Chapter 118 MY MOTHER IS GONE

Chapter 118 MY MOTHER IS GONE


~ELENA~

“Open the door,” Vincenzo commands. It isn't directed to anyone in particular, but Riccardo walks towards the door.

He opens the door, and I see that Vincenzo is right.

One of Lorenzo’s men stands there….Marco, the tall one with the scar across his jaw. But this time, he looks… pale. His hands tremble slightly as he removes his cap.

Riccardo’s voice is low, sharp.

“What is it? Where are you here so early in the morning? Is Father aware of the fact that you're here?”

“Yes. I was sent by the boss,” he says, voice cold.

I stand, staring curiously at the man in black who is still standing at the door.

He doesn’t need to come inside.

“Speak up, Marco. Why are you here?” Vincenzo's voice booms.

“There’s been… an incident,” the man says quietly. “It happened two nights ago.”

“What is the incident all about?” Nico asks.

Marco swallows hard, his eyes flicking toward me before he answers. “It’s your mother,” he says quietly. “Donna Isabella.”

The word slices through me.

I stumble forward. “Where is my mother?” I ask, my voice barely there. “What about her?”

He hesitates, and then hesitation destroys me.

Then he exhales slowly, like the words are knives cutting his tongue.

“She was on her way back from a gathering,” he says. “There was a car accident. An ambush. It happened on the highway.”

I stare at him. The words don’t fit together.
It doesn't make sense. Don’t belong in the same sentence.

“And what…what happened??” I stammer.

“She's dead. She didn't survive it,” he says grimly. “Her driver didn't survive it either.”

No! No!!

My heart stops.

The room tilts, sounds fading into a dull echo.

“She’s…” I can’t say it.

“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “You’re wrong. You’re lying. I was about to call her.”

Marco’s eyes soften and he swallows. “I’m sorry, Miss Elena.”

The words hit me like a gunshot.

Something inside me breaks…..silently, completely.

The cup in my hand slips and shatters on the floor, scattering porcelain and hot tea across the tiles. But I don’t move. I just stand there, cold and still, staring at nothing.

The sound of my brothers’ voices blurs in the background ... .someone swearing, someone saying don’t tell her any more, someone closing the door.

But I can’t hear them. All I can hear is her voice from that night….I don’t know if I’ll ever get another chance.

It hadn’t been fear. It was true.

Something rips out of my chest.

A sound tears from my throat….raw, broken, animal. I don’t recognize it as my own scream until my lungs burn and my vision blurs completely.

“No…..Mama…..no…please…..!”

My knees give out before I even feel myself fall.

I collapse to the floor, the world shattering around me. I claw at my chest like I can rip the pain out, like I can reach inside myself and stop my heart from breaking apart piece by piece.

It must be a prank! That Marco guy must be pranking because how on earth is my mother dead??

She's fine when I left two weeks ago. How is she dead??

I wait. I am waiting for the guy to come back and tell me it's all a mistake, but he doesn't and I know it is true.

My mother is dead!

I scream loudly. I scream until my voice cracks. Until it disappears. Until all that’s left are sobs so violent my body jerks with each one.

Vincenzo is the first to reach me, catching me before I hit the floor again. His arms wrap around me, steady and strong, but I can feel his own chest trembling.

“She’s gone…” I choke out. “She’s really gone…”

“I'm so sorry, Elena,” he says softly and I can feel the pain and sorrow in his voice.

“She can’t be dead,” I cry. “She was fine. She hugged me. She promised….she promised…”

My words dissolve into wails.

Nico kneels beside me, his face pale, his jaw tight with something between anger and helplessness.

Hands wrap around me…..Riccardo, Nico, Vincenzo….but nothing grounds me. Nothing reaches me.

I am falling, endlessly, into a grief so deep it feels bottomless.

I press my face into Riccardo’s chest, fingers digging into his shirt, sobbing like a child who has lost the only safe place she ever knew.

“She didn’t deserve this,” I choke. “She just wanted to be free. She just wanted to live.”

My chest hurts so badly I think it might stop working.

No one says anything for a long time. The only sound is the soft, broken sobs tearing from my throat.

I cry until my eyes swell shut. Until my throat is raw. Until my body aches with the weight of loss.

The laptop screen still glows softly on the table.

The call was never made.

Morning has come. And my mother is gone.

When the tears finally stop, there’s nothing left…..just silence, heavy and final.



Later that night, I sit alone by the pool, the locket my mother gave me warm in my hand.

I open it. Inside is a small picture….me as a child, sitting on her lap, both of us smiling at something outside the frame.

I trace her face with my thumb, my chest aching so deeply I think I might never breathe again.

She has died without me. And her last memory of me is watching me drive away.

I think that memory will be enough to keep me strong. But now it just feels like a curse.

“I forgive you,” I whisper into the wind, my voice breaking. “Even now, I forgive you.”

The wind off the night carries my words away, scattering them across the dark water.

Behind me, I hear footsteps….heavy, deliberate.

I don't turn to look back, but when he gets closer, I realize it's Nico.

He doesn’t say anything at first. He just sits down beside me, his hand resting over mine where it holds the locket.

“She loved you, Elena,” he says quietly. “More than she ever knew how to show.”

I nod slowly, tears spilling again.

“I know,” I whisper. “I just wish I told her one more time that I loved her too.”

He squeezes my hand, his voice low. “Then tell her now.”

And so I do.

Under the moonlight, by the still waters of pool, I say the words my mother never gets to hear again.

“I love you, Mom.”

And this time, I don’t whisper it to the wind...I scream it into the night.

The words leave my throat and dissolve into the night, raw and shattered, like pieces of me breaking free and falling into the dark water.

“I love you, Mom.”

The echo dies quickly, swallowed by silence.

Nothing answers.

Not the wind. Not the water. Not the stars staring down at me without pity.

Nico’s hand tightens over mine, grounding me, but the emptiness remains….wide, cruel, endless.

It feels wrong that the world is still turning, that the moon is still bright, that somewhere people are laughing while my entire universe has just… stopped.

I bow my head, pressing the locket to my lips, my tears dripping onto the metal until it’s slick in my hand.

I didn’t get to say goodbye. Didn’t get to hug her one last time. Didn’t get to tell her I understood… or that I forgave her sooner.

All the words I saved for later have died with her.

I didn't get to spend enough time with her. I didn't get to have a fun time with her. Fuck! I didn't get to do so many things with her.

I regret being cold and distant to her. I regret pushing her away from me. I regret shutting her off from my life.

I realized just how much I have missed her on the night I left Florence…the night when I watched her fight back tears as I was leaving.

I made up my mind to be a very good daughter to her when I return and rebond with her.

But I guess it's never going to happen. Because why now?? Why? Why?? Why???

A quiet sob slips out of me, weaker now, exhausted, like my grief has finally hollowed me out. I feel small. Orphaned. Untethered.

“My mama is gone,” I whisper, the truth still foreign, still unbearable. Saying it doesn’t make it real…..it just makes it hurt more.

Nico pulls me gently into his side, and this time I let myself lean into him. I let myself be held. Because for the first time in my life, there is no mother waiting for me anywhere in the world.

The night stretches on, heavy and merciless.

And as I sit there by the pool, clutching the last piece of her I have left, one thought keeps replaying in my mind…..slow, cruel, inescapable:

Morning came…But my mother never did.

And no matter how hard I breathe, how hard I cry,
or how loud I scream her name into the dark….

She is never coming back.

The chapter of my life that had her in it…has ended.