THE MAFIA’S HEIR

BIANCA’S POV

I had wandered around the streets, confused and desperate to want to be woken from this nightmare. How had my life become this way? I saw a bench by the roadside and decided to sit down, after walking for so long. I sat and started thinking about my plight again. What was I going to do? Who was I going to talk to? I was so scared. What was I going to do now? I started crying again, but quickly cleaned my tears when a call came in through my phone. I felt my heart fall to the pit of my stomach the moment I saw it was my boyfriend. God! What was I going to do now? I wanted to decline the call, but I willed myself to answer it. Taking in deep breathe as the cool breeze of the night kissed my wet cheeks, I tapped on the green icon.

“Hey baby. How are you?”

“H.. hey.” I muttered.

“Babe? Are you okay? Where are you? I can hear a lot of noise there.”

“I’m on my way home.” I whispered tiredly. Tired from thinking and crying the whole day.

“At this time? It’s almost 10pm!”

“Is it?” I sighed, pulling the phone off my ear to see the time on the screen.

“Yes, silly. It’s already 5am here.”

“Hmmm.”

We were silent for a while before he asked.

“And your visit to the Doctor’s? How did it go?” My mind did a flip, and I swallowed hard.

“I.. it… it was fine?”

“Was it, really? You don’t sound fine to me.”

“I just need to rest. I’m fatigued.” I lied.

“Alright. I would hang up now, so you could rest. Please get home as soon as you can, I’m sure your papa and mama are worried by now. I love you babe.”

“And….” I sighed, regretting not having told the truth. Deep down, I knew that since I had started with a lie, it was going to be hard to tell him the truth. But how could I? How could I do that to him? How could I break his heart in such a cruel manner? Anthonio had been nothing but nice and sweet to me. He had been the gentleman I have always hoped to have. Look how I ruined everything with my own hands. I could feel another batch of tears preparing to slip down my eyes, but tried my best to hold it back. It was then that it became clear to me. Anthonio was infact deserving of all my love. Finally feeling it was right to say it after a few months, I muttered my reply to him. “I love you too.” I felt tears dropping from my eyes. He went silent at the other end of the line for some seconds.

“This is the first time you ever responded that way to me.” He whispered. It was indeed the first time I was telling him I loved him back. Maybe the fear of how my newly diagnosed situation was going escalate in the next few weeks, got me so scared to lose him.

“Yes. I love you so much. Thank you for loving me the way you do.” I shook my head in inner turmoil as more tears made its way down my face.

“Babe? Are you crying? Are you truly fine? What’s the matter, I’m getting worried already.”

“Yes, I’m fine baby.” I nodded, letting the tears fall freely. “It’s just that I miss you so much. And I seem to be having a sort of hormonal imbalance as well. So I can’t help but be overly emotional these days. Please don’t be worried.”

“Ahhh!… Bianca.” He released a breathe. “I can’t wait to come back to you already. I should be my your side now, cuddling you during such a difficult phase. My whole heart is with you baby. Please make sure you get home quickly and get your deserved rest.”

“I will.” I nodded.

“Do you want me to speak to my cousin? Atleast, Alex tolerates me more than Manuel.” Ahhh!!! Another reminder that I had made such a terrible mistake. During these few months of dating Anthonio, I had learned of the fact that he and Manuel weren’t really the best of cousins. Anthonio would never forgive me if he were to find out about my pregnancy. No no no. I would never say a word about it to him. Atleast not for the next couple of weeks. “I could ask Alexander to reduce the work…”

“That’s not neccessary babe. Remember we are keeping our relationship private for the mean time? Please.”

“Arrghh!” He groaned. “I can’t feel alright when you’re not fine. I have first hand seen you cry as a result of work stress, and I so much disliked to see you that way.” It was really so beautiful how even up until today, Anthonio had never really questioned me about the reason I had cried in the elevator, the second time we met each other. He had simply assumed I was stressed from work. I really appreciated the fact that he refrained from asking me about that. I definitely couldn’t begin to tell him that I had been crying because I saw Manuel making out with his fiancee. Stupid.

“It’s fine. I would be fine.”

“Okay, if you insist. Get home already. Bye love.”

“Bye baby.” I replied and he hung up the call, leaving me in a very depressing state. I wished I had been able to tell him the truth and get it all over with, but I just couldn’t bring myself to break his heart that way.

As per his request, I stood up from the bench and took a taxi home. I loved rides normally but today, I hated it. Maybe the silence in the car only reminded me that I was in literal trouble. It forced on me the opportunity to clearly think about the plight I so much wanted to forget.

When I got home eventually, it was already 10:30pm and my parents were so worried.

“Christ! Tesoro you had us so worried! Where have you been?” Mama asked, hugging me and tilting my face from one side to another. “You look like you have been crying.” She said, making my entire body tingle with fear. “What is the matter? Talk to me.”

