Christiana’s POV.
I walked down the corridor of the detention center, my heels clicking against the cold, tiled floor. The air was heavy, thick with the scent of despair. My heart pounded in my chest as I approached the cell. This was the woman who had tried to burn me and my children alive. This was the woman who nearly destroyed everything I had fought so hard to build.
Bianca Monroe.
She was sitting on a narrow, metal bench, her head down, but when she heard the footsteps nearing, she looked up. Her face twisted into a sneer the second she saw me.
“Ah. Christiana,” she said, her voice dripping with venom. “Come to gloat, have you?”
t of the iron bars, my fists clenched by my sides. “Why?” I asked, ng inside me. “Why are you doing this? I never did anything to
I ignored her attempt at being snide, stopping right i my voice steady despite the wide range of emotions sv you. Why are you so hell–bent on destroying me and my children?”
She laughed..a cold, heartless laugh that echoed in the small cell. “You seriously have the audacity to stand there and act innocent?” Her eyes narrowed, filled with malice. “You took everything from me, Christiana. Everything. Alex was mine. He was mine, and you paraded into his life with your precious little brats and ruined everything!”
My blood boiled at the sound of her words. “Alex was never yours,” I snapped, stepping closer to the bars. “And those ‘brats‘ you’re talking about are my children…innocent children who never did a damn thing to you!”
Bianca stood up, her face flushed with fury. “Don’t you dare pretend to be the victim here! You stole what was mine, and now you’re paying the price. It’s just bad luck, Christiana. The fire, the kidnapping, it’s the universe trying to tell you something. Maybe you’re the problem.”
I felt a rage unlike anything I’d ever experienced before explode inside me. Before I could stop myself, I lunged at her, my hands shooting through the bars. I grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking it hard. Bianca shrieked, her hands flying up to try and pry mine off her head.
“You think this is bad luck?” I snarled, slamming her head against the iron bars. She screamed again, but I didn’t care. “Do you have any idea what I went through to get here? Do you know what I’ve suffered, what I’ve sacrificed, to raise my children and build the life I wanted?”
“Let go of me!” she shrieked, clawing at my hands, but I only tightened my grip. Her nails dug into my skin, but I barely felt it through the anger pulsing in my veins.
“How dare you!” I screamed, slamming her head against the bars again. “How dare you try to take it all away from me? You’ve done nothing but destroy everything you touch, and I won’t let you destroy my family.”
Bianca was thrashing, her screams echoing through the corridor. “You crazy bitch, let go of my hair!”
I yanked harder, and she cried out in pain. “You deserve every bit of this,” I hissed. “Every single piece of this misery, you brought it on yourself!”
The sound of footsteps thundered behind me, but I didn’t care. I was too far gone. All the pain, the fear, the anger…. it had built up, and now, it was spilling over.
The guards rushed forward, pulling at my arms, trying to free Bianca from my grip, but I wasn’t letting go. I wanted her to feel even a fraction of the pain she had caused me and my children.
“Christiana, stop!” one of the guards shouted, his voice stern as he pried my fingers off her hair.
Bianca stumbled backward, clutching her head, strands of her hair falling from my hand as they dragged me away. She
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Chapter 101
looked at me with wide; wild eyes, her face pale with both pain and shock.
3
“You’re insane,” she hissed, her voice trembling as she touched the bare patches of her scalp. “You’re out of your mind!”
I stood there, breathing heavily, my chest rising and falling rapidly. “No, Bianca,” I spat. “I’m a mother who’s done. everything to protect her children. And if you ever come near them again, you’ll wish it was just your hair I ripped out.”
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Bianca’s lips quivered as she glared at me, but there was no more bravado in her eyes. The guards pulled me back, and I let them. My heart was racing, my body trembling, but I didn’t regret a single second of it.
As they escorted me out of the corridor, I cast one last look at her. She sat there, nursing her scalp, her eyes full of hatred but no words to back it up.
Let her hate me. It was nothing compared to the hate I had for her now.
I stepped into the hotel suite, the door clicking
y behind me. The silence was deafening, pressing in from all sides like a weight I couldn’t shake. The kids were here somewhere, but there were no sounds of laughter, no calls for “Mom,” no TV blaring cartoons. Just silence. And it tugged at me.
I stood in the middle of the room, my eyes scanning the familiar space. The plush sofa, the scattered toys, the books… everything felt so out of place, like it belonged to a different life. A life where my children didn’t hate me. A life where I wasn’t the villain in their eyes.
