Gemma went with her mother. She was still feeling bad about what happened between her and Delfina and how her father supported Delfina instead.
"Mother, that's unfair!" she cried.
Lucia frowned, rubbing her daughter's back as she led her into her room.
"That's enough, darling."
"Why did daddy have to support that wretched girl? After disappearing for years she's finally back to ruin us all," Gemma wailed.
Lucia shook her head. "That's not true, love. She's not going to ruin us." Gemma gave her a blank look. "You don't even know that. She's done it before, mother."
"Don't worry, darling. I will put her in the right place," her mother promised.
Gemma nodded. "Yes. I won't let her get away with this. She will have to pay for what she has done to me and how she humiliated me."
The door opened and Baccio stepped inside. He glared at the two women angrily.
"Why did you hit your cousin's son, Gemma?" he quizzed, angrily.
Gemma ignored him and turned to her mother. "Back to what we were discussing, mother."
Baccio stared at his daughter, angry. "You dare ignore me?!"
"The same way you ignored her when she needed you to defend her before that tramp!" her mother replied.
The father's face turned red at the accusation. "You expect me to support your decision to maltreat your cousin's son. Well, I'm not going to do that."
Lucia scowled at him. "Fine. Do whatever you want."
"Let's all have dinner as a family. Don't forget it's Delfina that helped you when you needed her help," Baccio said.
Lucia snorted. "Delfina didn't help me. She paid for everything that we spent on her since her parents died!"
Baccio stared at his wife, surprised. "You can't mean that."
Lucia chuckled darkly. "Oh, I do. And Delfina is going to regret hitting my daughter. Also, you both can go to hell with your dinner!"
Then she slammed the door in his face.
"That was great, mother," Gemma chuckled.
Her mother laughed. "I know exactly how we're going to deal with Delfina and her son."
Gemma cackled. "I love plans."
****
"I'm sorry!" Delfina threw her hands up in the air for the third time as she tried to placate her angry son. He's been upset since yesterday night even after he forced her to leave her uncle's home that night.
It was morning now and he was still sulking as she prepared him for school.
"No," he answered simply.
This was the same answer he has been giving whenever she apologized. His reason was simple; he had told her not to go last night and even when she hadn't wanted to go, she had ended up going and he had been humiliated.
Delfina sympathized with him but she also knew he was taking it too far.
"You're being unreasonable, Ricco," she said. Ricco barely glanced at her as he went to wait for a taxi outside the house. She knew if she wasn't fast, he would enter a taxi and leave.
He had done it on one certain occasion and she had been so scared but by the time she got to his school, he was already settled with other of his classmates.
She had even wondered where he got the money to pay for the taxi but she figured he got a free lift since he was a child.
"I'm tired of your silence," Delfina sighed.
Ricco gave her a pointed look. "I'm not silent, mom. Just sulking. Allow me to sulk in peace, my ego was wounded."
Delfina chuckled. "Ego? You're a kid for crying out loud."
Ricco shrugged. "So? I have an ego."
"I'm sorry your ego was wounded. I promise I'll protect you better next time," she said.
Ricco pulled her in for a hug, sniffling a little.
"I love you, mom, and I won't ever let anyone mistreat you."
Delfina nodded with a happy smile. Now that she had made peace with her son, she was happy.
She entered a taxi and took her son to school before heading to work.
***
Delfina entered the office and saw her colleagues in their small cubicle all typing furiously on their typewriters. She greeted every one of them before she went to her cubicle.
"Delfina!" her boss called.
She answered and hurried to his office.
Her boss was a wry old man in his late fifties who owned the publishing company she worked in. He wore bespectacled spectacles which always rested on the bridge of his nose.
He had a protruding stomach which always reminded her of the doctor from six years ago. Despite his spectacles, he still squinted his eyes from time to time.
His publishing house was an old publishing house with old gadgets and that's why she and her colleagues still type with a typewriter.
They rarely get any jobs except small-time writers who can't afford to get money for their publishing. And that was also why she had gotten a job so easily here.
The pay was nothing to write home about but it was still something she could use to buy drugs for her son's health so she wasn't complaining.
"Good morning, Sir," she greeted him politely.
The man grunted his response. "Have you finished typing the manuscript I gave you last week?"
Delfina groaned inwardly. She had forgotten about that manuscript and was still working on the one from two weeks ago. The problem was she was having difficulties typing it because there were a lot of errors and she couldn't type with those errors.
"I'm working on it, Sir," she lied smoothly.
"Working on it? I just got an email from the client, the manuscript is needed by the end of today."
Her eyes widened in shock. She hadn't even started working on it and…
"You've not started any work on it, right?"
She nodded. "No, Sir. I've been working on the one you gave me two weeks ago."
"Two weeks ago?! Do you want this job, Delfina?"
Delfina nodded, her head bobbing up and down. "Yes, Sir. I promise I'll deliver."
"Run along."
Delfina headed to her cubicle and began typing her fingers away.
She was so engrossed in her typing that she didn't notice what was going on around her until she heard a loud crash before her.
It was her typewriter, being smashed to the ground!
"What the f…" she trailed off when she looked at the tall man standing before her.
Her colleagues were all roughened up alongside her boss. There were about ten hooligans who were in her office. "What do you want from me?" she asked, glaring at the man.
He picked her up like she weighed nothing before he thrust a phone in her line of vision.
She saw her son, he was sitting quietly in the library and there was a laser beam on his forehead.
"What do you want with my son?!" she cried.
"You have to pay your cousin ten thousand grand else we'll kill your kid," the hooligan replied.
"I don't have such an amount of money!" she cried.
"I'm sure your boss can loan you," the man sneered.
Delfina's eyes flicked to her boss. "Don't you dare, bitch!" her boss growled.
She hesitated for a minute.
The hooligan cackled as he spoke into a small microphone. Delfina panicked and took the money from her boss's drawers.
They took the money along with some typewriters before leaving.
"You caused this!" her boss scowled.
Delfina shook her head wanting to explain.
"You're fired!" he snapped at her.
"But sir…"
"And you have one week to pay for damages worth over seventy thousand dollars else I'm suing you!" Delfina collapsed on the chair, her life was over!