Cecilia
- Little daughter, you need to sleep!
Melina was difficult to deal with, she wouldn't let go of me for anything, wouldn't let me do my homework at home, and when she felt I wasn't around she would cry as if she was being beaten or mistreated.
I know I neglected my daughter a lot during training and maybe in her childish mind she thought she would be abandoned, losing someone is painful and we only understand this when we lose the one we love, so I understand how my little one feels.
There were nights I didn't sleep, dreaming about Tomas and the life we lived or crying for not having him near me, losing him leaves a great emptiness inside me. It seems that God hated me, everyone to whom I once showed love and affection was taken away from my life as if being close to me was a curse.
First it was my mother who abandoned me, then Dario who gave orders for me to be thrown into a brothel, then Tomas who died leaving this emptiness inside my chest, alone with a small child I reflected on how happiness and love are feelings that could never be mine.
Looking at Melina with her little clear eyes observing my gestures while I try to make her sleep I see how I didn't want that same curse for her.
- Baby, you will be happy, loved, wanted, and never abandoned like I was, mommy will never neglect you again, that's a promise, my little angel!
Melina took a lock of my hair and passed it between her small, childlike fingers. Her eyes were closing as sleep overcame her little body, or perhaps the promise that she would not be abandoned soothed her heart and made her sleep.
I put her in her crib and kissed her good night as usual. Since Tomas' death I couldn't go back to our bed because I knew that the memories of who we were would be there to torment my mind, so I wanted to stay in Melina's room on a single bed that Sergio had brought for me.
I closed my eyes and sighed, asking the same God who had a strange way of giving and taking away everything I loved to just give me the chance to love and care for my daughter.
I was in Dario Albertini's mansion, I was wearing a long white dress, I heard screams coming from inside the mansion, I was afraid to enter but something was pulling my body to see the monster in action. Dario looked like some kind of vampire covered from head to toe in blood smiling in that dark way that I have never particularly liked. His smile died when he saw me, he screamed like a madman coming towards me with his body covered in blood but just as I was pulled into that mansion I was pulled away from the demon that Dario was.
- Don't go away, stay with me, my toy, I need you by my side!
I just shook my head in denial, Dario was a monster! Monsters don't change, they just get worse and crueler. Suddenly without any kind of injury on my body I started to bleed from my chest soiling the dress I was wearing, Dario was bleeding too but it wasn't from the atrocity he had committed before he entered the mansion but his chest was bleeding like mine, I tried to stop the blood but when I tried I noticed that the blood wouldn't stop coming out as it did with Dario. I had never seen him cry, but in the midst of the despair of not being able to hold his blood or help me, his face was covered with thick tears.
- I'm sorry, my toy, please forgive me for all the harm I've done to you.
But I couldn't forgive him or say anything, the more I remained silent the more blood came out of me, as if not forgiving Dario was the reason for so much blood, he managed to approach me but when he tried to touch my face I saw his body being covered by a black cloud. At that moment I tried to save him without understanding why but unfortunately he disappeared leaving me alone in the midst of my blood and suffering.
I woke up sweaty and scared with that dream, I shouldn't have dreamed about the man who didn't even think twice before abandoning me as if I were nobody. Dario was not worthy of my thoughts, much less my dreams, but why had I dreamed about him?
I got out of bed seeing that it was still 10:30 pm and went to the crib to check if Melina was still sleeping, my little one was quiet while enjoying her sleep.
I went to the kitchen to drink some water I still couldn't believe I dreamed about that demon but maybe it was the fact that thinking about the times I was abandoned made my mind go back to dreaming about one of the abandonments that marked me the most.
It is impossible not to wonder what has become of his life, living here in Brazil I was protected from knowing anything related to his fate intimately thankful for this, what I felt for Dario Albertini was a wild and crazy love, that if it were not for Tomas would have been my ruin because there was only love on my part, with my husband I could know the true meaning of reciprocated love.
I go to the living room getting the last book I was reading about the natural beauty of Brazil, I never had a very good sleep I imagine that is because of the nights of beatings and violent sex with Dario that changed my sleep even after being with Tomas still had insomnia as company.
I was so entertained with the book that I did not realize Luana entering the house accompanied by Bernardino, he seemed stunned but at the same time euphoric while my friend tried to calm him down.
- What happened? Is everything okay, sir?
He didn't answer smiling at me in a different way as if it was the first time he had seen me, Bernardino approached me looking at every little detail of my face making me totally uncomfortable with that act.
- You are so like her, now that I know the truth I can recognize the wonderful resemblance you have to her.
I looked at Luana understanding absolutely nothing of what was happening there.
- Bernardino, you're scaring Cecilia, I think you'd better talk to her.
Mr. Bernardino took a while to understand Luana but as soon as he understood he took a deep breath and couldn't contain the anxiety and joy in his expression.
