HER'S

Chase

I FUCKED UP.

I fucked up big time and I didn't realize that until the moment I stepped into the hospital two years ago and got the news of her disappearance.

When I had gotten the news, I badly wanted to shoot those nurses to death. I wanted to make the nurse who told Sophia about the death of our child go through torture.

Our child. Did I still have the right to call that innocent girl our child? I don't think so. That child belonged to Sophia alone because she had been nothing but a good mother to her. I was a bad father. I may not have behaved exactly like my own father did, but I didn't fulfil my responsibilities as a father. I sure had been a coward to run away from my responsibility in the name of protecting that child.

In the end, I lost the baby and her mother in the process of protecting them.

I shouldn't have left her and the child. I should've been there for her instead of letting her siblings do that. I was meant to be the one with her, but I had acted like a jerk.

And I would never forgive myself for being the cause of our loss.

Her siblings had gotten really upset. They didn't exactly show it to me but I saw it in their eyes. Those three had been there for me from scratch, but I repaid them by making them lose their sister once again. I still don't know whose anger was worse, but I couldn't bear to see their unsaid hatred directed at me, so I left.

I, being a coward, left the Romano compound to stay on my private island.

During my stay there, I found out about Sophia's whereabouts. She had been in Russia after being found by Viktor, an old man who found her in the bushes. I thought it would be easy to just forget her and make her happy but it wasn't.

It broke me. It broke a part of me that I never knew existed in me to live without her. That part of me yearned to be with hermit yearned to see her. It yearned to look into those her innocent eyes and show her real happiness. It yearned to make and see her smile.

It yearned to make her feel loved.

I had fallen in love with her. I had fallen so hard, but I was blinded by Uncle Antonio's words and didn't realise just how I felt about her. Sophia had been the light in my darkness. She had been the angel in my life but like dirt, I tossed her and her feelings aside.

Because of Sophia, I had burnt away my chances of getting what I wanted to destroy my empire but at that moment, I thought I was being protective of her. I thought I was showing what I would do if anyone tried to harm her but the real reason behind that was the fact that I couldn't bear to lose her. I couldn't bear to lose her because losing her was like losing myself also and with her, I realised I didn't need to kill myself.

She had become my reason to live.

What I thought was just a mere obsession for her was love, and it hurt me to remember the pain she used to have in her eyes each fucking time I called her love an infatuation.

I left the cigar between my lips as I stared at Sophia's large portrait on the wall in the hallway towards my bedroom.

In that photo, she looked really happy, nothing compared to the pain and heartbreak I had caused her. Almost four years ago, I had clicked that photo of her without letting her know when she was busy playing with Charlie in the living room. Her long, brown locks were falling all over her side profile while I only had access to stare at her other side. There was a big smile on her pretty face as she knelt on the floor, saying something I never cared about to Charlie. That day, my eyes had only been on her.

I knew where she was at the moment. I knew she was happy staying with Viktor. Just one call was all it would take to get her back to me-us-but I couldn’t. She was so close, yet far away but I couldn't reach out to her.

It was fucking impossible.

She deserved to be happy, and if staying away would give her the happiness she wanted, I'd gladly do that.

"Don,"

I blinked my eyes at the portrait and pulled away the cigar from my lips. I turned to the person calling me. It was the man I asked to keep tabs on Sophia for me. "Che cosa?"

{"What?"}

His hands shook as he forwarded the envelope in his hands to me. "Penso che potresti voler vedere questo,"

{"I-I think you might want to see this"}

Knowing very well that it was about Sophia, I dropped the cigar on a nearby ashtray and snatched the envelope from him. I tore it open and narrowed my eyes at the first photograph.

There was a party going on, and Sophia was present there; that wasn't what made me lose it.

The party being thrown was an engagement party, and that was her own engagement party.

Her engagement party with Viktor's grandson, Matteo.

I tightly gripped the edge of the photograph as I stared at the way Matteo held her hand and slid the ring in her delicate finger. My eyes turned into slits as I stared at the pretty smile on her face, while the ring was being slid in her ring finger.

She didn't have my ring anymore.

She must've disposed it off like she had done to her hair and freckles on her face. Her new look suited her; that wasn't a lie, but still, I hated to think she had changed herself because of me.

She had disposed of everything she knew I loved in her.

I didn't realise I was gripping the photograph so tight until the man called my name twice.

I disposed the photograph in the bin nearby and faced him. “Partire,"

{"Leave"}

The man nodded, and in the blink of an eye he was gone, leaving me alone in an empty hallway where all I could do was stare at that portrait of her.

My eyes stung at the thought of her belonging to someone else. My chest constricted in pain at the thought of her marrying someone else despite being married to me. Had she forgotten that we were both still married?

I walked towards the empty room beside mine. Except, the room wasn't exactly empty. The only things in that room were photographs of Sophia plastered against the wall.

Most of them were photos of her while she was in Russia.

As I walked further into the room, I stared at those photographs, imagining her smiling face. Imagining her smiling at someone else but me.

My hands fisted into balls at my sides as I walked to one of the photos. There, she was in a mall. She had a sunglass above her head. Her now black, straight hair stopped on her shoulder while she had her forefinger trapped between her teeth, staring at the clothes hanging in front of her, as if thinking of which one to pick. She had a beautiful pair of diamond earrings and necklace around her neck, along with an expensive wrist watch around her wrist. She was dressed in a strapped, red dress which stopped mid-thigh, giving everyone-the men-around access to stare at her tanned skin and long legs which she had made sure to adorn with a strapped heel. She had become really matured at the age of twenty two.

She had changed so fucking much.

My hands raised up on their own and I caressed her side profile, basking in the beauty she had become as I whispered out to myself and the room, delusional hoping she would hear me. "Amore mio,"

{"My love"}

My hand that was caressing the photograph fisted into a ball again as I envisioned her wedding day in my head, imagining the smile that would be on her face on that day. It was as if I could already see Matteo already kissing her on the alter and then, the both of them being announced as a couple while she was still married to me.

I fucking had her ring still on my finger.

Dreading the thought of she and Matteo consummating their marriage, I shut my eyes tight and rested my forehead against the photo, trying to control my breathing. The image didn't go away. Instead, all I heard were her moans of pleasure. I could imagine her writhing beneath the sheets while Matteo-

I hated to think of that. I hated to think of not being the only man to pleasure her.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,"

The scenario in my head changed. I stopped imagining Sophia with another man. Instead of Matteo, I saw myself here. I was the one above her, having her writhe beneath me. But that wasn't the main thing. In my head, I could hear moaning out the words 'I love you' again and again while I also did the same. She smiled at me in my head.

She smiled at me.

But then, in reality, I knew nothing of the sort would ever happen unless I won her back.

I began to imagine my ways of bringing her home to myself. My head began to make up the best scenarios. Imagining myself with the both of them; taking them both from their wedding, torturing Matteo for touching the woman I loved and I owned, making her watch all the torture, forcing her to have my ring again, if possible etching it to her skin in a way it would leave a scar on her ring finger so she would never forget whose wife she always was, making Matteo watch every single thing and then, finishing him off.

My eyes snapped open, and I pulled away from the photograph, running my hands through my hair. I had completely turned crazy.

Crazy for Sophia. Crazily and obsessively in love with her...

I was being possessive. Again. That possessive part of me was resurfacing, but I could only care less. I didn't care about the effect it would have for anyone. The only thing I cared about was winning over Sophia.

I wanted her back home to me.

In our home, we would both love each other unconditionally. We would have kids and live a happy life.

I couldn't bear to see her happy with another man apart from me. I couldn't.

And I was going to bring her back where she always belonged.