Chapter 5 The kiss that taste like revenge

Chapter 5: The Kiss That Tastes Like Revenge

I thought after he broke off his engagement with Bianca, I would finally have a moment to breathe. I was wrong. In the world of the Mafia, a broken engagement is not just a breakup. It is a declaration of war.

That night, Lorenzo was in Paris for an emergency meeting about our casino, so I was alone in my penthouse in Rome. The city lights were beautiful from my floor-to-ceiling window, but my mind was not at peace. I was holding the small white baby shoes that Alessandro returned to me. I was drinking red wine, trying to make sense of everything that happened in the last three days.

For five years, I built this cold version of myself. Madam E. The woman who doesn't cry, who doesn't feel. I thought I succeeded. Pero nung nakita ko si Alessandro na umiiyak sa gitna ng Via Veneto, lumuhod sa harap ko, that wall I built started to crack. And I hated myself for it.

I hate that after everything, a part of me still cares if he was burned under the sun. I hate that my hands still remember the warmth of his hands. I hate that my heart still beats for the man who left me to die.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't hear the doorbell at first. It rang again, longer this time, more insistent, almost angry.

I frowned. It was 11 PM. My building has the strictest security in Rome. No one can come up to my floor without Marco's clearance. No one.

I walked to the intercom and looked at the CCTV monitor. My blood ran cold.

Bianca.

She was standing outside my door, wearing a tight, short red dress that looked wrinkled, her usually perfect blonde hair messy and tangled. Her makeup was smudged, her eyes were swollen from crying, and she was holding a half-empty bottle of wine in one hand. She looked like a woman who had just lost everything and had nothing left to lose. And those kinds of women are the most dangerous.

I knew I shouldn't open the door. Every instinct I learned in the last five years told me not to open it. But the Queen in me, the part that never backs down from a fight, pressed the unlock button.

I opened the door but I blocked the entrance with my body. I was wearing my black silk robe, my hair tied up, no makeup, but I still looked every inch a Queen compared to her.

Bianca laughed when she saw me. It was a bitter, drunk laugh.

"What do you want, Bianca?" I asked, my voice cold and tired. "It's late."

"What do I want?" she slurred, swaying a little. "I want you to leave, Elena! Just like you did five years ago! Why did you come back? Bakit ka pa bumalik? We were happy! Alessandro and I were about to get married! Everything was perfect until you came back with your pathetic revenge story!"

I crossed my arms and leaned on the doorframe, looking at her with pure disdain. For five years, this woman lived in my house, slept in my husband's shadow, wore my title. And now she had the audacity to call my pain pathetic.

"Happy?" I said calmly, with a small, cruel smile. "You call being a second choice happy? You call begging a man who never loved you happy? Kawawa ka naman, Bianca. For five years you tried to be me, pero hindi mo pa rin nakuha. And you never will."

My words were sharp, designed to cut deep. And they did. Her face twisted in pure rage. The fake, sweet mask she always wore finally fell off completely.

"You think you won, Elena? You think because he cried for you in the street like a dog, you won?" she screamed, her voice echoing in the hallway. "He will never love you! He only feels guilty! Guilty because you lost that bastard child!"

Time stopped.

The wine glass in my hand slipped. It fell on the marble floor and shattered into pieces, red wine spreading like blood.

My whole body went cold, then hot with a rage I had never felt before. Not even five years ago.

My baby. My angel. My innocent child who never got to see the world. She called him a bastard.

I didn't think anymore. I didn't care about being Madam E, about being elegant, about being cold. I was a mother.

My hand moved on its own.

PAK!

A loud, hard slap landed on her face. So hard that her head snapped to the side, so hard that she fell on the floor, dropping the wine bottle which also shattered, cutting her bare feet.

"Don't you ever call my child that again," I whispered. My voice was low, trembling, deadly dangerous. I was shaking, not from fear, but from pure maternal rage. "My child was a De Luca. He was innocent. He was mine. And you have no right to speak his name with your dirty mouth. You are the bastard here, Bianca. Not my son."

