Chapter 2 – More Torture
“Mommy!” Ariella whimpered softly.
“Ariella,” I called her, “Just hang in there baby.”
She smiled at me weakly. Her eyes looked weak and her lips were pale.
“Mommy, I’m fine… I… I love you,” she stuttered.
Her body was freezing. When I got to the hospital I screamed like a mad
woman.
“Get out of the way!” I yelled.
The nurses ran toward me immediately with a stretcher as they wheeled her
away.
I tried to join them in the emergency room but they stopped me.
“Please wait outside, Miss,” they said to me.
Those forty–five minutes were the longest of my life. I paced, sat, stood, cried, prayed–then did it all again.
Eventually, the doctors stepped outside with the nurse.
“We’ve stabilized her,” they said to me.
“How’s she? Can I see her?” I asked, trying not to panic.
“She’s been stressed and without oxygen today. She needs to rest. I also advise you to do the same before you collapse. You can come back. tomorrow, she’ll be better by then,” the doctor answered me.
Better? I wasn’t sure anything would ever be again.
But still I nodded, “Alright. I’ll come check on her tonight.”
The doctor told me to rest. To come back tomorrow.
But the moment I stepped out of the hospital, I didn’t go home to rest. I didn’t even realize I was still running on fear.
I just knew Ariella would want Mr. Snuggles–her stuffed rabbit. And her music box. And her pink blanket that smelled like home.
music box. Ana ner pink Dianket that smelled like пome.
I had to get those for her. I had to feel useful. I had to feel like her mother
again.
I drove to the mansion, too shaken to think. Still aching in every joint from the fall.
I pushed the doors open quietly, expecting silence.
But when I walked up the stairs and into Ariella’s room-
I stopped breathing.
The room was empty.
The walls were bare. The bed was gone. The shelves were cleared. Her toys, her books, the butterfly lamp, the unicorn rug–gone.
The sound of a crackling fire pulled my eyes to the window. Outside, at the edge of the garden… smoke was rising.
I stumbled down the hallway, down the stairs, and out through the glass
doors to the back lawn
And saw her things burning.
A pile of dolls, blankets, books, and drawings–Ariella’s world turned to ash.
“No… no… what is this?” I whispered.
A soft voice came from behind me.
“Oh, I hope you don’t mind…”
I turned around–and there she was.
Renata. Standing in Ariella’s room with a tape measure in her hand and paint swatches on the floor.
“She’s been in the hospital so long,” Renata said sweetly, tilting her head. “It made sense to start preparing the nursery.”
I blinked, stunned.
“Nursery?”
She smiled wider and rubbed her stomach.
“Lorenzo and I are having a baby.”
Her words were a gut punch.
7:1. Tue Sep 9..
I felt my stomach twist, but I refused to let her see the pain.
“There are dozens of rooms in this mansion,” I said, voice trembling. “Why use my daughter’s?”
Renata gave me that sickening, innocent shrug.
“Because everyone knows the miserable little bastard’s going to die soon. anyway.”
The words struck like lightning.
I slapped her. Hard.
Her head snapped to the side. She gasped, then slowly looked back at me with a glint in her eye.
And she smiled.
“You’ll regret that,” she said.
Then, in one fluid motion, she threw herself back and slammed her head on the wall.
Blood started dripping from her forehead.
I stood frozen.
“What are you-?”
She screamed. A long, piercing, fake shriek.
“STOP! SOPHIA, PLEASE! I didn’t tell anyone to burn Ariella’s things–DON’T
HURT ME!”
What?
“Stop! Please!”
The door burst open.
And Lorenzo stormed in.
His eyes landed on Renata–bleeding, crying, cowering.
“What the hell did you do to her?!”
He didn’t wait.
The slap sent me to the floor.
L
Chamer 2
More Torture
Tue.
7:11 54 Sebene to the hour.
My cheek burned. My lip split open.
“Lorenzo, I didn’t–she hit herself–I swear-”
“SHUT UP!” he bellowed. “I told you if you touched her again-”
He grabbed my wrist and dragged me to our room.
I tried to explain but he wasn’t listening.
He opened my closet. Yanked every gown, every shoe, every gift, every memory we ever shared.
He ripped the framed wedding photos off the wall. Tore the letters I wrote him to pieces. He dumped it all in a pile and set it on fire.
“Everything I ever gave you, everything we ever shared–burn it all,” he spat. “You hurt Renata because of your bastard daughter, you don’t deserve. anything I’ve ever given you!”
I watched our history go up in flames. I didn’t cry, I couldn’t move.
He turned to the guards.
“Take her to the dungeon. She can rot there tonight until she learns her damn place.”
“No–no, please, Lorenzo–I have to see Ariella! Let me see my daughter!”
But they were already dragging me.
And he knew. He knew I was claustrophobic!
I screamed, fought, clawed, but the iron door slammed shut.
The room was small. Tight, airless, no windows, no lights and the smell hit me instantly.
Jasmine. Hundreds of them. Scattered, hanging. Pressed into every surface.
My throat tightened. My eyes burned. I couldn’t breathe.
He’d filled the room with jasmine flowers. The one thing I was deathly allergic
- to.
“No… please…”
I banged on the door. Scratched at it. My chest was caving in.
“Let me out! My daughter–she needs me!”
Chapter 2 More Torture
4/5 62.
THEPynteneu. my eyes purned. Courant preathe.
He’d filled the room with jasmine flowers. The one thing I was deathly allergic.
- to.
“No… please…”
I banged on the door. Scratched at it. My chest was caving in.
“Let me out! My daughter–she needs me!”
My throat was closing. My lungs were seizing. I fell to the ground.
“Ariella–Ariella-”
The world swam in and out of focus.
“Please… I have to… see her…”
And then-
Everything went black.
The last thought on my mind was how they’d kill me
