Page 83 of Soulless Rivalry

“My baby,” she sobbed, drenching my shirt. “Please tell me it’s a mistake, Elyssa. Tell me my baby’s okay.”

And just like that, the tears finally broke free from my eyes. We held each other as we cried, sharing the agony, the heartbreak of losing someone we loved. Of losing family.

“I’m so sorry. So sorry,” I mumbled restlessly.

I had failed to protect her. I failed Mia and I failed Aunt Matilda. They were my only real family left and I’d failed them so horribly.

The driveback home was tense.

Actually, tense was too tame a word. It washell.

A helicopter took us from the island to some small town’s airport in Oregon, and then we took the family jet to fly back to New York.

I hadn’t had time to say goodbye to anyone from school: neither my friends nor Konstantin. They’d probably sent me a few texts since yesterday but I had turned my phone off, not wanting to risk his name lighting my screen and my cousins or uncles seeing it.

Nobody spoke during the whole drive to the estate. The twins’ father didn’t even acknowledge my presence.

Renaldi Gavini was everything I hated in a man: greedy, cruel, egotistical, and too proud. He hadn’t shed one tear for his daughter, not even when they went to identify the body and Aunt Matilda had come back looking like a ghost.

If anything, he looked annoyed to be there, like he had something better to do than tend to his dead daughter’s corpse.

We sat at the back of the town car that came to get us from the airport, he and Aunt Matilda next to each other while Lorenzo and I sat side by side, right in front of them. Viola and Batista had taken another car with their parents who came to meet us at the airport, and I was grateful for that.

Renaldi was engrossed in his phone, Lorenzo looked like he wanted to die, and I simply stared into the distance, deep in thought.

Aunt Matilda though, was sobbing softly and staring out of the window, blowing her nose every now and then.

“Will you shut up already!” boomed Renaldi’s voice as he turned his face to look at my aunt.

I squeezed my fists, dying to tell him to fuck off, to respect a woman crying for her child, but I couldn’t.

His violent outbreak only caused Matilda to cry harder, and she broke my heart when she tried muffling the sounds with her trembling hands.

“I swear to Christ, Matilda, if you don’t shut up I’ll shut you up myself,” he hissed, getting in her face.

To my surprise, Matilda clapped back this time around. “How can you be so heartless! Our beautiful baby girl just d–died!”

“She was an addict and whore! Or didn’t you see the report from the coroner?”

“She was raped!” my aunt screeched like she was finally getting to express herself after years of abuse.

Her words made my heart lurch in my throat and I gasped, hands coming up to cover my mouth in shock. My gaze snapped to Lorenzo’s and he too looked sick, eyes wide and pale skin staring back at me. I didn’t even have time to dwell on it, though, because Renaldi slapped Aunt Matilda across the face so violently it made her head snap to the side.

I yelped in surprise. My body shaking in anger, fear, and frustration. I knew intervening would only cause her more trouble so I didn’t, but it was costing me.

Renaldi didn’t stop there and grabbed a fistful of my beautiful aunt’s hair.

Bringing her closer to him as she cried softly, he whispered in what could only be described as a deranged voice, “It’s a good thing she’s fucking dead because if she came back home bearinga bastard child like your sister did, I would have killed her myself.”

ELYSSA

Mia’s funeral was yesterday. I wasn’t allowed to attend.

KONSTANTIN

Standing in the shittiest part of Los Angeles on Christmas Eve morning was not how I had planned to spend the day, but life worked in mysterious ways sometimes.

I stared at the building in front of me, old and dilapidated, with garbage decorating the sidewalk leading up to it and people injecting themselves with God knows what on the front lawn.

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