I Leapt 15 Years Into The Future To Protect My Daughter Chapter 05
I shot him a sharp glare, then stepped sideways and headed downstairs.
Bastian trailed right behind me, his voice quiet and subdued.
“I never knew Claire was picking on Seraphina. Mom told
me Zoe was an old friend’s daughter, so I thought letting
them move in, would give Seraphina a friend her own age.”
“When I got back last month, I picked up that something
was off, and I kicked them both out right away. I know it’s
too late for excuses now, but I’m begging you. You can
even put a bullet through me if that’s what you need, just
don’t walk out on me a second time.”
His eyes started glistening with tears as he spoke. I sank
down onto the living room sofa.
He sat down beside me, buried his face against the curve
of my neck, and rasped out in a gravelly tone, “I’ve missed you so badly. So many nights I just wanted to die right
alongside you. But I held on, knowing Seraphina still
needed me here.
I let out a long sigh, stroked the top of his head, and said
with resignation, “I hear you’ve grown into the feared Don
Crowe everyone in this city talks about?”
He mumbled faintly.
“Too many people kept using your death to provoke me…”
“Seraphina said you were gone for five full years. Where
exactly were you all that time?” I asked.
Bastian stiffened visibly where he rested against me, then
squeezed me tighter in his arms.
I didn’t press him for an answer, simply waiting patiently
for him to open up.
A long stretch passed, and he still said nothing, only shaking his head repeatedly. I lowered my gaze, brushed the tears from the corners of his eyes gently, and said, ”
You don’t have to open up about it if you’re not ready. But
Bastian, our daughter is hurting badly, and you can’t say
you’re not at least partly responsible for it.”
Bastian gritted his teeth.
“I’m not going to let Zoe get away with any of this.”
I nodded and continued steadily, “You haven’t been a good
father. Once all this mess settles, I’m considering taking
Seraphina and leaving New York.”
His face crumpled with heartbreak the moment I spoke
those words. I paid him no mind, stood up, and headed
back to my bedroom.
Bastian scrambled after me into the room, clinging to me
and refusing to let go.
I rolled my eyes, fighting the urge to kick him off the bed.
“You’re nearly forty years old, yet you still carry on like a
little child?”
Bastian held me tighter, one hand drifting across my skin
until I swatted it away. He tucked his face back into my
neck, sounding wounded.
I’m scared I’ll open my eyes, and you’ll be gone once
more.”
I sighed, wrapping my arms around him softly, soothing
him just as I’d comforted Seraphina earlier.
“I’m not going anywhere this time.”
Bastian and I were childhood sweethearts, raised side by
side in the same neighborhood. We were the two
troublemakers who drove our neighbors up the wall.
If I saw a teacher picking on students unfairly, he’d sneak
cockroaches into that teacher’s cup.
If he rescued a kid getting jumped by street thugs, I’d beat
those thugs badly enough to land them in the hospital.
Then the Crowe family’s power began to expand, and
Bastian was forced to move to Manhattan with his
parents.
He clung to my hand on the day he left, refusing to let go
even when his mother scolded him.
At last, I snuck a quick kiss on his cheek when no one was
watching. We made a promise: once we enrolled in college,
I’d seek him out. Only then did he let go with a dazed grin,
climbing into the car while glancing back at me again and
again.
But shortly after I was accepted to college, I received word that Bastian had been kidnapped.
The kidnappers sent out a threatening video. Inside the audio, I picked up a secret signal only Bastian and I knew.
On a dark, windy night, I stole my father’s treasured blade and a stun baton, went alone to the kidnappers‘ hideout, and broke Bastian out of their basement prison.
Afterward, my parents held me while crying heavily and scolded me for being impulsive, but I’d gone into that situation having already prepared myself mentally.
I could tell the kidnappers planned to kill Bastian whether the Crowe family paid the ransom or not, so I had no choice but to get him out fast.
After that, the Crowe family stopped opposing our relationship entirely. After I graduated college, I married Bastian as we’d planned, stepping officially into the Mafia world. Back then, Bastian was just an obscure nobody within the family.
Later, I fell pregnant, only to die from amniotic fluid embolism on the operating table. When I opened my eyes again, fifteen years had slipped away.
My gut instinct had always been sharp. I’d known I’d
succeed in rescuing Bastian the night I marched into that den, and even as my eyes closed on the operating table, I’d sensed I wasn’t meant to die so easily.
And those five years Bastian spent missing? I was certain
they were tied to my return.
I wasn’t in a rush to dig up the truth–I’d unravel
everything sooner or later.
Before I could even fall asleep, an obnoxious racket downstairs ruined my quiet moment.
The shouting and racket coming from downstairs kept growing louder by the second. I nudged Bastian awake irritably, and he picked up on the noise too, grumbling, “Whoever that is, tell security to toss them out.”
I let out a cold laugh and threw on a robe to climb out of bed.
“Sounds like your so–called great love has come to confront me.”
Bastian’s eyes flew open, his face hardening into a cold mask as he followed me out.
Sure enough, standing wailing downstairs were Zoe, her daughter Claire, and Sadie–Bastian’s mother, a woman I hadn’t laid eyes on in over a decade,
Seraphina was always an early riser, and they’d trapped her in the stairwell, leaving her standing there confused and at a loss.
Her face lit up the second she spotted me, as if she’d seen her only savior.
Three pairs of furious, murderous gazes locked onto me as I stepped calmly down the staircase, moving in front of
Seraphina to shield her.
Bastian stepped forward right after me, positioning
himself to block me as well.
The sight sent Zoe reeling, teetering unsteadily as if she might collapse.
She stared at Bastian, her face etched with hurt and disbelief, acting as if he’d betrayed her. What a gifted performer–she belonged on a theater stage instead of a runway.
Zoe pressed a hand to her chest, breaking into tearful sobs.
“Vivienne, I just can’t understand what my Claire could have done to anger you so badly that you’d want to hurt her this badly!”
As she finished, every head in the room swiveled toward Claire, whose limbs were wrapped in bandages.