Despite everything that had unfortunately happened between us, Ethan was a decently good boyfriend while we were together. He must have done things behind my back because he was from a mafia gang and he did keep that from me; however, I didn’t blame him. I knew that he didn’t want to get me involved then and it wasn’t like he could randomly tell me that he was the next head of Silva.
Apart from that, what I told Hayden was true. Although Ethan could be hard to handle sometimes, overall, he was sweet, helpful, supportive, and he made me smile and laugh so much during the time when we were together. I wondered if Ethan knew back then that what we had wasn’t meant to last. If he did, how did he feel all those times when we smiled together?
"What are you thinking about?" Hayden asked in a low voice.
"Oh...nothing. Sorry, you were saying?" I quickly replied after his voice pulled me back from my thoughts.
"I didn’t say anything. I was just watching your expression turn all sad and lonely," Hayden said with a small chuckle before his eyes narrowed at me.
I wonder what he saw. I wonder if he could see through me...
"Sorry..." I whispered.
"It’s nothing to apologize for. I’m the one asking you all these difficult questions. Did you recall some old memories?" Hayden asked, teasingly.
"Not really..." I mumbled in reply.
"While you were with him, did you realize anything strange about him?" Hayden asked as he kept his eyes on my face.
"Not really. He seemed very busy at times. He would go away on trips now and then, but I didn’t think that it was unusual. Ethan...he didn’t like his parents and would get depressed every time that he had to return home to see them," I replied.
Everything seemed ordinary and normal back then given that I didn’t know anything about his involvement with Silva. However, looking back, I realized that everything had to do with his involvement with his ’family business’.
"Did you try to find him?" Hayden asked curiously.
"Of course, I did. I asked everywhere. I called his friends, well the ones I knew anyways, he didn’t seem to have many friends at university. The ones he had weren’t exactly close, but I called them anyways..." I said truthfully as I tried not to recall the pain and desperation from those days.
"You couldn’t find him..." Hayden surmised correctly.
"That’s right. I couldn’t find him. Worst, no one knew where he went. No one knew anything about him. The more I looked, the more I realized that I didn’t know much about him either. Just like that, it was like he just disappeared," I concluded.
"I see..." he mumbled.
Hayden was silent again and then he sighed as if what I had told him weighed more on his mind. I still didn’t know why he asked me those questions. I didn’t think that it would be harmful to tell him, though. It was all in the past anyways.
"What did he tell you when he came to see you?" Hayden continued to press me for answers.
I closed my eyes and sighed before giving him my answer. The truth of what Ethan told me was just so terrifyingly gruesome and tragic and even I didn’t want to repeat what he had told me.
"He told me that that night...he killed his own parents before coming back to see me. He came to break up with me because we couldn’t be together anymore. He had decided to take over Silva as the next boss..." I said in a broken voice before I had to stop.
I couldn’t say anymore. The truth made me feel slightly nauseous. Ethan’s face that day was still so clear in my mind, and I didn’t want to recall anymore.
"That’s enough for today..." Hayden said as he placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.
I didn’t miss that he had just said ’for today’ which meant that there could be more of these sessions in the future? I hoped that I was wrong.
--To be continued...