CHAPTER 142: HER MOTHER

"My mother is alive?"

But Vico didn’t say anything more and left their table to mingle.

"Did you two know about this?" she shot the question at Marcello and Natalia.

Natalia sneered at her, slamming her glass against the table. "It’s none of my business, cousin."

Maya turned to Marcello, searching his eyes.

Marcello shrugged. "Ask your dad for the details, princess."

Great," she said as she drained her champagne.

She caught sight of Vico in the midst of his men and shot him an annoyed glare, hoping he would turn around and give her answers. However, Vico avoided her for the rest of the party, leaving Maya anxiously seated like a ticking time bomb. Meanwhile, Marcello continued to irritate her, while Natalia threw snide remarks and hateful glares in her direction.

She let out a big sigh of relief the moment she was free to leave the terrible engagement party. She bolted to her room and jumped straight into the shower to cleanse herself, forgetting not to toss that cursed diamond ring into one of the drawers.

She wasn’t going to sleep without finding out why her mother was alive. So she slipped into Vico’s study, sat behind his massive mahogany desk, and waited for him. Her eyes were fixated on the door.

An hour passed, and Maya watched the doorknob turn as Vico walked in. His instinct was to pull out his gun the moment he saw someone sitting behind the desk.

Maya tensed up, her eyes tightly shut, waiting for the trigger to be pulled and end her miserable life.

"Maya, avrei potuto spararti!" He scolded in Italian as he lowered the gun.

Maya cried out, "Sorry. We really need to talk about my mom!"

She got up from behind the desk and took a seat on the couch, her eyes fixed on Vico, determined to leave his study with answers.

Vico grunts. "I will make this short," he says as he returns the gun to where he was hiding it. "Your mother, Cecelia, is really alive."

Maya gasps, getting up from the couch to pace around as she processes this revelation.

"How is she alive!" Her pupils were welling with tears. She couldn’t believe that the mother she thought was dead all this time was still alive. She had been in Italy the whole time.

Perhaps being a captive in Italy is turning out to be more of a blessing than a curse. She is going to see her mother!

"My mom is alive." The words felt foreign on her lips. She searched her heart but couldn’t identify the emotion she was feeling—whether it was happiness, sadness, or shock.

"Yes, she is very much alive," Vico reconfirmed.

Maya went from shock to anger. "You’ve been keeping her in captivity just like you’re doing to me, huh? You kept her away from her kids and made everyone believe she is dead!" Anger surged through her veins as she yelled.

"I had to fake her death for her safety," Vico said coolly. "I had to kill the doctors and nurses who were in charge of her delivery to make that happen."

Maya recoiled. "Innocent people died at your hands, so you could make my mother your prisoner!"

Vico snarled. "Those nurses and doctors weren’t all that innocent; they were paid to kill you and your mother after delivery, and they accepted the money. So, I offered them twice the amount to keep you alive and fake your mother’s death. Then I had them killed, but unfortunately, one got away."

"Oh." Maya swallowed hard. Then, those nurses and the doctor deserve what happened to them. She feels less sorry about their deaths.

"Do you know who paid those nurses and doctors to have you and your mother killed?" Vico drew closer, and his towering presence made Maya feel a little frightened. She slowly took a step back.

"The culprit was the mafia organization that Dalton Black’s father was working for."

Maya wasn’t surprised; it was obvious to her.

"They also murdered your uncle, Natalia’s father."

Maya was speechless. This explains why, in pursuit of revenge, Vico killed that entire mafia clan, totally wiping them out. Vico’s actions might be somewhat justified, but he shouldn’t have kidnapped Dalton and Aiden and tortured them; they were innocent kids who didn’t deserve that. She wanted to point this out to Vico but restrained herself.

"You understand why I can never accept Dalton as your husband. He carries the blood of a man who was part of a mafia organization that killed my only brother and nearly took your life and your mother’s as well! "

Even though he has wiped that mafia organization from the world, his sheer, primal hatred for them still remains evident in his eyes.

Maya nods, accepting defeat. She knows she will never see Dalton again; she has truly lost him. She has finally reached the acceptance stage. She can feel her heart preparing for a farewell, saying goodbye to the love of her life.

She will dwell on it and cry later. She needs to focus on her mother.

"What really happened between you, Fredrick Hathaway, and my mother?"

"Fredrick Hathaway joined my mafia organization. He proved to be smart, so I assigned him a territory to manage—the city where you grew up. However, shortly after, he began stealing from me. The punishment for that is death, but Fredrick decided to offer me his beautiful wife in exchange for his life."

"So..." Her voice broke as she took in rapid, sharp breaths to muster the courage to ask the difficult question. "Did you...?"

"You want to ask if I raped your mother. If you are a product of rape." Vico said nonchalantly.

Maya squinted her eyes. "Yes."

"No, unfortunately, your mother loved your stepfather and was willing to sleep with me to protect his life."

Maya sank into the couch, a heavy weight lifted from her shoulders. A tear of relief fell on her left cheek.

"And another thing," Vico interjected. "You weren’t conceived during the first sexual encounter with your mother. Your mother found out that Fredrick Hathaway had been cheating on her long before they even got married, and she fell out of love with him. That allowed me to come in and make your mother fall in love with me instead."

He smirked. "And she did. Your mother has a thing for dangerous men."

Maya’s eyes widened at this new information. "Wow." Her mother really has terrible taste in men.

"So she divorced Fredrick Hathaway and married me. Then, on our wedding night, you were conceived. You were never a bastard child."

Maya’s lips gaped in shock at the biggest twist in this rollercoaster story of her life.

"But everyone was led to believe a fabricated story about my mother committing infidelity and me being the fruit of that, for safety reasons." Maya deduced

"And you still allow Frederick Hathaway to keep the territory you gave him in exchange for raising me."

Vico clapped. "Bravo!"

Maya swiped her hand across her face; this was a lot for her to process and understand.

"But you eliminated that mafia organization that was a threat to my mother’s life. Why did you still keep her from me and my half-siblings?"

"Because she is mine, and the world doesn’t deserve to lay eyes on her or perceive her—not even you or her other children," he proclaimed possessively and madly. Maya thought he sounded like a madman.

"And my mother had no say in this? She surely missed her children."

Vico huffed. "She did. She received photos of you and your siblings, including videos, every month. She wanted to be with the three of you, but she understood that I was keeping you four apart for your own safety. I had other enemies," he explained.

"I see," Maya breathed out.

"Where is she? Can I see her?" Maya asked in a strained voice.

Is she even ready to see her mother? The question raced through her mind. She might faint when she lays her eyes on her. It doesn’t matter; she just wants to see her mother. Joy surged through her heart. Oh, she is going to tell her how much she has missed her—her whole damn life. She is even dreaming of the things she could do with her mother to create a bond and make up for the twenty-four years they have lost. She is also going to tell her mother the life she...

"Unfortunately," Vico’s tone shifts to a gloomy one. "Your mother is in her sickbed. She has cancer and only has a few weeks or days to live." He reveals this, shattering Maya’s dream of reunion with her mother.

"No!" A scream tore from Maya’s lips as tears rushed into her eyes.

"Papa, tell me you’re lying!" She beat her chest.

"Tell me you’re lying!" she cried out.

"Sorry," Vico croaked.

"If you want to see her before she passes away, sign the divorce papers and marry Marcello immediately." He laid down the conditions and bolted out of his study, leaving Maya in shambles.