The Queen They Abandoned in the Shadows Chapter 05

The Queen They Abandoned in the Shadows Chapter 05

He stumbled aimlessly, slurring broken words under his breath. Then he spun around and slammed his fist hard against the wooden partition of a street food stall. The deafening bang drew stares from every passerby.

Watching Matteo fall apart completely, Bianca seethed with bitter jealousy and hatred. She stepped forward and reached for his arm. “Matteo, let’s just go home. Elisa… she doesn’t want you anymore.”

“Get off me!”

Matteo wrenched free from her grip, his eyes blazing blood-red and feral. “This is all your doing! If you hadn’t meddled in everything—”

Noah stood frozen, watching his father lose control, watching the ugly look on Aunt Bianca’s face, and watching his mother walk further and further away with another child in her arms. His entire little world had crumbled to the ground.

Mom didn’t want him. She had a new family, a new baby. That cotton candy had never been for him.

Grief and fear washed over him, and he broke into loud, desperate sobbing.

After that day, Matteo was a completely different person.

He stopped going to work, shutting himself away in the private estate he’d once shared with Elisa. Staring at their long-dusted keepsakes, he alternated between hysterical weeping and hollow laughter.

He dialed Elisa’s old number over and over—it was disconnected. He

staked out my former residence repeatedly, only to find it long abandoned.

Leone had moved us quickly to a place Matteo would never find.

Matteo roamed the city aimlessly like a deranged man, hoping to run into me by chance.

He even went to my mother’s grave, kneeling there for hours, sobbing and pleading with her departed spirit to soften my hardened heart.

“Elisa, I know I messed up. Just come back to me, I’ll do absolutely anything you ask. I’ll kick Bianca out for good, hand over every single thing I own to you. Noah can’t grow up without his Mama, and I can’t live a single day without you…”

He wailed like a trapped beast before the frigid tombstone.

But his words never reached me. Even if they had, they wouldn’t have roused the faintest emotion within me.

His regret came too late. When I needed his trust, he landed the fatal blow I never saw coming.

When I begged for his help, he snuffed out every glimmer of hope I clung to.

When my mother was dying, he cut off her medical care. My fingers, my relationship, my career, my mother—every precious part of my life was ruined by his and Bianca’s collusion.

The peace I’d finally gained was forged through bloodshed and utter desperation. I would never go back.

Noah was struggling too.

That day hit him hard. He grew quiet and withdrawn, staring blankly at his desk at school, and waking up crying from nightmares—always calling for his mother.

But the mother he cried for would never hold him again.

Bianca’s life wasn’t easy either.

Matteo’s bitter resentment and Noah’s growing estrangement pricked her relentlessly like countless sharp needles.

Everything she’d plotted and fought to obtain teetered on the edge of ruin the second Elisa reappeared.

When she learned Elisa was not just alive but had a new family, a protective husband, and a young daughter of her own, her jealousy and malice festered inside her like a toxic weed.

She couldn’t stand Elisa being happy.

Not for a second.

Watching Matteo drink himself into a stupor day after day, and watching Noah pull away from her, heartsick for his real mother, Bianca came up with a cruel plan.

One day, while Leone was away on a business trip, I dropped Quinn off at preschool and went to the supermarket.

I’d been more careful about going out since running into Matteo, but some errands couldn’t be avoided.

I was walking out with my grocery bags when Bianca appeared in front of me, Noah beside her.

Bianca had dressed up, but exhaustion and bitterness still showed on her face.

Noah looked thin and pale, his eyes fixed on me with a mix of longing and fear.

“What a surprise to run into you here, Elisa.” Bianca stretched on a fake, strained smile.

I stared back blankly and moved to walk around her.

Instead, she shoved Noah toward me, her voice dripping with fake tears.

“Elisa, I’m begging you. Look at him—he’s your own son. Ever since he saw you, he won’t eat, won’t sleep, he’s wasting away. He calls for you every night. How can you be so heartless?”

Noah stumbled forward, looked up at me, and tears spilled down his cheeks.

He dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around my legs, his voice breaking.

“Mama! please come home with me! I’m sorry, I promise I’ll be good from now on! I don’t want Aunt Bianca anymore, I only want you! Please, Mama. Papa and I are so sad without you. He’s falling apart, he might die…”