Chapter 37 Chapter 37

Chapter 37 Chapter 37
~ Elena’s POV
Isabella was on the floor, crumpled and furious, tears and anger rubbing hot down her cheeks. For a moment, I simply stood there, the world shrinking the distance between us. My hand still held Damian’s gun, and I felt its weight like a promise and a threat at once.
She pushed herself up on trembling arms and faced us. Her eyes were sharp as knives, the same wildness that had shoved me down the stairs flashing back at me for a heartbeat.
Then she looked at Damian, and the venom in her voice was almost polite. “You want to put the blame?“ She spat out. “Put that on the man standing next to you, Elena. Look at what this man has done. Ever since he came into our lives, we got separated, Dad died…..who knows what will happen next?“
Her words hit like stones. For a second, my head went very loud with everything she’d said….Liz’s push, the kidnapping, her slaps….the timeline was folding into accusations that found their mark. The thought of Damian’s hand in my father’s death was a cold thing that crawled under my skin.
Tears blurred my vision, and I pressed my jaw so tight it hurt. Anger and betrayal fought together, desperately wanting not to believe her. I felt sick. I lifted the gun until its cold metal pressed to her forehead. “Don’t you dare,“ I warned, my voice steadier than my body felt. “Don’t put your poison where it doesn’t belong.“
She laughed, a harsh, humorless sound, and laid a palm over the edge of the gun, pressing it into her skin. “Pull the trigger if you dare,“ she dared me. Her eyes were unblinking as she glared at me. “Ask him why he’s dead.“
The words echoed in the space between us. My hand shook when I realized, with a hate-filled clarity, that I did not have the stomach for killing. I had not come to this life to become the kind of monster that ended people who were already broken. She shoved me hard with the gun, more of a provocation than an escape. Then, as if nothing else mattered, she slid into her car and drove away without another glance back at me.
The gun hit the floor with a dull noise that sounded huge in the quiet. Damian moved like a shadow by my side. He guided me to his car and sat me down, hands still trembling because my insides were still trembling as well. He drove me back to my parents’ house as if we were ghosts making our rounds. The police were still there, folding their notes into small, professional bundles. My mother looked hollow, a shell of rage and grief at once. She was packing while the officers murmured outside, and when I tried to stop her, she looked at me with a face that had already been resolved. My heart ached when I saw her like this.
“I’m going to London,“ she said simply, as if stating the weather condition. “With Mary. I can’t stay here and watch the house remind me of him.“
“But Mom—I’ll have nothing here that belongs to me. I’ll be alone. You—you can’t do this to me. I don’t want to live knowing you’re not near.“ I tried everything; please, tears, the small promises, but she had already decided. She wanted to leave the grief where it had begun.
When she spoke of Damian, she surprised me. “He’s rough,“ she admitted, voice small, “but I’ve seen him care for you. I think….I think he loves you. That looks a lot like what your father did for me.“
Something inside me trembled, but soothed at the same time. Mom saw what I didn’t always allow myself to see. Still, she was leaving, and the house would be hollow. I didn’t live here, but the memories weren’t something I could just leave behind.
I went downstairs and went straight to Damian. “Can I stay here until she leaves?“ He nodded with a soft look in his eyes. He wrapped his arms around me and stayed in the house like a shadow until my mother left for the airport. He stayed by my side through everything, even when my mother’s plane took off.
“Be brave,“ my mother had told me when she left for her flight. I had to hold back my tears because I knew I couldn’t hurt my mother when she was only trying to take care of herself.
Finally, we sat in the car and Damian drove, the Moretti mansion his final destination, but I turned to him. “Can we go back to your mansion? I want to stay there today.“
He turned to me, suspicion lining his eyes, but he didn’t say anything, and I almost thanked god loudly for it. He kept his stare at the road while I juggled with my fingers, wondering if I should ask him. After a while of mustering my courage, I did.
“Can you please look into Dad’s accident? It wasn’t normal. Dad was never a reckless driver; he never even went over the speed limit. It’s not possible that his car lost control because of speed.“
He turned to me. “Anything for you. You’ll hear back soon, don’t worry.“ Finally, with his promise to look into it, I was relieved to know that the truth would finally come to light. There was nothing Damian Moretti couldn’t find.
Finally, we reached the mansion, and he had already stationed guards outside. When we walked inside, a female security officer stood in the living room. I had a plan in mind that felt like an act of theft. I wanted to look into Damian’s wardrobe, and these guards might become an obstacle. Still, I told myself I would only look…only confirm…and then leave.
The female security officer who was stationed inside the mansion never sat and refused to move from her spot, which gave me an advantage to do what I wanted to do. Damian had left the mansion to get something done, and I took that as my cue to do what I wanted to do. I made sure one last time that the lady was at the place where she was last and ran to Damian’s room. I entered and went straight to his wardrobe. I pulled aside the lowest row and felt for seams. My fingers scrabbled along the wood until they found the hidden drawer, clever and completely secret.
My throat closed as I pulled the drawer. Files slide free….folders stamped with names I didn’t expect to see. I put all the papers on the floor, scattering them around to skim through them. A voice behind me made my spine drop cold.
“What are you doing?“ Damian stood in the doorway, shoulders broad, face unreadable, hands in his pockets.