Chapter 01

Author's note:

Copyright © 2023 by Elisa Bianchi

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events described are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to names, dates, living or dead people and actual events is mere coincidence.

Content +18.

I also warn that this story addresses sensitive issues and may cause emotional triggers to some readers, such as: physical and verbal violence, profanity, explicit sex, abusive relationship, family abuse, torture, among others.

However, if you still decide to embark on this adventure, I wish you a great read! Welcome (a) to my world.

A kiss, Elisa Bianchi.

I*******m: @elisabianchiautora

***

Harper Ross

Eleven years before that…

Hidden under my bed, I tremble and cry, as my mother’s cries echo everywhere. I can’t stand the sound of her screaming. I get out from under the bed and peek through the lock.

My mother fell to the ground, badly hurt and crying in despair.

I just turned ten, I can’t stand to see my mother suffer so much anymore. By God, my little sister is in the care of the neighbor. If she were here, she would surely be in panic as much as I, Emily is just an innocent baby. I didn’t deserve this monster as a father. I don’t know mine, but at least he never hit me. Roger has tried several times, but Mom always defends me and catches me in my place.

“No, Roger, please!” Mother begs, weeping. 

“Shut your mouth, bitch!” cries Roger, as he delivers countless blows to my mother.  

“Help!” Mother screams and I despair. 

“Mother!” I call, crying. 

“Harper, stay there, daughter! Don’t leave!” she asks, and then I hear a loud thud.

“Roger, I beg you, stop!”  beg, however, the blows only increase. 

My mom and I, we don’t have a very good relationship, actually, she barely speaks to me.

She’s a maid, works hard, I barely see her, I always stay at the neighbor’s house with my little sister. I miss her, lack of love and affection, I wanted her to be like the mothers of my little friends. But I know she’s tired of working alone so hard to support us.

My stepfather’s lived here since I’ve known him. He never worked, lives drunk in the corners, assaulting and offending my mother, constantly.

He takes all her money to support his addiction. While we live with almost nothing, even going hungry because of him.

I don’t understand why Mom accepts all this. I heard a conversation from Mary, the neighbor who takes care of me, and she said that Mom has emotional dependence. I don’t know what that is, but I’m sure of one thing:

“I’ll never get married, Nun!”

“I’ll kill you, you bitch! Whore! Where were you?” Scream, continuing your physical and psychological torture on my mother. 

Roger’s screams are deafening and make me very afraid. The whole neighborhood must be listening, but Roger doesn’t care about that fact. The neighbors may call the police, but they don’t mind coming to a poor neighborhood like Harlem in the middle of the New York suburbs to save my mother. Every time Roger attacks my mother, Mary always calls asking to come, but they never came, never.

“I was working, Roger, I swear!”

“Then give me the fucking money!”

“Roger, the money is to buy food for our daughters. Please stop, you’re scaring Harper.”

— That bastard is not my daughter! Can she take it? I think so!

I don’t understand what he meant by that. But I’m terrified when I notice him coming towards my room. Before he comes in, I run and hide in the closet. Through the crack in the closet, I watch as he opens the door abruptly, but my mother immediately steps on top of him.

“No! Do what you want with me! But you won’t touch her!”

“I will kill you, and then I will do what I want with this little bitch.” He will hang her and despair me.

“Mommy!” scream, calling in panic and crying without control.

“Stay there, child!”

“Come here, Harper! Now, damn!” Roger screams ordering, but even if I wanted to, I couldn’t get out of place.

“Don’t you dare touch her, Roger!”

“Or what? Bitch! What are you gonna do?” The fucking man screams, grabbing my mother by the hair and dragging her out. 

I run after them and watch the exact moment when my mother rolls down the stairs, trying to get rid of Roger’s aggressions.

“Fuck, fuck! Shit!” Roger swears, completely out of control.

Upon learning of what he has done, Roger takes his wallet and car keys and flees immediately. Terrified, I run down the stairs to my mother and see her lying in a pool of blood coming out of her head.

“No! Mommy, Mommy! Wake up, please! Mommy, don’t leave me!”

I shake, scream, cry and beg, but my mother no longer answers me. At that moment, I did not know, but that disturbing image never left my head.

The current days…

“Noah, shouldn’t that be simpler? Emily’s my sister, I can’t leave her in that place.”