- Come with me, Cecilia, I want to tell you something important!
I followed Bernardino dressed only in slippers and a long sweater, feeling all the happiness that came from my boss. He took me to a room in his mansion where it was full of family photos, in the center of that room there was a big picture hanging on the wall, it was a happy couple with a boy by their side and the woman was holding a baby on her lap with affection, a picture of a happy family that seemed to love each other very much.
- My mother and my father loved each other since adolescence, she gave herself to my father before marriage and without my grandparents knowing my mother married pregnant with me, they believed it was a seven month old baby but this was a vain mistake, the old man wanted a big family but mom after my birth could not get pregnant until after a few years, when I was 11 we found out about her pregnancy. My father was elated, and I was even happier with the news and to see my parents so happy. I confess that I wanted to have a brother, but I ended up feeling a great love and sense of protection when I learned that I would have a little sister.
I didn't know why he was telling me this story, but I decided to listen to him carefully, enjoying knowing something so intimate and special about his life.
- When my sister was born it was as if an angel had come from my mother's womb to bless us, there was no prettier little girl than Rosália. To our misfortune, a war broke out between the Albertini's and the Tolentino's, something that had been announced even before my birth but only started with the death of the heads of the families before the current ones were in power after them. Because of this war, my mother and uncle were killed while walking in the Italian capital.
I could see the sadness in his eyes when he talked about his mother and uncle, Bernardino took a picture frame where he and his mother were, in the picture they were both hugging and it was possible to see that he was still a boy when he lost his mother.
- Our life ended along with hers, my father only loved my mother and suffered until the last day of his life for letting my mother go on that damned trip. I watched my father become a shadow of what he had once been, struggling to understand why despite being a good capo, he had failed to protect my mother, my uncle and his little daughter. I tried to hold it in but the nights were terrible because at those times I missed talking to my mother while I watched her breastfeed my little sister.
I remembered hearing that monsters had no right to be happy, maybe that's why my father lost everything he loved most in life. Old Bernardino killed, stole, extorted and did every kind of atrocity you can imagine but I didn't understand the logic of him losing everything and me too even though I wasn't cruel like him being punished for the things he did to be a capo of the Albertini house.
- That thought is cruel, sir! When I was a little girl I thought about why I had been abandoned by my mother when I had never done anything bad and had only been born. However, as time went by I understood that I couldn't control destiny or avoid abandonment, I had to live with it!
Bernardino held my face, analyzing my expression in the same way as a few minutes ago. It was impossible not to be startled, what was happening to him today?
- How could I not notice the resemblance before? Even the way he smiles and has the right word for every adverse situation shows how similar he is to our mother.
- Sir, what are you saying?
It was getting stranger and stranger and I was starting to get afraid of the whole situation.
- Cecilia, in the attempt on my mother and uncle's life, they didn't kill my sister. The bastards put her in an orphanage, Rosalie was adopted by Nicolas Ferraz and his bitch to be auctioned off as a commodity to the first one who gave the highest price for her.
I tried to process that information by imagining another girl like me but I couldn't remember from the years I lived in that place that there was another girl living in the same conditions as mine besides the twins but they were much younger than me.
- I don't understand where you are going with all this, Mr. Bernardino, I'm just saying that this joke is not funny at all.
- It's not a joke, when Luana told me her true origin I had no doubt about it, she is my lost sister who I thought was dead! How old are you, Cecilia?
I took a deep breath, not wanting to believe it, it was not possible that this could be true.
- 20 years old, turned last month.
- She is Leo from August 07, 1998, she was not born in June, our mother was murdered a year and a half after her birth, in June when they went to visit Italy. That was the exact month she was abandoned in the orphanage, do you know who was the winner of Nicolas' auction? I know you have the answer to my question, tell me who it was?
I lowered my head, realizing that there was no other explanation for all this madness, only one that shocked me.
- Dario Albertini.
- The same man who bought you and sent Tomas to take you to a brothel, Luana told me everything from how she met him and how her brother had saved her life by marrying you. There is no doubt, Cecilia that it is my little sister who was taken from our lives, she is a Bernardino like me, Rosalia.
I didn't want to accept that story, I was afraid and began to cry like a lost and confused little girl. I had not been abandoned as I believed my entire life but had been kidnapped and left in that orphanage, Bernardino noticing my confusion and desperation tried to hold my body in a hug, I allowed myself to feel a pain so deep in my chest as if the movie of my life was playing before my eyes. How was I going to live with this new reality? I was no longer alone, I had a family that was so close to me.
- You can cry as much as you want, Cecilia! Now you are not alone, my sister, you have me to love and take care of you as long as you live, no one will ever hurt you again.
I allowed myself, standing there in my brother's arms, to cry like a little girl, knowing that my life from now on would never be the same again.