Chapter 89 Chapter Eighty Nine

Chapter 89 Chapter Eighty Nine
Cesar looked from Dante to Arya then back to Dante, not quite believing what he just heard. His father. The word sat wrong in his mouth even unspoken. His father was the maniac that had kidnapped his wife? Oh hell no.

"Excuse me?" He moved to stand in front of Dante.

"Tell him, Arya." Dante said. "I couldn't believe it myself, but seeing you now..." He let his voice trail off.

"I wasn't always a call girl. I was just... at the wrong place at the wrong time when I met Dante." Arya began, taking a deep breath. "I was a dancer at the club, and one day after my performance, my boss called me and told me that Dante Silvestro wanted me to dance for him privately in his hotel, and of course, when I heard the price he was paying, I agreed immediately."

"Long story short... After my private performance, Dante refused to let me go. I begged and pleaded, but he was adamant, and then I hit him when he tried to kiss me. He became furious and hit me back, then he tied me to his bed and... he raped me." Her voice broke as she started to cry.

"I... went to inform him of my pregnancy, but he ordered his wife to throw me out. She made life miserable for me. I couldn't get a job anywhere else except the club. Then I became depressed, so I took to drinking and drugs. I hated myself so much that I transferred that hatred to my innocent baby." She cried harder.

Cesar was in shock and didn't know when he dropped the gun in his hand. He'd always thought his father was dead, but here he was — holding his pregnant wife, mother, and sister captive. 

All this time. All those years wondering, imagining, grieving a man who wasn't even dead, who'd been out there living a life that had somehow, impossibly, collided with his own. His heart ached in his chest, and he crumpled to the floor as the shock of hearing how he came to be made him weak all of a sudden.

Dante eyed the gun on the floor and didn't waste time picking it up, and he pointed it at Cesar's head. He had only one child, and that had been Sabrina, and Sabrina was no more.

"You love him?" Dante asked Arya in a voice that was strange even to his own ears.

"Yes! He's my son... your son!" She sobbed. "It's the truth."

"My truth was Sabrina, but you killed her! Now I'm going to take your children from you." He seethed.

"No." Ellie gasped. "No!"

Everything happened in slow motion. Dante cocked the gun, ready to fire, while Ellie tried to go and shield Cesar, but somehow Arya beat her to it as she wrapped her arms around Cesar, covering him with her body, and the gun went off.

Get up. Move. Do something — but his body wouldn't obey him, wouldn't process what was happening fast enough, and by the time his mind caught up, it was already too late to stop it.

"Cesar!" Ellie cried.

"Mommy!" Rose cried, but they were too scared to move from their spot.

"Goodbye." Dante stepped back from Cesar and Arya, made to shoot Rose, but something sharp and painful immediately pierced his heart, which made him look down in shock at his chest. 

Something warm and red pooled in front of his green shirt, then he looked back to see Cesar pointing a gun at him before his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell.

Cesar barely registered the weight of the gun in his hand, barely remembered picking it up a second time. All he could feel was the warmth spreading against his shirt where his mother's body pressed against his — a warmth that was quickly turning cold.

"Momma!" Cesar cradled Arya's head in his lap as he willed her to open her eyes. "Momma, please wake up!"

He pressed his hand against the wound, some desperate, useless instinct telling him that pressure alone could hold back what a bullet had already set in motion. 

He'd spent his whole life without a mother's love, and now that he finally had a name to put to that missing piece of himself, he refused — refused — to let her slip away before he'd even had the chance to say it back to her.

Ellie and Rose exchanged puzzled glances, then smiles, even as tears streamed down their cheeks. Could this be the end of the family feud? They hoped so.

Arya opened her eyes and looked up at Cesar. "What... did you just call me?"

"Mom." Cesar's voice broke.

He hadn't planned to say it. It had just come out, the word slipping loose from somewhere he didn't even know he'd been keeping it. But now that it was said, he found he didn't want to take it back.

Arya closed her eyes, and a tear rolled down the side of her face. She'd waited so long to hear him call her that again — now she could die in peace, except... her left arm hurt like the devil.

"I'm sorry, Cesar." She apologized. "I know I have no right to ask for your forgiveness, but I hope that... with time, you'll learn to forgive me. No excuse is excusable."

Forgiveness. It was too big a word to reach for right now, with her blood still warm on his hands and thirty-some years of absence sitting between them. But looking at her face, he realized he didn't have to solve it all in this one moment. There would be time.

"It's all right." He sniffled and sent her a smile. "You need to go to the hospital."

"I'm not dying?"

"No. The bullet only grazed your arm."

Arya sighed in relief. "I'm content staying like this though." She grinned.

Cesar chuckled, then, with the help of David, Arya was pulled to her feet, and he stood up.

"Take her to the car." He said to David.

"Yes, sir." David nodded and led Arya away.

"Cesar." Ellie hugged him tight.

Cesar tensed up but soon relaxed and hugged her back tight. He thought he'd never see her again. Every terrible possibility he'd refused to let himself think on the drive over rushed back at once, now safe enough to feel. He kissed her hair, her forehead, her eyes, her nose, and then finally her mouth — hard.

Rose silently cleared her throat and left them. She could talk to him later if he'd give her audience.

"God, I thought I'd never see you again." Cesar rasped.

"Me too. How did you find us?"

"Tristan." He said. "Did they hurt you?"

"No. I'm fine." She smiled.

Ellie's stomach chose that time to growl, and they both laughed.

Even after everything — the gun, the blood, the father he'd buried and unburied in the span of an hour — it was this, her stomach growling in his arms, that finally made the whole nightmare feel like it was actually ending.

"The baby's hungry." Cesar grinned. "We'll all go to the hospital first, then you'll eat."

"Okay." She nodded.

"I love you, Ellie." He lifted her up in his arms, making her squeal in surprise, and kissed her.

"I love you too, Cesar." She said, when she came up for air.