Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Five
"I’m sorry, my daughter." The words broke out of the older woman’s mouth with a sob. "I’m so sorry you had to grow up with him."
Asli didn’t move. She couldn’t. For the first time in her life, she had no idea what to do with an enemy. Because this enemy wasn’t standing in front of her with a gun.
She had thought this woman was her enemy, but she was just the woman who had lost her. She wasn’t someone she could threaten. She wasn’t someone she could hunt.
And the person who had stolen her... her real enemy, was the same man she had spent her entire life admiring... fearing.
Marco.
Her father. So she thought. The man who taught her everything. The man whose approval she had spent years chasing.
The man she had defended even when Ahmet and Markus called him a monster.
Her fingers slowly curled into fists. Her nails dug into her palms.
Why?
Why did this hurt differently? They were all killers. They had all spilled blood. She had done things that would make ordinary people afraid of her.
So why did everything Marco had done suddenly feel so... wrong?
Was it because it was against her?
Because this time, she wasn’t hearing about a victim.
She was the victim.
The thought made something ugly twist inside her. Her breathing became heavier. He didn’t just kill people. He didn’t just burn Villas.
He had taken a child.
Her.
He had taken her name.
Her family.
Her entire history.
And replaced it with a lie.
A lie she had carried proudly.
A lie she had protected.
A lie she had almost killed her own father over.
Her eyes burned as she stared ahead.
The man she had spent years calling her savior had been the person who destroyed her life.
The realization was unbearable.
A bitter laugh escaped her.
It wasn’t amusement. It was disbelief.
"All this time..."
Her voice shook.
"All this time."
Her gaze dropped to her hands.
The same hands Marco had trained.
The same hands that had carried out his orders.
His orders.
The anger came slowly.
It was not loud nor explosive.
It was something colder. Something more dangerous.
Her jaw tightened.
She wanted to hate him.
She needed to hate him.
But the worst part...
The part that made her sick...
Was that a small part of her still remembered him as the man who raised her.
And that made the betrayal hurt even more.
How did she move from finding out Matilda was his daughter, to finding her biological parents?
"Now that you know, can you... can you hide it from Ahmet?" The woman’s plea almost broke her.
"He’s stronger than you think," Asli mentioned after a long pause.
"Exactly! He’d go after him. He’d go after that bastard. No one survived his confrontations. No one ever did."
Now, there was the problem. Even she wanted to confront him. But, regardless of how much she knew she had grown, she knew she could never face Marco. Especially not now that she was carrying a child.
A laugh came out and this time, it wasn’t painful. It was relief.
She could keep her child. "God I would’ve had a genuine reason to hate you two if I had aborted this child." She didn’t realize she had said that aloud.
"I know and that is exactly what your father was preventing." She said calmly.
"Well, I heard you didn’t want me near you." Asli blurted without showing any emotion. She had a lot of questions and a lot of things to say, yet, she didn’t know where to start.
She took a while to answer. "I... Now that you know almost everything, tell me, what would you have done if you thought the child of your enemy was close?"
"Just kill them," Asli answered briefly.
"What? You shouldn’t do that!" The woman almost jumped out of her body.
"Thank Goodness I didn’t grow up with you. I wouldn’t want to look this pathetic." Asli eyed the woman and instead of getting angry, she laughed. "What is funny?"
"Ahmet once said that to you. You were both young, none of you would remember. You wanted him to play with you in your dollhouse. He was used to training with Markus but you wanted to play with dolls. You cried the whole night." The woman began weeping again.
Asli didn’t know what to do. She had never consoled anyone before. She wanted the crying to stop. It was irritating her. "Goodness, woman. Shut up!"
The woman asked, "Can I hug you?" She almost didn’t believe she had asked her that.
"No.... I don’t do that." Asli said annoyed.
"You are pregnant." She pointed out and Asli understood immediately.
"Well, I didn’t have a mother to tell me not to drop my pants at the first man who shows me affection!" she snapped and regretted it immediately. "Tell your husband to open the door for me."
"You still want to leave?"
"I have a family I need to get back to. You don’t want Ahmet knowing he’s not your son, I need to be away from here." She mentioned and for some reason, she didn’t like it.
Why must he be hidden when she was the biological child? She loved Ahmet and she didn’t want him facing her adoptive father without a plan.
"No. I... I am not hiding you. As a matter of fact, your father wants to prepare a welcome party." She gave a little laugh. "We are happy we found you. We want you to settle in and..."
"Tell me one thing. What are you planning on telling Ahmet? To the best of his knowledge, I am carrying his child. For his own sanity, tell him he is adopted or declare your child dead."
The older woman began. "You know..."
"No. You don’t understand. I don’t care what decision you think is best for him but I don’t want to be here." She cared. She lied. She was hurting. She wanted her mother to tell her she needed her.
The realization came crashing down on her like the heaviest weight she had ever carried.
"I need to go to my family. The very one who decided to follow me and turn their back on the Villa. At least, they had me all this while and still chose to flee with me." This wasn’t her. It could never be her.
"You nanny and the others? They are on their way here. We are moving your things..." Her mother almost whispered.
"How dare you? Who are you to decide where I stay?" she snapped.
Before any of them could speak, Markus came flying into the room with urgency in his eyes.
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