Gone Before He Loved Me Chapter 03

Gone Before He Loved Me Chapter 03

Matteo kept going.

“Lucia, I’ve thought it through. You hurting yourself made me so angry that I made rash decisions. But I’m going to be a father now. I don’t want revenge anymore.”

“I owe Aurora this much. Once I’ve paid my debt, I’ll be good to you.”

He reached through the fence, trying to touch my face.

I laughed and cried at the same time. It took three people to pull me away.

But after that day, they stopped force-feeding me pills.

My mind cleared, slowly.

Matteo’s face came back into focus.

The pain returned too. Eventually, it went numb.

Now I felt nothing. No love. No hate.

Just one regret—I’d never told Matteo to his face that I wanted a divorce.

The day before discharge, I wrote out divorce papers. Signed my name. Asked a nurse to mail them.

By the time Matteo got that letter, I’d be gone from New York. Erased from his world forever.

Matteo. In this life or the next, I will never see you again.

The day before I was supposed to leave, everything was packed.

Just a few signatures left.

Some nurses were chatting nearby. Talking about Don Ferraro becoming a father—a baby boy.

They said how lucky the child was, not being born to a crazy woman like me. Like I couldn’t hear them.

But I felt nothing. It all washed past me.

I was heading to sign my discharge papers when a group of men blocked my path.

“Ma’am. You can’t leave today.”

I blinked. “But I was told I’d be discharged—”

The lead man held up a form.

“Don Ferraro signed this today. You’re scheduled for one more ECT session.”

“Ma’am. Come with us.”

I shook, stepping backward. “No… that’s impossible…”

But there it was. Black and white. His signature.

I didn’t know why he was doing this.

I turned to run—and everything went black.

Woke up strapped to the ECT bed. Ropes cutting into my wrists, drawing blood.

I fought. Begged. Sobbed. No one listened.

Everyone was cheerful, buzzing about how amazing Matteo was, how proud they were that he’d become a father.

When the treatment began, they all cleared out. Just one nurse remained.

The shock hit. Agony ripped through me. My screams filled the room.

They kept turning it up. Almost enough to knock me out.

But the nurse didn’t stop.

When she reached for the lever again, I begged.

“Please… stop…”

She turned. Pulled down her mask.

My blood turned to ice.

A face covered in scars. Crosshatched lines everywhere.

Aurora.

Her eyes burned with venom.

“Lucia. Why do you get to take everything from me?!”

“My face! My love! I won’t let Matteo fall for you too!”

“I’m not letting you go back to him, you hear me? I’m the one who had his kid! I’m his wife—not you! Just die!”

She cranked the voltage to max as she screamed.

When she hit the switch, the pain surpassed anything I’d ever known.

I closed my eyes.

Matteo. I don’t owe you anything anymore.