Chapter 106
“Yes.”
Astor said it with such a simple, quiet certainty, but for me, it shattered everything. My grief, my hope, everything I’ve been holding on to, all of it crumbled. Shock hit me like a punch to the gut.
Disbelief followed because a part of me thought that it couldn’t be real, that this was some cruel trick of the light or a dream I’d wake from. But underneath the chaos, buried deep inside me happiness. My daughter. My Isabella. Alive.
But that happiness was quickly smothered by a series of questions and even heavier wave of guilt. My head spun. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to make sense of the feelings inside me.
“I… I always imagined this moment,” I managed to choke out, my raw and unsteady.” Meeting her, holding her for the first time, it was always a beautiful dream. Emotional, yes, but beautiful. This… this feels like a punishment. Alice got to raise my daughter. She—.”
Voice
Astor’s grip on my hands tightened, his thumb stroking my skin as I cried.
“All I want, the only thing I want right now, is to go to Alice’s house. To Alice’s house, Astor. And hug my daughter—?”
Before I could finish, his strong arms were around me, pulling me into a hug that felt both grounding and utterly overwhelming. I leaned into him, inhaling his familiar scent, finding comfort in his presence. “If that’s what you want,” he murmured against my hair, “then that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going right away. And we’re going to tell Isabella the truth.”
The words struck me like a cold splash of water. Tell her the truth? Now? I pulled away from him, my eyes wide with a fresh wave of panic. “No! Astor, wait. She’s five years old. Just five! In her mind, she already has a mother and a father. It wouldn’t even make sense to her. How would that little girl understand that her mother—that Alice isn’t her real mother.” this has to be the worst thing to happen to me because I should be celebrating this moment with my daughter and holding her feelings her and looking at her but I can’t do that because at this moment I have to think about her.
Astor’s gaze was unwavering, his eyes filled with a deep, understanding sorrow that mirrored my own. He gently wiped a tear from my cheek. “Faith, none of that matters for the moment. What matters, right now, is that we know where our daughter is. She’s alive. She’s safe. And we are going to get her back.”
I pulled back slightly, looking up at him, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m a bad mother, Astor. A terrible mother. I met her– I looked into her eyes, and I didn’t even recognize her. My own
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< Chapter 106
daughter. How could I not know?” The shame burned. I’m her mother so I should have
known.
+25 Points
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He cupped my face in his hands, his thumbs gently brushing away the wetness on my face.” Don’t you dare say that, Faith. Alice used dark magic. A powerful illusion. You couldn’t have seen through it. Even I… I couldn’t recognise our little girl.” He shook his head, a flicker of pain
in his own eyes.
“You are the best mother in the world, Faith. Look at Marco. You raised him to be the most amazing little boy that I’ve ever met. Isabella is incredibly lucky to have you as her mother. I will make sure she sees your good heart. She will know.”
“Okay, but… what do we do now? We can’t just… burst in and tell her. We can’t just say, ‘Hi, we’re your real parents.’ It would shatter her world.” I said because I failed that little girl and I can’t traumatize her even further.
He nodded, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow. “You’re right. My instinct was to rush, to get her back immediately. But you’re absolutely right. I also don’t want to confuse our daughter, or worse, hurt her. Alice isn’t bad in her eyes, not yet, I know how much she loves her and we have to go about this whole thing in a very sensitive way, we’ll have to tolerate Alice for a couple of days. Just until we can figure out a way to take Isabella back without breaking her heart. Without traumatizing her forever.”
Tolerate Alice. how do I tolerate her after what she did to me I had to go for 5 years not knowing that I had a daughter and she took that from me.
The thought made a cold knot tighten in my stomach, but Astor was right. Isabella was the priority. Always.
“Tell me,” I pleaded, my voice barely audible. “Tell me everything about her. About Isabella. What she’s like. What she loves. Everything.”
A slow, tender smile spread across Astor’s face, chasing away the shadows. “If I start talking about how special that little girl is,” he warned, his eyes twinkling, “we might not sleep the whole night.”
I squeezed his arm, a genuine laugh bubbling up from somewhere deep inside me. “I don’t care,” I declared, feeling lighter than I had in years. “I don’t want to sleep. I won’t sleep tonight. Not with her so close. Yet so far.”
We moved to the bed and I snuggled into his side, my head resting on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. And then he began. He told me about Isabella’s how she loved to draw little fantastical creatures, her favorite stories, her endless questions about the stars. He recounted silly touching moments, and the little quirks that made her uniquely her.
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I laughed at his descriptions, tears of joy brimming in my eyes as he painted a vivid picture of the daughter I hadn’t known. But as he spoke, detailing five years of scraped knees, bedtime stories, and laugher, a raw, aching pain settled in my chest. Five years. Five years of her life. I’d missed. Five years of memories I hadn’t shared. Every story, every detail he shared, was a beautiful gift, but also a sharp stab of what I’d lost.
The pain curdled into a cold rage. My hands clenched into fists. “Alice,” I hissed, my voice low and venomous. “She’s going to pay for this, Astor. She’s going to pay for every single moment I missed. Nobody is going to stop me.” The thought of her, living my life, raising my daughter, made my stomach churn.
Astor sighed, his hand coming up to gently stroke my hair. “I know, Faith. But there’s something we have to put to bad before we go through this whole thing because it’s something you constantly bring up and you have to know the truth.
”
I have never liked Alice in the way you think I did.” His voice was quiet, almost a confession. She was always just an annoying little sister to me, until she became… obsessed. But I never, ever looked at her that way. I need you to understand that. I need you to stop feeling insecure about her, because I promise you, Faith, I want her to pay just as much as you do.”
My breath hitched. Insecurity. He was right. All these years, I’ve believed his feelings for Alice were real, that I was just a second choice, a stand–in. It was a wound from past traumas, from the things that had happened between us, that had festered in the shadows of my mind. “I… I didn’t think you believed me,” I admitted, the truth tasting bitter on my tongue. “Because of everything.”
He shifted, pulling me closer still, his lips brushing against my forehead. “You’re going to have to learn to trust me, Faith. For your own peace of mind, for us, for our family. And I… I have to learn how to reassure you more. Every single day because I’m the reason why you always have to question everything about us.”
“I don’t think now is the time for us to be talking about all of this.” I said because I get where he’s coming from but for now all Ican think about for now is our daughter.
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I know but when it comes to this fight with Alice we’re going to have to play a game and in this game you’re going to have to trust me and that I feel nothing for her?”
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