I question my childhood friend and now lawyer. While I serve him a generous slice of chocolate cake with Belgian cream.

“Unfortunately, the law isn’t that simple, Harper. You’re very young, you’re single, and you’re in debt.”

“They investigate everything! And do not believe that at this moment you are able to take care of Emily.”

“And is she better in that place? The law doesn’t even exist!”

“Calm down, Harp, we’ll figure it out!”

Noah comforts me, lightly tightening my shoulder

“They have to change their minds, Noah!”

“I’ll do everything in my power, Harp, I promise!”

“We will appeal the decision and ask for a temporary custody hearing, it will work!” It states by putting the last bite of cake in your mouth.

“Thank you, my friend! I don’t know what I would do without you!” I say, smiling, and hug him.

Noah and I were practically raised together. When I arrived at the West Hill orphanage after the death of Rita, my mother. Noah’s the first friend I’ve made since then, we’ll never get away from each other.

My mother was Brazilian, came to the United States when she turned eighteen. To work as a nanny in the house of a millionaire family. All I know about my father is that he abandoned her pregnant. My last name I inherited from Roger, who registered me when he married my mother.

As we had no relative or guardian. When Rita passed away, my sister and I were sent to an orphanage, where we lived for all these years. Emily, my little sister, was adopted when she turned three. But shortly after, the family returned her to the institution. No family wanted me.

I grew up in that horrible place, but I knew when I turned eighteen, I’d have to get out of there. So, I studied day and night without rest and got a scholarship to the college of gastronomy. And lived on campus until I graduated.

Now finally formed, I realized my dream riding my confectionery, in one of the best spots in the city. Our focus is on wedding cakes, and we were successful in the beginning. However, in recent months, the movement is weak and debts are only increasing.

“You’re welcome! I’m here for that! But tell me, how are things at the store, did a new customer show up?”

“Actually, I’m almost giving up!” I reveal with dismay.  

“To top it off, the lawyer of that damn businessman who wants to tear down my shop, came back here to intimidate me.”

“He wants me to sell the point at all costs!”

“I heard rumors that he’s going to build a mall. He’s buying every store on the block.”

“His construction company is one of the most powerful in the country.”

“This bastard, he thinks he can buy the whole town?”

“If that overbearing lawyer shows up here again, I’m gonna turn a sack of flour over his head, I swear.”

“I’ll sell the store to anyone but this preposterous prick.”

“Don’t take any hasty action!”

“Wait some more time, to sell! Will something happen and completely change your life…”

“Oh, Noah! I stopped believing in fairy tales long ago!” 

“If you were at least married, things would be much easier, Harp! The court, unfortunately, is sexist. A husband would completely change his situation.”

“Now you’ve gone crazy for good! That will never happen and even if I wanted to, nor boyfriend I have!” I confess, and he smiles. 

“You don’t, because you don’t want to!”

“It seems so!”

I hit him with an elbow, and we laugh at each other.

“Excuse me!”

I turn immediately when I identify the damn lawyer voice that’s been coercing me.

He clears his throat and stares at me suspicious.

“Miss Ross, good afternoon!”

“What the hell are you doing here again?” I question, angry.

“Miss, I must insist that…”

“I already said that my store is not for sale!” Practically scream.

“Is it possible that I have to file a complaint with the police?”

 “Can you control yourself, so we can negotiate as civilized people? Or is it waiting too long?”

He inquires, in an absurdly arrogant tone, the man who seems to have left a magazine cover.

“Was he here the whole time? Or is it a mirage? How does one get to be so beautiful?”

The monument of man is so high that I need to look up when I face it.

And I get lost in the blue and bright immensity of his eyes, which stare at me as if we were only the two of us in the environment.

Wearing a beautiful suit and certainly more expensive than this entire store, he fixes the tie and swallows dry. As I stare at him, looking for my tongue inside my mouth.

“Can you hear me, young lady? Can you at least answer?”

Question him by removing the inappropriate thoughts that dominated my mind.

“Me, it is…”

“Can we talk, or will I have to take more drastic measures?” Question sharply, making me angry again.

“Who do you think you are, to threaten me?” He responds in the same measure, angry and simultaneously trying not to show how stunned this man left me.

 “I am, Liam Specter, the ridiculous little prick, who will buy your store!”