I Picked Up a College Guy, Then My Mafia Ex Caught Me Chapter 18

My name is Dominic Blackwood.

I grew up being called a bastard. No one cared about me. My mother only ever fawned over the old man of the Blackwood family.

At one of the big galas, surrounded by glittering decorations, no one wanted me there.

I was locked in a supply closet. I was starving. I crawled out, fell, limped to the kitchen.

I ran into a girl with pigtails. She saw how banged up I was and put a bandage on my knee.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“It’s my birthday. I just want a full meal. So my memory of today won’t just be pain and yelling.”

She came back with a chocolate cupcake, stuck a candle in it, and lit it with her lighter. “Make a wish.”

She sang me “Happy Birthday.” It was the first time anyone had ever done that.

I looked into her bright eyes, and didn’t want to blow the candle out.

A woman called her name, “Ella!”, and she jumped up. She pressed the lighter into my hand. “I don’t have anything to give you, but… happy birthday. I hope your wish comes true.”

I watched her leave, her skirt fluttering like a white butterfly.

My wish was simple, to see her again tomorrow.

I had never been lucky. My wish didn’t come true.

Until high school, when I saw her at freshman orientation. I watched her from afar. I followed her home after school.

She didn’t remember me. Her eyes were always on a boy named Ethan Cole, the same one all the girls liked. Jealousy festered in me.

Sophomore year, a transfer student named Victoria Hayes arrived. Pretty, sweet, kind to everyone. A voice in my head told me to fall for her. I didn’t feel a thing.

Every time I tried to get close to Ella, I would say the meanest things without meaning to. She grew scared of me. I couldn’t control my own tongue. Damn it.

Later, I married her by any means necessary. She kept watching Ethan and Victoria.

Every time Ethan was doing well, she smiled. My bitterness clawed its way out.

I felt myself spiraling. The darkest thoughts surfaced. I locked her away.

When Victoria got married, my head cleared somewhat.

I will never forget the day Ella gave birth. I was in a car accident. I showed up at the hospital covered in blood. But she had already run.

She left me a child. She hated me so much, she didn’t even take him.

My world went empty.

Four years. It took four years to find the butterfly that had escaped.
She was laughing with another man.

I brought her back. I wanted her to belong only to me.

Every night, I told Nathan to find a way to keep Mommy here, otherwise, they would be out there alone, struggling. And Daddy would be miserable.

He didn’t seem to listen, just stared at his Rubik’s cube.

Then Ella found out about my condition. I thought she would be disgusted.

She wasn’t.

Just like all those years ago, when she had found me broken in that kitchen and given me a birthday to remember.

She has always been my only light.

And this time, I’m never letting her go.