Chapter 23

Believe me, I'm not mean, I just have a dark side that's a little too pronounced.

For a second I thought I was going to die and the next I was still there.

I saw the bullet arrive, I felt it graze me and yet it was the vase that exploded instead of my skull.

He had my life at his fingertips, a few inches to the right and he would have killed me.

And yet.

Yet he spared me.

- Elizabeth? Asked a voice in the distance.

It was just a whisper in my ears. Like coming from another world. I was somewhere else while being among them. The whisper became louder yet I still couldn't make out their words.

I closed my eyes lulled by the regular rhythm of my heart. The blood came and went in my body, pumped by the concentrate of my stoned feelings.

Suddenly I knew that if I didn't want to fall to the ground I had to leave.

Because I knew. I knew that if I opened the floodgates of my heart everything was going to come out. Everything I had repressed would come out like a torrent and that was out of the question.

I stormed out of the room where a most violent scene had just taken place and walked through the space to my bedroom.

Without thinking I took only my skinny and almost empty backpack. I went down to the bay window that I had borrowed a few hours earlier and left with my head screwed towards hell.

I knew I was going to get caught, I didn't even call it an escape attempt per se because I had just walked out the main door, but I didn't care.

I walked quickly as guards yelled at me to stop.

Not listening to anyone, I continued to make my way until I was forced to stop by security guards.

They surrounded me and without understanding anything about it I felt suffocated.

I'm going crazy, I'm going crazy.

One of the men put his hand on my shoulder but I struggled, pushing out of my body this hand that seemed so heavy, so heavy.

I suddenly remembered the day when I argued with Damen. I couldn't get over my emotions, I cried all the tears in my body while insulting her with all the names. Then my sister came home , she took me in her arms and helped me calm down.

She told me to inflate my stomach and blow until I couldn't take it anymore. That day, it calmed me down.

And still today.

I calmed down little by little, once again in control of my emotions.

My temporary madness was gone and I found myself facing guards almost in attack position.

- Leave it! The head of the family intervenes in the distance.

Aldo hurried up to me and waved his men away.

He looked at me then sighed.

His eyes fled me looking sometimes the ground sometimes the sky.

- Walk with me, he finally said.

I followed the elderly man that he was. We walked through the property of the manor, skirting the forest.

- My son is not as mean as he seems

- His kindness is well hidden

- You say that because you don't know him like I do.

After a few steps in silence he adds in a voice tinged with nostalgia:

- When he was little, he was torn between good and evil. He chose evil but it is good that runs through his veins

- From what I have deduced if he is the leader you are the godfather.

- I haven't always made the best choices for my children, it's true, he breathes regretfully, but I really love them.

I nod my head. What could I say to this father destroyed by his choices? I knew that with every beat of his heart he bitterly regretted having plunged his children into hatred and violence.

- Vladimir wears armor to hide, I'm sure.

I didn't answer anything. I wasn't used to deep discussions.

I loved my father enormously, but I only entered into futile discussions with him, without much importance.

- You should understand that, he adds.

- For what ?

- Because you too are hiding

I froze in place as black-clad guards came towards us.

They tilted their heads slightly in front of the godfather before turning their heads in a movement, united and precise, towards me.

- We have orders to bring the girl back to her quarters.

Aldo beckoned me to follow them, smiling at me tenderly, like the promise of a bright future.

I sighed as I followed the silent guards as tombs.