Bianca held her cheek, shocked for a second, then she started laughing like a crazy woman, blood mixing with wine on the floor.

"Oh, now you're acting like a mother? Where were you when he was dying? You couldn't even protect him! You're weak, Elena! That's why Alessandro left you to die! Because you're a weak, useless woman who can't even keep a baby alive!"

I raised my hand to slap her again, harder this time, when a strong, familiar hand grabbed my wrist from behind and pulled me back.

"Elena, tama na. Enough."

Alessandro.

I don't know how long he had been there. I didn't hear him arrive. He must have followed Bianca.

He was breathing hard, his eyes dark and murderous as he looked at Bianca on the floor. He pulled me behind him, shielding me with his large body, his back acting as a wall between me and Bianca.

"Enough, Bianca. Leave. Now," he said. His voice was not loud, but it was the coldest, deadliest voice I had ever heard from him. Even colder than the night he left me.

Bianca looked up at him, tears streaming down her face, her cheek red from my slap, her feet bleeding.

"Alessandro? You're protecting her? After everything I did for you? I stayed with you! I loved you when she left you! I was there for five years!"

"You did nothing for me, Bianca," Alessandro said, without any emotion. "And she didn't leave me. I abandoned her. And I will not let you talk about my child ever again. That child was mine. My blood. My son. And you have no right."

My son. He said my son. For the first time, he called our baby his son.

My knees went weak. I had to hold onto his arm to keep myself from falling.

Bianca stood up slowly, her face now full of pure hatred, looking at me then at Alessandro. All traces of the sweet first love were gone. What was left was a monster.

"You will regret this, Alessandro! You will regret choosing her again! And you, Elena! This is not over! I will make sure you lose everything again! Just like you did five years ago! I will take everything from you!"

After screaming that threat, she ran away barefoot, leaving a trail of blood and broken glass in the hallway.

Silence fell in my penthouse. It was just me and Alessandro. The smell of wine and blood, the city lights, and the sound of my heavy breathing.

He turned around slowly to face me. His gray eyes, which were just full of murderous rage for Bianca, were now soft, worried, and full of concern as they looked at me.

"Elena..." he whispered. He reached out his hand, hesitantly, asking for permission to touch me.

This time, I was too tired to push him away. Too tired from the fight, from the memories, from the pain that Bianca brought back. I just stood there, tears silently falling.

He took that as a yes. Gently, so gently as if I would break, he cupped my face with his large, warm hands. His thumb wiped my tears away, so tenderly.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that," he whispered, his forehead touching mine. His breath was warm on my face. "No one will ever call our baby that again. I promise you. I will kill anyone who does."

Our baby. He kept saying our baby.

"Alessandro, why are you here?" I whispered, my voice breaking. "Bakit ka nandito?"

"Because Marco called me. He said Bianca was drunk and coming here. I was scared she would hurt you. I can't lose you again, Elena. I can't. Not again."

He was so close. I could smell his familiar cologne, the same one he used five years ago. I could feel his warm breath, his heartbeat.

"Elena..." he said my name like a prayer.

And then he kissed me.

It wasn't gentle. It was desperate, hungry, full of five years of regret, longing, guilt, and obsession. His lips crashed onto mine, his hands tangling in my hair, pulling me closer as if he was afraid I would disappear again.

For a second, I forgot everything. I forgot the blood, the abandonment, the revenge. All I felt was him. The man I loved for three years, the man I mourned for five years.

I kissed him back. I couldn't help it. My body remembered him.

It was a kiss that tasted like tears, like wine, and like revenge.

But then my phone rang loudly on the table, breaking the moment.

I pushed him away, gasping for air, my lips swollen.

My phone screen lit up. It was Lorenzo.

I answered it with shaking hands.

"Lorenzo?"

"Elena, don't trust him! And don't drink anything Bianca left! I found out who really ordered the attack five years ago! It wasn't the Rossi family! It was Bianca! She paid them! She wanted you dead! Come to Paris now!"

My eyes widened. I looked at Alessandro, who was looking at me with love and confusion.

Bianca ordered the attack that killed my baby.

The real revenge is just beginning.