Chapter 8 : Struggling to live

The next couple of days, Bianca stayed in the hotel without seeing daylight. Since that morning, she had been frozen on the bed, unable to understand how a life she had built so carefully could shatter in the blink of an eye.

The days slipped by unnoticed…When she finally checked out of the hotel, she had nowhere to go and no one left to call. All she could do was lean on faith. She went to the bank to check on an investment she had made, only to find the place completely shut down.

Bianca slowed her steps, staring at the huge signboard on the building.

CLOSED.

Her heart sank.

Confused and desperate, Bianca asked another person standing nearby..someone who, like her, had come looking for their money. That was when the truth spilt out.

They were scammers and the company had never been legitimate.

That money was everything she had saved for years. Rosina had convinced her to invest in the company. With trembling hands, Bianca begged for a phone and called Rosina.

Rosina answered and laughed.

“Come on, Bianca. I thought you were the smart one,” she mocked. “Turns out, I was the smart girl all along.

Bianca’s breath caught.

“There was never any investment,” Rosina continued coolly. “I created it just to take everything from you.”

Bianca fell to her knees.She had trusted Rosina with everything she had. And she never once questioned her.

As the days went by, Bianca found herself sleeping on the streets, behind people’s shops and mart stalls, curling up wherever darkness could hide her. She begged for food when hunger became unbearable and survived on leftovers tossed aside by strangers. Survival became her only routine.

She forced herself to bury what needed to be buried, but the pain shot through her every single day especially with the little one growing inside her. There was no point in thinking of court or hiring a lawyer to sue Charles for bigamy. Everyone in the High Law circles in LA knew the truth: the Warrens owned the system. Charles’s grandparents had once been powerful supreme judges in their time, and their influence still ruled the judiciary. Bianca wouldn’t stand a chance.

Returning to the Warren mansion only shattered her further.

She had stood outside, pleading just to be given her clothes, her certificates, anything that belonged to her. But Mrs Camilla’s voice was cold and merciless.

“Everything of yours was burnt the day we sent you out.”

Bianca collapsed right there, breaking down in tears. She needed something, anything that could make life easier, lessen her burden. But there was nothing.

She began running from one vendor to another, washing dishes just to earn a plate of food for the day.

Luck finally showed her a little mercy when she found her way back into the fashion industry. She had always had a thing for the runway, mastering the business side of it. When she was younger, she had modeled to support her sick mother and herself, until death came quietly and took her mother away.

Now, alone, she tried again...Bianca managed to get accepted by a local modeling agency for small runway shows. But it didn’t last. As her stomach began to show, they told her they could no longer work with her. They had no idea she was pregnant, Bianca had chosen to be both mother and father to her child, quietly and alone.

She didn’t fight it. She didn’t even feel disrespected when they told her she needed to rest and keep her weight in check.

With the little money she had made, Bianca went to check on her baby. She was already one month and three weeks pregnant, with no checkups at all.

She just needed to know how her baby was doing.

In her haste to get to the hospital, Bianca’s steps suddenly slowed the moment she spotted a car she could never forget even after years. It was the same car Charles had gifted her on her twenty-fourth birthday.

Her fists clenched as she watched Charles carefully help Rosina out of the car, supporting her every step of the way. He didn’t let go of her, not even for a second. Bianca stood there, forced to do everything alone, with no one to help her.

Inside the hospital hallway, Bianca saw him standing by himself now, a phone pressed to his ear. Bianca quickly moved to the left side, cornering herself so he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of her.

Tears burned her eyes.

After her checkup, she stood outside the hospital and watched them get back into the car together like a happy family. Her chest tightened.

Bianca swallowed hard...She turned away quickly, forcing her legs to move as she walked down the street, searching, once again, for a place she could sleep for the night..

Days quietly slipped into weeks, and weeks into months. Just like that, it had been three months already.

Bianca stood behind the bar counter, wiping tables and setting them for the next customers. As she worked, she lifted her head and saw the TV playing. Charles was on the screen, Rosina by his side, and the rest of the family around them at some event. Their little baby sat in a stroller.

How cute, Bianca thought bitterly.

Her hand moved to her belly, touching her baby bump.. She was four months along already, yet her tummy barely showed, she was too petite, too underfed from weeks of stress and barely surviving.

Her child would grow up without a father.

The thought shattered something inside her.

She fought back her tears and quickly bent down, scrubbing the table harder than necessary. She needed to finish quickly so she could take a break, hide somewhere, and cry her heart out, like she had been doing almost every single day.

Time, she had learned, didn’t heal her pain.

It only taught you how to live with it.

“Heyyy.”

The voice startled her.

Bianca turned sharply to see the bar owner, a woman in her mid-forties with a sharp edge to her tone. The woman looked Bianca up and down, then suddenly smiled. It was the widest, warmest smile Bianca had seen since she started working there three weeks ago.

“Come with me,” the woman said gently.

Bianca tried to explain that she needed to finish her work first, but the woman chuckled softly and waved it off.

“Leave it there, darling. Let the others handle it. Come, come.”

She took Bianca by the arm and gently pulled her along.

Confused, Bianca followed unsure of what was about to happen.

Inside one of the bar’s private rooms, Mrs Sisimi, the owner, pulled out a stunningly beautiful dress. , She held it up and then looked at Bianca, a tight smile playing on her lips.

Bianca stared at the dress, confused. She lifted her eyes to Mrs Sisimi, her face blank, waiting for an explanation. Why had she been pulled into this room? Why this dress?

“I want you to put this on,” Mrs Sisimi said, tossing the dress toward Bianca who barely caught it.

“Change in five minutes.”

“But… for what?” Bianca forced herself to ask.

“Well, get dressed already. Time is not on our side,” Mrs Sisimi replied, already walking out.

She left Bianca standing there, the door closing behind her, giving her no chance to ask another question.

About thirty minutes later, Bianca arrived at the event center Mrs. Sisimi had sent her to. On the way, she had finally managed to ask what this was all for.

“If you want to be back in the modeling industry,” Mrs Sisimi had said bluntly, slamming the address onto the table, “then stop hesitating and go.”

At that point, Bianca didn’t care anymore. She would take any gig just to survive.

She took a deep breath as she walked down the long hallway, stopping in front of the room number she’d been given. After a brief pause, she knocked gently.

A heavy, hoarse voice told her to come in.

Bianca stepped inside, expecting to see a panel, people with clipboards, cameras, something familiar to the fashion world. Instead, she saw a lone man in his early sixties, sitting with his legs crossed, holding a file in his hand.

Bianca’s heart skipped...“I...I’m sorry, sir,” she said quickly, turning halfway toward the door. “I’m so sorry, sir. I think I’m in the wrong place....”

“Aren’t you Bianca?” the man interrupted. “The one sent over for the audition with me?”

Bianca turned back slowly.

The man stood up abruptly, shoving his hands into his pockets as his eyes roamed over her trembling body.

“Let me see what you’ve got,” he muttered.

Bianca froze, fear rooting her to the spot. When he suddenly reached out and touched her, she gasped, stepping back.

Shaking, Bianca forced herself to move, making a few simple turns, a basic walk. The man nodded, looking impressed.

Then he stepped closer and a little more closer …

The air around her tightened as discomfort crawled up her spine. Bianca tried to pull away, but her back hit the wall.

He was already in her face.

The look on his face changed slowly shifting from professional to something else entirely.