Twisted Revenge by A.ZChaudhry

Chapter 44

ALESSIO

I locked the door behind when darkness engulfed me, wrapping me up in its dangerous cacoon which always left my insides shivering after whatever vicious attack they had to endure. I stood with my back against the door, my head bent low and my heart...as confused as ever.

It was confused as of what to feel and how to react. I was facing so many emotions at the moment that I had no idea which one to react to first.

I fisted my hands and pinched my eyes close, trying to get rid of the image nagging against my skull, resting in my head, overdiluting my heart, practically suffocating me even in this big ass room. I remember how my daughter looked like when they pulled her out of Julianna. The unmade baby, the flesh, the blood, the sneer on her face, her mouth open and formed as if she was in pain, trying to reach out to her baba for the first and the last time. I pinched my eyes further close as pain ripped through within me, chiseling my heart as if a thousand knives were driving in all at once.

I could picture my baby girl crying out and calling for me to hold her and save her before she died. I could imagine and feel the smooth heartbeats of her little heart as I would have cradled her against my chest, holding her close to me, promising her a life full of love, happiness and health. I could picture wrapping my arms around the unmade body of my little baby and never letting go of her. Ever. Yet, when I held her? She was as limp as a rag cloth, with no heartbeat, no heat to her skin, nothing at all. Completely gone.

Ayla.

We were about to name her Ayla. Moonlight. Our moonlight.

My hands shook when I slowly brought them in front of my eyes and examined them however much I could make out with amidst the darkness. Ayla would have hated me like never. She would have hid me from her friends, would have deliberately avoided meeting me, would have shut the door in my face not because she could see right past me and right through me for who I am. But because she would have been disgusted to have me as a father.

She would have wanted to be as far away as possible, with Julianna.

My hands shook as I looked at them. I had wanted to hold her tiny self in my arms. I had wanted to tickle her sides and witness my baby laugh, giggle, kick her legs up in the air. I had wanted to see those toothless grins that she would have reserved only for her baba, those forehead kisses, forehead taps and tummy taps only for my little girl. I had wanted to wake up early, dress her up, make breakfast for her and cuddle her close to me. I so much had wanted to rub her back whenever she would have stomach aches. I wanted to lie down with her and have some baby Ayla-baba time together.

I had wanted all of that.

My eyes raked over my palms when I contorted them in a fist.

Ayla would have been a baby and naive by then. Because a sensible daughter would never want to associate herself with a person like me, let alone call father. Pain split through my head when I groaned and shut my eyes. I should have let Cassio marry Avelina. She deserved so much better, and not someone who was still grieving over the first love of his life and his daughter, and then someone else as well.

That was my pain, my headache, my problem. Nobody else's.

That was mine to deal with alone, not anybody else.

I staggered towards the cabinet my feet knew so well in this room now.
It was the baby's room.

Julianna and I had decorated and painted it for her. Her clothes were here, with her toys and cot and whatnot. I pulled the curtains behind to let a bit of streetlight peak through to illuminate the room. Cautiously moving towards the table, I laid a hand on top of it to steady myself.