The Mafia's Queen

|Ch 25| The Mafia's Queen

 Foolish child

Day came and the moon swallowed the sun for the next one hundred and fifty-two days leaving confusion in Stephanie's aching heart.  

That's how long it has been since Stephanie had last seen or even heard of Estephano, and every single night she would spend her nights restless and crying her eyes to the point of exhaustion only to repeat the same process the next day and the day after that. Five long months she spent caring for her father, cooking for him, changing him, cleaning the house and so on, it eventually turned into a routine.

She got up every day to greet her father with a smile when all she wanted was to grovel away in her room. Like a rose not given water after weeks Stephanie was slowly wilting with misery. She had gotten attached to the man she could not be with and now she was suffering, they both were...

This was the last week her father would be off of work as he was going back first thing Monday morning, today was Tuesday which Anthony had the day off and offered to come visit her this afternoon.

 She smiles remembering the blue-eyed man who was like a friend to her despite all the times he flirting with her. All his attempts proving to be futile at wooing her as she was already head over heels for another.

 Stephanie knew Anthony wanted to start something with her and if the constant compliments and kisses to the cheek were not enough for her to realize it then the constant date propositions were sure to be a dead give away of just how much he wanted to take her out. But each time she said no and each time Anthony would not give up, in fact, it only made him more persistent to ask her until she would eventually give in and finally say yes but still she hasn't said the one word with three letters he was craving to hear. 

Just thinking about it made her stomach grow queasy with uneasiness and her throat lumped making saying yes physically and mentally impossible and this upset her all the more as she knew it was because part of her was still hoping she would run into Estephano again and have the happily ever after she desired with him.

Every single day she spent looking around her surroundings in hopes of maybe catching a glimpse of him but to no avail, he was never there. Not at the corner of the grocery store, not when she passed by her fathers work, not when she went out to get the mail did she once see his black mustang ford. He was not there...He had just vanished from the world, her world. 

 To add to her miser she spent every night looking out her window into the world wondering where he was and what he was doing.

'Did he move on?' She would often times ask herself causing her heart to grow cold with isolation and fear that she was too late and some other women had claimed the man she had already given her heart too. Just the thought of him wrapping his arms around another placing kisses over the woman's flesh caused a turmoil to stir within Stephanie as she lay in bed breathing harshly as she chocked on her sobs trying to subside them so her father who was just across the hall would not hear them.

"Where are you Estephano...." Stephanie mutters closing her eyes and the image of his face comes to mind before sleep takes her away until the sun plunges back from its home greeting the earth yet again making it another lonesome day for Stephanie where she would hide her pain from her father and the rest of the clueless world. 

However, what Stephanie was not aware of was that her father could hear her every night calling out to Estephano and he was there watching as the tears fell from her eyes during the dark night when she was in her own world of nightmares. The sight of her pulling her braided hair and clawing at her hands while she thrashed around as if she was in a nightmare so horrible it burned her from the inside out. The sight being too much for Eduardo who felt as if this was his fault for bringing the Bandoni's into his daughter's once peaceful life.