Chapter 10 - The Family Reunited
I wrapped my heavy coat around Alina’s shivering shoulders and carried her out of the nightmare, straight into the back of my warm, waiting SUV.
I didn't take her to a hospital yet. I took her directly to the secure vehicle where Sister Helen was waiting.
When I opened the car door, Sophia was sitting quietly in the back seat, clutching a blanket. She looked up, her blue-gray eyes widening as she saw the fragile woman in my arms.
Alina gasped, covering her mouth with her trembling hands. She had left a fourteen-month-old baby, and she was now looking at a beautiful six-year-old girl.
“Mommy?” Sophia whispered softly.
“My baby,” Alina sobbed, reaching her arms out.
Sophia launched herself across the seat, burying her face into her mother’s chest. I wrapped my arms around both of them, pulling my entire universe into one perfect, unbreakable circle. The grief, the betrayal, and the agonizing six-year search completely evaporated, replaced by a profound, heavy peace.
A month later, Matteo’s name was nothing but a cautionary tale in the underworld, permanently erased by the cartel he had tried to outsmart.
Alina fully recovered, her fifty-million-dollar trust was entirely restored to our accounts, and Sophia was finally sleeping in a warm, beautiful bedroom in our estate, entirely safe from the monsters of the world.
May you like
I stood in the doorway of her room, watching my wife read our daughter a bedtime story, realizing that no amount of darkness could ever permanently hide the light.
If you were in my shoes, would you have handed the traitor over to the cartel to handle, or would you have demanded to end his life yourself?
