Nothing mattered anymore except the truth tearing through me.
“You don’t deserve my loyalty,” I said, voice shaking, barely above a whisper. “Not my respect. Not my love.” I held her gaze with everything I’d never allowed her to see. “You and I are done, Eloá. Everything you were to me is over.” The words felt like a funeral. “I never want to see you again. You’re dead to me.”
I turned away.
And as I walked toward the exit, every step felt heavier—like I was leaving behind the version of myself I’d spent my entire life building to survive her.
The door slammed behind me with a final, gunshot sound that echoed through the sleeping house.
I stood outside, breathing like my lungs didn’t work right, feeling destroyed and directionless.
There was no going back.
The Enrico Ferrara I had been—until that moment—was dead.
Killed by the hands of the woman I had called grandmother. The woman I trusted blindly my whole life.
All that remained was the shadow of who I’d been… and the horrifying realization that I had no idea how to rebuild anything after that kind of betrayal.
When the door of my São Paulo penthouse finally shut behind me—muffled, final—I barely remembered how I got there.
I vaguely remembered thinking I couldn’t make the pilot fly a third time in less than twenty-four hours, but the rest was blank. A blur of movement, decisions made by instinct, not thought.
The automatic lights turned on, revealing a space that felt empty and impersonal—exactly like me.
I walked through the open living area, looking at what I once considered a refuge.
Now it was nothing but cold walls and objects without meaning.
My eyes burned. My throat felt raw. The pain in my chest was nearly unbearable. My entire life had been shaped by lies, manipulation, betrayal—
and now I could see it with brutal clarity.
I dropped heavily onto the sofa, pressing my hands to my face. Emotional exhaustion like I’d never known before weighed down every limb.
Eloá’s words echoed in my head, corrosive, stripping away every last trace of pride and certainty.
Valentina’s face rose in my mind—eyes full of hurt and disgust as she called me a coward.
And Clara…
My daughter.
The way she backed away from me, afraid. The way she begged to leave. The memory of her tears—small and terrified—destroyed me completely.
I did that.
I was responsible for all of it.
The truth crushed me until a deep, desperate sound tore out of my chest, something between a sob and a broken breath.
I had always taken pride in being strong. In controlling everything.
Now I could see I had never truly been in control.
I had ruined the lives of the two people who mattered most in my world.
The oppressive silence around me only made the failure louder.
