• CHAPTER THREE •

Author Note: This chapter is not of present. It was written in a narrative way in Kiera's POV to explain the past better. I hope everyone understands (•~•).

Trigger Warning:

(for people who can't handle the mention of blood or abuse)

KIERA.

Six years ago, when the second line on the plastic stuck turned a faint pink. A cold, paralyzing dread gripped my chest.

The math was a nightmare that kept me awake in the dark. I had slept with Lorenzo countless times, our bodies colliding desperately with a destructive hunger that always left me breathless. But there was a razor-thin, horrifying margin.

Multiple nights of violence I tried to scrub from my skin every time I closed my eyes.

The baby could be Robert's.

My mother's new husband....and my abuser.

After Robert's death, I ran. I packed a single duffel bag with every dollar I had saved from my shifts and boarded a bus heading south. I didn't stop until I reached a small, dusty isolated town where the air smelled different and less suffocating, It was a place where nobody asked for your last name.

But the reality was I was eighteen and alone in a land that was far away from what I used to call home.

(FLASHBACK)

I had thought confiding in my boyfriend, Lorenzo, about the truth of Robert and his endless nights of torture would heal me, or maybe together we'd find a way.

Initially, what I wanted was to run away with him.

My mother would never believe me and she was barely around.

Robert was a pastor also, which made things more complicated, confiding in a trusted adult would have backfired.

So I ran to the only person I had faith in.

But instead......

'He hurt you didn't he?' Lorenzo asked with a sick smile that made me think if the boy I had loved for years was even real.

Robert was tied to a chair, all his limbs stabbed, he was bleeding badly and could barely talk as his tongue was already sliced out.

I stood in the middle of the hall in horror, my teeth chattering as Lorenzo raised a gun, pointing it at Robert's head. He slowly turned to me, his expression dark. 'I told you. No one touches what's mine.' Before I could comprehend his words, he pulled the trigger.

Bang.

A startled gasp escaped my throat as Robert's body slumped to the side, his struggles died down and his eyes rolled back.

'No,' I whimpered, taking a step back, the tears were now rolling endlessly down my cheeks. 'Y-you killed him.'

'I did what I had to,' Lorenzo said, taking two steps closer. My eyes darted to the gun in his hand and the blood splattered over his body.

'Y-you are a monster.'

A smirk tugged at his lips as he tilted his head. 'Just figuring it now? Pretty sure you understand why your mother hated me from the start. I told you Kiera. I'm a Matteo. We kill. And we kill to protect what's ours.'

But Robert's death wasn't the only reason why I ran.

When mother discovered the news, she ran mad and ran away from home. I spent days trying to find her but it was impossible, all I was left was a note blaming me for ruining the life she had carefully planned out for herself.

I wanted to kill myself then, until I felt an abdominal pain, and when checked out. I realized I was pregnant.

And at the same time, I also found out that Robert's wasn't Lorenzo's first kill.

It made sense. I had witnessed him kill Robert and he didn't look like a man who was having his first kill. He looked like a man who enjoyed doing what he loved the most all because of a twisted mindset.

But what didn't make sense was the fact that everyone that had ever crossed my path in an unfortunate fate was met with Lorenzo's wrath.

Then it clicked in.

'Ill always protect you.' A eighteen years old lorenzo smiled as he ruffled my hair.

A cheeky grin crossed my lips as I leaned against his shoulder. 'Thats so cringy of you to say.' I said in a dismissive despite the fact my cheeks were burning. 'For now let's drop it and focus on something else.'

I had just been beaten up by a senior. Since Lorenzo was from a wealthy family and I came from a mid range, we lived in different states and attended different schools. However he always made time for us.

I had thought the deaths and disappearnces were just a coincidence but now it made sense.

Six seniors.

A boss who once harassed me sexually.

A junkie stalker.

Then Robert.

Lorenzo was wiping them out.

(END OF FLASHBACK)

By the time I finally rented a cramped, leaking apartment, I was already two months pregnant.

I sat in a sterile, dimly lit clinic, the paper sheet beneath me crinkled with every shuddering breath I took. The local obstetrician, Dr. Lee, adjusted her glasses and looked at me with a heavy, sympathetic frown. She presented the options plainly.

I could terminate. I could walk away from the ticking time bomb growing inside my womb. But when she turned the monitor toward me, and the rhythmic double beat of two tiny hearts echoed through the quiet room.

Twins.

A sob caught in my throat as the options pressed down my neck.

"Miss Selene," Dr. Lee said, her voice laced with a sympathy that made me sick. "What will you-"

"I'll have them," I said, cutting her off. "I'll have the twins."

She lowered her clipboard, her brow furrowing. "Are you sure, Miss Selene? This is a massive decision for a young girl on her own. Raising one child is hard enough, but two?"

"I know," I said, swallowing the thick lump of fear in my throat but I looked her dead in the eye. "But I'll try my best. And please, call me Kiera. Not Selene."

That was the day I laid Kiera Ashwood to rest in a shallow, unmarked grave. I became Selene Diaz- a mother with nothing but a fake ID and a fierce determination to protect her children from the darkness of her past.

When the twins were finally born after twelve hours of grueling labor, I braced myself for the worst. I had spent months expecting two blond haired, blue eyed reminders of Robert's violation to be placed in my arms. But I had prepared myself to love them anyway, despite the sickness it would bring to my stomach.

But when the nurse wiped them clean and laid them against my chest, the breath completely left my lungs.

They had thick, dark tufts of hair. And when their tiny eyes fluttered open in the harsh hospital light, they weren't blue. They were a deep striking hazel.

Spitting images of their father.

Lorenzo.

He was the father.

Relief washer over me so violently that wept, my tears came in hot and fast, soaking my hospital gown.

My babies were not tainted by Robert's rot. They were a part of Lorenzo - a part of the only man I had ever truly loved since I was fifteen, and the man I still loved even as I feared him.

But that relief carried a deadly realization. If they were Lorenzo's, I had to keep them hidden. Not just from the mafia syndicates who would use them as leverage, but from Lorenzo himself.

He would either take them from me, or his enemies would put a bullet through their hearts just to see him bleed.