Chapter 103

Adrian

I watch from afar as Stella exits her apartment building. Her black dress is much more conservative and simple than she has worn in the past. It makes my heart happy to see that she is no longer drawing attention to herself.

As soon as I see Sebastian exit the building from behind her, though, does the realization hit that she is dressing for him and his comfortability instead of mine.

A bitter taste forms across my tongue. I know that I have no kind of claim or stake over Stella and what she does in her life anymore. We are divorced and she has made it abundantly clear that she wants absolutely nothing to do with me anymore. I still can’t help but feel jealous, though, at the fact that she has found her comfort in another man’s arms instead of my own.

“You are the most beautiful mafia princess to ever exist!” the man who stands by the car proclaims. His voice echoes down the sidewalk, attacking my ears like a fiery hot confession that I was not supposed to hear.

Mafia princess? What in the fuck does that man mean by Stella being the mafia princess?

Anger boils and festers inside of my body. I glare at the scene, my feet already carrying me across the small distance that I told myself to keep. I had talked myself out of wanting to ruin another night for Stella, wanting to keep my distance, but the man’s comment has changed my mind.

“Stella!” my voice booms down the sidewalk.

The three people turn to look at me. Stella stares at me with widened eyes and she is immediately stuffed behind two men, one of which is Sebastian.

“What are you doing here?” the taller and much more buff man asks with a sharp glare.

“You are not welcome here, Adrian. Leave. Do it now and I’ll reconsider not shooting you,” Sebastian is the next to speak. He steps forward but Stella pulls him back, shaking her head no.

“What are you doing here, Adrian?” she asks. Her voice cuts through the noise in my mind.

“You aren’t the mafia princess,” I shake my head and step forward. “That just does not make any sense! She’s probably just lying about it. She usually lies.”

Stella scoffs as I take her hand in my own and pull her away from the men. The two men take a step after us but Stella waves them away. The way they obey her command only has me more confused.

Could Stella truly be the mafia princess? Has she held this power all along and just didn’t say a single thing about it? Why would a mafia princess, someone who holds so much power in the criminal underworld, allow a man such as myself to treat her so horribly? To treat her like the scum on the bottom of my shoe?

“Who the fuck do you think you are, Adrian?” Stella spits the words out of at me like they are venom. They seep into my skin, burning my heart alive. “You aren’t welcome, didn’t you hear?”

“And you aren’t the hidden mafia princess, Stella!” I am quick to retort. I do not let go of her hand, holding it tight between my own as she tries to wiggle away from me. “What is going on? Why are you claiming to be the mafia princess?”

“Some things just do not concern you, Adrian, and this is one of those moments where you are not fucking allowed to know what is going on in my life!” her voice carries down the street, her anger just as prominent as it was earlier in the day.

I thought that with time, her anger would have subsided, taken a backseat as sorrow and sadness took over. I thought that her emotions would act in the same way as mine do but clearly there is a lot to Stella that I simply do not know.

“Why are you lying? Are they a part of the mafia?” I lean in and look down at her with a serious expression written across my face. “Stella, you know how dirty the mafia are. You can’t get involved with them, especially with a lie like this!”

“It isn’t a lie,” Stella says in a dark and low tone.

My blood runs cold. I blink at her, unable to form a coherent sentence. I shake my head, unwilling to listen to the truth behind her words because clearly it is all one big fat lie that she told these men to fit into their life.

“Tell me then,” I state, ready for her to cut the bullshit and give me nothing but the good and honest truth. “Tell me that what that man said isn’t true. Tell me that you are not one of them. That you are not the mafia princess.”

Stella pauses for a moment. She looks me up and down, slightly shaking her head. Her gaze comes back to mine and I can taste the sweetness of victory on my tongue.

She knows that I have her caught. There is no escaping this confrontation that lies before us.

“I am the mafia princess, Adrian. These are my brothers. They were there for me when you weren’t. They were the ones who helped me get the fuck away from you,” my ex-wife speaks with such unbridled anger and resentment.

“No,” I shake my head. I push back the tears that form in my eyes, “you can’t be. You know what the mafia has done to me. To us!”

“I can be. It was a role that was assigned to me at birth before I was ripped away from their arms,” Stella continues. “Clara was never my real sister. Her parents adopted me because I was a blood match for their daughter. From the beginning, I was nothing but a bag of spare parts for them.”

“Stella…” my grip on her hand loosens. She rips it away from me and takes a step back. She points a finger at me, tears filling her eyes.

“My brothers, my real and biological bothers, were the only ones that were there for me. They were the ones who supported me through the countless surgeries. They are the ones who stayed by my side when I needed it the most. Not you.”

I am in complete and utter denial right now. What she is saying to me feels like the truth, that it is the ugliness that I have avoided in our lives for so long.

I shake my head but Stella holds up a hand, silencing me before I can even get a single word in.

“Stop embarrassing yourself, Adrian. It is pathetic. Stop showing up here,” Stella lowers her voice just for the two of us to listen to.

I am lost inside of my own mind. I am left with nothing but bits and pieces of a woman that I have grown to love, my heart shattering at her revelations that she is someone that embodies everything that I hate and despise in the world.

It was the mafia who put Clara in a coma after shooting her. It was the mafia who tried to ruin my company when it first began. If I didn’t know any better, it was the men who stand behind her that ruined my company and pretended to be the angel investor.

I look down at Stella with complete disbelief written on my face. She simply crosses her arms and rolls her eyes, igniting the anger and disappointment that I feel in my heart.