Page 48 of Koroleva

I tried to fix it.

"I meant that if someone here dies, it won't be me. Your father will die first."

The boy clapped his hands over his mouth, and Romeo's glare was scorching.

What? I wasn't lying; he was a man and six years older than me, plus, I came here to kill him, so...

The kid didn't burst into tears as I expected. Instead, he lunged at me to kick my shins. That damn brat also had it out for them, like the dog.

"He's not going to die! He's not going to die!" he repeated mercilessly. I tried to push him away. Romeo scooped him up and pressed him against his body.

"No, of course not. Nikita was joking, she was pulling your leg, but she's Russian, and her humor is different, much more sour. Right?" he insisted, annihilating me with his pupils.

"If you say so," I shrugged.

The little one stopped kicking. I don't know if he bought the explanation about my lack of spark, but at least he calmed down a bit.

"I'm going to take Adriano to his room and ask Ana María to stay with him while we go out. Wait for me in the car."

"Are you going out again?" the child questioned. "It's the weekend!"

"I know, but something work-related has come up. I give you my word that next weekend we'll do what I promised. Seriously," Romeo apologized, walking away with him.

I didn't know what his father had promised him, but whatever it was, they shouldn't count on me or it would cause the child irreversible trauma.

I waited patiently for my husband to appear, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel. When Romeo got in, he reproached me for how hard it was to calm the child after my clarifications about death.

"Where did they give you the stepmother certificate, in the Snow White movie?" I looked at him disdainfully.

"I already told you kids aren't my thing."

"One thing is that kids aren't your thing, and another is that you implant fears in their brains."

"I'm actually quite good at that. When Sarka asked how she came out of my mother's belly and she was at a loss, I told her it was in parts. Head, shoulders, body, and legs. She started screaming and asking if they had killed her and the doctors had to stitch her back together." Romeo chuckled softly.

"Damn. Okay, I get it, you're not great with kids."

"Only from eighteen onwards," I added slyly.

"Let's rule those out," he grumbled. "Do me a favor, and I'm serious about this. Adri hasn't been doing well with the whole death thing. In fact, he's taking it pretty hard, and your remarks aren't exactly helping." Curiosity got the better of me, so I didn't hold back from asking.

"What happened to his mother? I know yours died from an illness."

"Mentium," he summarized.

I was about to start the car, but I couldn't. The answer was like a bullet that pierced my brain. It couldn't be, it just couldn't...

"Are you trying to mess with me?" Romeo shook his head.

"She was one of the victims. She wasn't feeling cheerful, followed her doctor's advice, bought the pills, and..." he clicked his tongue. "She jumped off a fifth floor when Adri was at school. At that time, I didn't even know I had a son, it was a university fling, we weren't even dating, she was a classmate of your brother. I found out about her death from the newspaper. I went to offer my respects to her family, and when I showed up, they told me she left a letter addressed to me."

"Adriano knows that his mother..."

"No. His grandparents didn't want to burden him further. They just told him that his mom was called to be with God in heaven. He stopped attending that school, so the news of the suicide wouldn't reach him, and he came to live with me."

I was breathless. My body trembled uncontrollably as I imagined the situation.

"Hey, hey! Nikita, are you okay?" Romeo's hand reached for my face to make me look at him. My eyes stung. I didn't know what to say or what to do.

---