“Talk to us.” My papa joined in. I knew this was the part where I either spit out the truth, or tell a lie. I wasn’t really the sort of girl to lie to my parents, but then, I had never had to tell the truth about being pregnant for a man, whom they knew wasn’t my boyfriend. It was still going to be a problem for my papa, even if it was Anthonio’s baby. So having another man’s child was a total deal breaker! Not having any other choice, I lied.

“I’m fine mama. A friend died today.”

“Oh my goodness!! Hope it isn’t Laura?” Mama rushed out.

“No, mama. God forbid.” I rushed out the moment I imagined it. “It’s a colleague at work.” This was the problem I had with lying. One lie was never enough. You had to keep lying until you’re finally off the hook.

“So sad.” Papa muttered. “I guess that is why you’re so late. So sorry about your loss my dear. You should go to your room and freshen up. Your mom made a nice meal.” He suggested, and I nodded in agreement. They had been so sweet and worried about me. I wondered if it would have been the same, had I told the truth. As I made my way up, it became clearer to me that I had just lied to my parents indeed. If I could lie to them, then it was real after all. I was pregnant. I had been feeling bad already, but felt much worse when it was time for me to sleep and I got a beep on my phone. My account had been funded with a handsome amount of money, and I needed no one to tell me who it was from. Anthonio had made it a duty to send me money as frequently as possible. His money had played a huge role in helping me invest in the gold empire project. Now, I wasn’t sure how my career was going to turn out. The description of the payment only got me crying. It said, ‘A little something to balance the financial hormones of my girlie!’, and a love emoji. I didn’t deserve this man.

*******************************

2 weeks later.

I cleaned the tears off my eyes when I looked into my wallet to see very little cash. I looked at my phone to see that there were no new mails either. No response for the various companies I had applied to. 2 weeks had passed and I wouldn’t mind giving you a breakdown of what had happened within that period.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

Firstly, I had resigned my job, leaving my boss quite confused. I decided that the best thing to do was to leave my job, because there wasn’t a way in hell that I would be pregnant for Manuel and keep working for his cousin. Manuel was definitely going to hear about it and somehow, he’d know the baby was his. I just had to quietly quit and…. I honestly didn’t even know what my plan was. I guess I didn’t want Manuel knowing about it, now his wedding was very close. Did I even want him to know? There was every tendency they could take my child away from me. I don’t know if pregnancy came along with a craziness syndrome, because ever since I learned I was carrying another human inside me, my protective instincts had shot up a lot. I couldn’t let this baby be taken away from me, or put in harm’s way. It was already clear that Francesca didn’t like me. Her family was part of the mafia too, so imagine the kind of danger I could find myself, if she hears of my pregnancy for her fiance. God! What am I even thinking? Were my thoughts right or just foolish?

Secondly, I had disappeared from home because I couldn’t risk my parents realizing what was up with me. I was already beginning to act weird, and mama was already questioning my health.

When I quit my job, they started querying me and asking a lot of questions. I had to make up my mind and leave. I tried having a conversation with them about getting my own space, but they completely put aside the suggestion, claiming they were responsible for me. That was when I made the reckless decision of leaving home. Now, I was already finding it difficult to survive on my own. Due to the fact that I had invested almost all my savings in the Russo gold empire project, I had very little to survive on. And the huge amount of money I had paid for the one room apartment I was currently staying, had been so much because I had gotten the space under a short notice.

I also applied for a few jobs where I could work remotely, but haven’t gotten response from any of the companies yet.

Thirdly, I had shut out every single person since the past week. Everyone, including Laura, Emilio, my parents, and Anthonio. My phone was always on airplane mode, except I was online scouting for jobs, so it made it difficult for anyone to speak with me.

I had run away from home because I was scared to disappoint my parents. Was that really the right thing to do? Lately, I’ve been acting on impulse and I was slowly beginning to seem stupid to myself. Who just runs away because they are pregnant? Am I the first lady to pregnant outside wedlock? Mila was.

What’s the worst my parents would do? Scream in anger and ignore me for days? It couldn’t be more than that. Okay, they would probably let me know how disappointed they were, for getting pregnant for my boyfriend’s cousin? That was definitely all it could be.

The more I thought about my situation, the more sorry I felt for myself. Only God knows how Anthonio was coping at the moment. I had refused to take his calls that were able to connect, or reply his messages for over a week now. I was going crazy myself. Things were getting tougher and I really needed to reach out to someone. I paced around my tiny room as I thought of calling my parents. Whether I liked or not, they could be angry all they wanted, but they’d never abandon me or leave me to face this on my own. I should definitely call them. Just then, my phone rang and my breathe hitched. I had forgotten to put the phone on airplane mode after checking my email for job invitations. When I saw it was Mila, I released some air from my mouth. She was definitely someone I shouid talk to now.