“Ethan?” I called softly, my voice catching in my throat. “Emma, sweetheart? Where are you?”
Nothing.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, trying to keep the tears at bay. My heart was pounding, but it wasn’t the same kind of anger that I’d felt when I’d left Bianca’s cell. This was deeper, more painful. It was the ache of a mother who knew she’d crossed the line with her children, and now they wanted nothing to do with her.
I moved further into the room, my footsteps slow and heavy. My eyes fell on the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar. They had to be in there. I took a deep breath and pushed it open.
There they were, Ethan sitting on the edge of the bed, his little legs dangling off the side, and Emma curled up in the far corner, her face buried in her knees. The sight broke something inside me.
“Hey,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. I stepped closer, my hands trembling. “Can we talk?”
Ethan didn’t even look at me. He just stared at his feet, his tiny fingers twisting the hem of his shirt. Emma didn’t move either, her small frame tense and hunched. The air between us felt thick, suffocating, like I couldn’t breathe.
“Please, talk to me,” I whispered, kneeling in front of Ethan, my eyes searching his face for something…anything. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you earlier. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
Still, nothing. Ethan’s face was stone–cold, his lips pressed together in a thin, tight line.
“I know you’re mad at me,” I continued, my voice cracking. “And you have every right to be. But I love you both so much. You have to know that.”
Emma let out a small sniffle but didn’t lift her head. The sound tore through me, sharper than any scream. I reached out to touch Ethan’s hand, but he pulled away, the movement quick and decisive.
My chest tightened painfully. This was the first time either of them had ever turned away from me like this. It felt like a knife twisting in my heart.
“Ethan,” I said, my voice barely a whisper now. “Please. Just say something. Anything.”
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Chapter 101
He finally looked up, his dark eyes full of a sadness I hadn’t seen before. And when he spoke, his voice was small, but the weight of his words crushed me. “Why did you try to stop us from seeing dad, Mom? How could you say such a thing?”
I bit my lip, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over. How could I explain the mess that was created by Bianca, their father’s psychotic ex–girlfriend, the fire, the danger How could I tell my children that their mother wasn’t perfect, that sometimes I lost control, too? And I just wanted them away from Alex because everything boiled down to him trying to shove his way into our lives.
“I was trying to protect you two from further harm,” I said softly my voice shaking. “I’m so sorry if I scared you. I was… I was mad at your father. We suffered because of a woman he had in his life, Ethan. She’s tried to hurt us more times than I can count.”
“But you hurt us too,” Emma’s voice broke through, muttled against her knees. “You want us to stop seeing our own father.”
Her words hit me like a slap. I wanted
am that Alex doesn’t deserve to come any closer to us, that the more he’s near
us, the more danger we get into. But how could I explain that to a child? How could I make them understand the danger their father posed without sounding like the monster they already thought I was?
“I did,” I admitted, my voice barely audible. “I did try to stop, and I shouldn’t have. I lost my temper, and that wasn’t right. But I was scared, Emma, I was so scared of losing you, of losing everything.”
Ethan’s eyes were filled with confusion and hurt, and I could see the war raging inside him. He wanted to forgive me, I could tell. But the wound was still fresh.
“We’re a team, right?” I asked, trying to force a smile. “It’s always been the three of us. No matter what happens, we stick together.”
Neither of them responded. Emma shifted slightly, but her head remained down. Ethan’s gaze drifted back to the floor.
“I love you both so much,” I said, my voice cracking again. “More than anything in this world. Please don’t shut me out.”
The silence stretched again, cold and painful, and I felt a tear slip down my cheek before I could stop it. I had fought so hard to keep them safe, but now, I had lost them in a different way. This was the first big fight, the first time my children looked at me and didn’t see the mother they once knew.
“Just give me a chance,” I whispered, more to myself than to them. “Please.”
I stood up slowly, my legs feeling like they would give out beneath me. As I turned to leave the room, I glanced over my shoulder one last time. Ethan hadn’t moved, and Emma was still curled up in that corner, her small body trembling slightly.
I felt like a stranger in my own home, my own family. And it hurt more than anything Bianca could’ve ever done to me.
I closed the door gently behind me, my heart heavy with the
realization that fixing this would take more than just words. It would take time….time I wasn’t sure I had.
