Chapter 105

Adrian

I stare at the pictures on the wall. Many of them are from my childhood, one that I was very lucky enough to share with Stella and Clara. We are all smiling in a few of them, standing in front of a white picket fence as butterflies fly around our heads.

There are a few pictures of my mother and I scattered across the wall. They span over the course of the past decade, leading up to the moment when Stella, my mother, and I all went to the beach resort together.

The picture of us standing by the tide pools remains closest to my office and is in a spot where it has the most visibility around the house. I had to fight the urge to not make any more copies, to frame it, and then put it into every single room that I own.

It is the one picture where my family — my true family — were all together, each and every smile on our faces as pure and genuine as the emotions that we held inside of our bodies. My mother’s smile is the brightest in the photo.

Stella and I have an arm wrapped around each other, nuzzled in and cozy as if we were a real couple at the time and that we did not just agree to get a divorce.

My eyes remain on Stella. An uneasy feeling settles into my chest as I unwillingly remember the conversation we had not even an hour ago. Her words echo inside of my brain, giving me to place to hide as the anger behind her words overtook me like the crashing and restless waves of the ocean.

Stella is the mafia princess. She is the woman that the criminal underworld has been in an uproar about for over twenty years. Her identity has remained a mystery and she has only appeared in recent events, always wearing a mask to cover her beauty.

Well…I suppose she does not need to wear a mask any longer since she is no longer hiding her mafia identity from me anymore. Or is the selfish of me to ask and wonder about? She clearly does not think of my motives and emotions anymore so why does it even matter, right?

I remember the day that Clara woke up. Stella was so angry yet so resigned with the fact that Clara needed my comfort and I in her time of need. She stormed away after claiming that she deserved love too, that she deserved as much attention as Clara did since she just got out of a surgery not even an hour prior.

I remember the way she left the hospital in an uproar. Clara’s parents were beside themselves, blabbering about how selfish she is and how cruel of a person she has become after Clara has woken up. I told myself that I would go after her, to make for sure that everything is okay with Stella.

Then I saw the black SUV. The men who sat inside of the car look exactly like the men who have showed up in front of her apartment today. They all wore the same angered and irritated expression on their faces while Stella handled me.

Even then, they looked like gangsters. They looked just like what a person would imagine a high class and high ranking mafia person to look like. They wore black suits and had guns strapped to their hips, ready to fire at any given moment.

How can Stella find comfort in them? How can she possibly even feel safe when mafia people are known to turn on their own when it comes to an advantage?

They have been here from the beginning. They were lurking in the shadows while I desperately tried to save Stella and I’s relationship through the jealousy of her having the attention of other men fixated on her.

Stella used to hide ini the shadows. She used to fade into the background and disappeared, only making herself visible when I needed her to be but with these men, her supposed brothers, she has blossomed into a confident and assured woman.

I am still very much disappointed with Stella. She has proven to me that she willingly allows herself to be corrupted by men who have killed. By men who have taken the dark road of the criminal underworld and treachery.

I am so sure that their crimes combined would add up to multiple life sentences. Who is to be so sure that there are crimes that they have committed that they have not told Stella about? How can she be so sure about these men when I, and anyone else for that matter, have no idea of the darkness that they hold inside of themselves?

They can turn on her at any moment. They can decide that they have had their fill and wish to get rid of her, condemning her to a fate worse than isolation and death.

They can erase her off of the face of the earth. They can get rid of any traces that she may have left behind, to give any normal person a sign that she has existed on the earth.

One of the men in the car is a doctor. I remember him from the confrontation she had with Clara, exposing her lies. That man can erase her medical history, make it seem like she was never even born in the first place.

Stella has fallen so low. Maybe this is her simply acting out, needing that last bit of attention before we are officially out of each other’s lives. She could be doing this as a cry for help, to signal to me and others that there is something seriously wrong with her and that she needs us to help her through it.

No…I have gone down this path before. I have labelled Stella as something that she is not, placing her up on a pedestal that she never asked to be put upon.

I should wait out the storm. Right now, it may seem like a complete and utter mess between us, but I firmly believe that with time and space to keep us apart, that she will allow me to come back into her life for one last conversation. One last talk so we can finally create a good and amicable ending for us instead of leaving the ending so open ended and rushed.

I should not label Stella with something until I get the full truth. Right now, to me at least, she is just Stella.

She is Stella, the woman I used to be married to.

She is Stella, the woman who was there for me when I needed it the most most during sensitive parts of my company’s growth.

She is Stella, the woman who I abandoned when she needed me.

Stella deserves to tell her side of the story. She deserves for her truth to be out there in the world between us just like how I deserve to tell her exactly how I feel about the situation we find ourselves in. I cannot imagine a life without her and I can only hope that she spares me the time of day when our time comes.