking a tide of memories that nearly brought me to my knees.
"Please," Luca whispered, dropping his head, his forehead resting against mine in a gesture of absolute surrender. "Please let me know my children."
