Tainted Love

Chapter 29

Chapter — The Unraveling

On the other side of the world, Bianca was breaking things.

She was tearing her pants, yanking at the seams with trembling hands, her chest heaving as rage consumed her. The air around her was sharp with the sound of breaking glass, falling metal, and frustrated breath. She could not believe it …Vivian did not die.

Vivian lived. And worse, her baby lived too.

That was what Bianca had prayed for ….for both mother and child to vanish from this world. She wanted them gone, erased, forgotten. The news that Vivian had survived made her body shake with fury.

“How did she survive?” Bianca cried into her phone, her voice cracking like thunder. She could barely hear her own words over the pounding in her ears. “How, Victor? How did she survive?”

Victor’s voice came through the receiver, calm but distant, as if he were standing in another universe altogether.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “The baby just… didn’t die. They’re unstable at the moment. I just hope the baby dies.”

Bianca’s anger rose into a scream.

“I want it now, Victor! I want the baby dead! I can’t share you with anybody … do you hear me? My child can’t share a father. My son or my daughter, or whatever I’m carrying, can’t share his or her father with another woman!”

Her voice quivered, half rage and half despair.

“Do something,” she hissed. “If I were there, I would have finished this long ago.”

There was a moment of silence. The only thing Victor could hear was Bianca’s breathing, sharp and uneven. Then she said, her tone lower but full of suspicion,

“I don’t know why, Victor, but I feel like you don’t want the child dead.”

Victor’s breath hitched.

“No, Bianca, don’t say that,” he stammered. “It’s not like I don’t want the child dead. But I have to be careful … you know what we’re here for, right?”

Bianca’s fury broke free again.

“No, Victor! I’m not going to wait any longer! Give me better news before I lash out. Before I take everything into my own hands and do what I want to do!”

Before the call could even end properly, Bianca hung up …and the line went dead.

Victor lowered his phone slowly, an uneasy stillness filling the air. He was still replaying the sound of Bianca’s voice when he turned around …and froze.

Vivian was standing there.

She was at the gate, a bowl of ice cream in her hand, her expression calm but her presence piercing. The world seemed to slow.

“Vivian,” Victor said softly, almost under his breath. His tone was gentle, but fear lurked in it …quiet, hidden, but present.

Vivian looked at him, her eyes wide, her voice uncertain.

“Who were you on the phone with?”

Victor swallowed something invisible, his throat dry.

“It’s nobody,” he stammered. “It’s just a business partner.”

Vivian stood still, the ice cream trembling slightly in her hand. Her mind was racing. She could not believe her ears.

She was sure she heard him say Bianca.

No …she wasn’t daydreaming. She wasn’t mistaken.

A business partner?

Bianca?

No way. She knew Bianca …everyone did. Bianca was the most troublesome girl Vivian had ever encountered. The very thought of Victor calling her a “business partner” made Vivian’s heart twist. What kind of business could Victor possibly have with Bianca? That girl didn’t understand work, only chaos.

Vivian’s thoughts churned. Something wasn’t right. Something deep and dark was hiding beneath Victor’s words.

Even if Bianca truly was a business partner, why couldn’t Victor just say her name? Why stammer? Why hide?

“Were they hiding something?” Vivian whispered under her breath.

Trying to disguise her discomfort, she stretched out her hand and said quietly, “Well, I brought you an ice cream.”

Victor hurriedly took the bowl, forcing a smile, his eyes darting across her face …searching for the slightest hint that she suspected him.

But Vivian’s face was still. Too still.

He saw nothing but quiet, saw no accusation. Just a soft, muted version of her usual self …a silence that somehow hurt more than shouting.

Vivian lowered her gaze and turned away, leaving the room without another word. Her steps were slow and uneven, her mind heavy.

As she walked down the hallway, she felt the weight of something pressing deep into her chest. Her heart felt heavy. Her thoughts tangled and broke apart before they could form clearly. She was scared.

A cold, creeping kind of scared.

Something deep inside her whispered that something terrible was going on …that the peace she thought she had built was crumbling.

She had heard people’s warnings before, brushed them off, laughed them away. But now, as her mind echoed Victor’s voice and Bianca’s name, she couldn’t shake the dread spreading through her.

Her biggest fear was happening right before her eyes.

She was scared.

There was no other word for it.

And as that fear grew, Vivian began to slide into delusion …a desperate defense against what she could not face. Denial wrapped around her like a blanket. She told herself it was nothing, that she had misheard, that she was tired. Anything to make the ache stop.

⸻

Somewhere else …miles away …the world was breaking in an entirely different way.

Big men, tall and muscular, armed from head to toe, were invading the village.

What had once been the most peaceful place now echoed with the roar of large black vehicles. Dust rose from the ground like smoke as they drove through the narrow paths, stopping at every house. They broke doors, shouted commands, and turned quiet homes into battlegrounds.

They searched everything …every corner, every crack, every shadow. The sound of boots against wooden floors was endless. They tore through the village like a storm that had no mercy to give.

Then they reached a small house … quiet, almost hidden.

They kicked the door open and swarmed in. Inside, they searched every corner, moving with the same cold precision. The family stood frozen, watching their home turned upside down. Drawers emptied. Clothes thrown aside. Mattresses flipped. Nothing was sacred.

When they found nothing, the men finally left, leaving behind a silence heavier than before.

And that was when someone whispered, “She can’t be the end of us. Where is she? How did they not get her?”

From the shadows, Pascaline slowly emerged. She had been hiding, her breathing shallow, her eyes wide with fear. She moved toward the chair in the center of the room and sat down slowly, her body trembling.

Everyone turned to look at her.

Erica’s voice cut through the silence.

“Where were you?” she demanded, her tone sharp. “Where were you that those men weren’t able to see you?”

Pascaline looked up, her voice fragile, small, barely audible.

“I hid,” she said softly. “I hid under there.”

Her words trembled like a candle’s flame in the wind.

David, Erica’s husband, stepped closer, his expression full of pity.

“Honey,” he said gently, turning to his wife, “please leave her alone. She’s too weak to even speak. Can’t you see?”

But Erica’s fear was sharper than compassion. She was annoyed …furious, even. She was scared that her family was in danger because of this woman.

Pascaline …whatever her name really was …felt like a curse, a magnet for chaos.

Erica’s hands shook as she whispered, “What if this woman is the end of us?”

She didn’t say it aloud, but everyone could hear the fear behind her silence. Her eyes burned with questions that no one could answer.

She knew she had to do something. She had to protect her home, her husband, her peace…whatever remained of it.

⸻

Outside, the last of the soldiers’ vehicles disappeared down the dusty road, but the noise lingered in the villagers’ minds. Children clung to their mothers. Old men stared after the smoke trails, muttering prayers that felt too small.

Inside the small house, Pascaline sat motionless, her mind blank. She could still hear the echoes of the invasion, still see the boots, the guns, the cold eyes.

Erica paced near the door, her hands clasped, torn between fear and anger. David stood between them, trying to breathe through the chaos.

Everything was different now.

And though no one said it, they all knew …this was only the beginning.

⸻

Back in the house where Vivian lived, the ice cream Victor held had melted into a small pool of milk and sugar. He stared at it, his thoughts somewhere else entirely.

Bianca’s voice still echoed in his head. Vivian’s quiet eyes haunted him.

Everything around him felt fragile …like a single wrong word could make it all collapse.

And somewhere, far away, Bianca stared at her broken room, whispering to herself through clenched teeth:

“I want the baby dead.”