Betrayed by Blood, Saved by Love

I lost my parents when I was little. So I was sent to the Moretti family, one of Italy's Mafia families, and raised by the old Don himself. Alessandro, the family heir, kept me safe under his wing. Matteo, Alessandro's younger brother, promised early on that he'd marry me the day I came of age. Everyone envied me. They all figured I'd become the most powerful woman in the underworld. Then I turned twenty-two. One after the other, they both fell for Victoria, the Don's adopted daughter. Then Victoria hit a man from a rival family with her car. To keep it from turning into a war, someone had to take the blame. Alessandro said Victoria was too weak to survive it, and he asked me. So I took the fall for her and was sent to the family's reform house in the mountains, where members who broke the rules were locked away to reflect. I suffered there for three years. Then Matteo wanted to throw her a huge birthday party in an open-air ballroom on our estate. The only place big enough was the rose garden my mother left me. I begged him not to touch it, but he ordered it cleared by fire. I was still inside, trying to save what I could. I almost died in the flames. When I woke up in a private hospital, they barely seemed sorry. They told me to calm down. As long as I behaved, they said, they'd make it up to me with an even prettier estate. I shook off their hands, cold as ice. My roses are gone. And I don't want either of you anymore. Chapter 1 When Alessandro came with Victoria to bring me home, I hadn't eaten in three days. In my three years at the reform house, I lived worse than the lowest soldier in the family. The people who ran the place treated me like a servant. They ordered me around. If anything went wrong, they kicked and hit me. One hard winter, my leg got frostbite. Nobody treated it for a long time. It never fully healed. I used to be the Moretti family's precious girl. Now my leg ached every time the weather turned cold, and on the worst days I could barely walk. So when I came back to the estate, all I had to wear was an old white dress gone yellow from washing. Nobody helped me. I struggled to get myself out of the black car on my own. Whispers started up all around me. Reporters and spies from every family had heard I was back. They crowded in, shouting over each other, asking what my three years had been like. I turned my face away without thinking. I didn't know what to do with my hands, so I clutched my skirt. Then someone shoved me from behind. I hit the ground hard. My old injury flared up. It hurt so much I couldn't even get up. "Sis, what happened to your leg?" Victoria gasped and pushed through the crowd to get to me. "How is this possible? Alessandro said the reform house was only supposed to help you think about what you did!" "They say people only get hurt in there if they keep breaking the rules..." Everyone around us heard every word. In a heartbeat, every camera was pointed at my leg. I just looked at her calmly. My face didn't show a thing. I was the only one who knew. She was the reason my leg would ache every winter for the rest of my life. And the man who'd been by my side for over ten years, Alessandro Moretti, had let it happen. In my second year at the reform house, Victoria threw a fit about how much she missed me. She insisted on visiting. She saw me exactly once. When she got home, she came down with a fever that wouldn't break. Her chest hurt so much she could barely breathe. Alessandro nearly lost his mind. He called in every contact the family had to find out what was wrong. In the end, every so-called piece of evidence pointed to me. They decided I was jealous of Victoria and had secretly swapped her medicine. Victoria cried and said she didn't blame me. She only asked that I kneel in the courtyard for one night to atone, so she would know I was truly sorry. That night it was snowing. Alessandro stood at the gate for a long time. I could see he didn't want to do it. But Victoria was coughing in the car behind him. In the end, he looked away. "Isabella, you've always been strong. Just get through tonight for her." I knelt in the snow until dawn. The cold crept into my legs and never really left. I just remember thinking I probably wouldn't survive that winter. Now, seeing me on the ground, Alessandro's hard face finally flickered with something like pity. He was about to reach for me when Victoria called out behind him, weak and soft. "It's all my fault... If I weren't always so sick, Sis would never have had to take the blame for me. She'd never have ended up like this..." Halfway through, her face went white. She kept saying his name, over and over. Like she might stop breathing any second. Like he was the only thing keeping her alive. Right away, Alessandro remembered the doctor's warning. Victoria couldn't handle any more shocks. He looked torn for a second. Then he turned away from me. "You're tougher than she is, Isabella. Wait here. I'll send someone for you." He scooped Victoria up and hurried off in front of everyone. I sat alone on the cold ground. I slowly turned my head. Just in time to see Victoria, draped over his shoulder, flash me a smug little smile. Chapter 2 In the end, it was the Moretti family's old butler who came and took me back to the estate himself. I'd lived in this place for more than ten years. Now it felt like a stranger's house. The rosebushes I loved as a kid had been ripped out. The private stables in the back of the garden had a new fence. I stared toward the stables for a long time. I hesitated. Then I couldn't help asking. "Sir, where's my little white horse?" When I was little, some kids picked on me at school. One boy pushed me down on purpose. I scraped my knee. Then he laughed and said nobody had my back. When Alessandro found out, he showed up at the boy's house with a few family guards and taught him a lesson he wouldn't forget. After that, he picked out a gentle little white horse from the family stables and gave it to me. He wasn't very old himself back then. He wanted me to feel safe riding. So he learned from the horse trainer how to take care of it. He wouldn't let anyone else feed it or brush its mane. I still remember that day. He led the pony over to me. "Isabella, from now on, she's your buddy. As long as you love her, nobody can ever take her away from you." Back then, Alessandro always put me first. And now? The old butler slowly turned his face away, like he couldn't look me in the eye. "Miss, a while back, Miss Victoria came to ride and got spooked. She almost fell." "The young master was furious. He said the horse was too wild and had her sent away." I froze. Then I looked down and gave a small laugh. Fine. I'm going to die soon anyway. If I'm leaving this world for good, maybe it's better not to leave anything behind to miss. Half a year ago, the doctor at the reform house found a shadow on my lungs. By the time I could afford a real scan, it had already spread. The doctor gave me six months. Maybe less. I didn't tell anyone. There was no one left to tell. My parents had been good to me when they were alive. They bought me pretty dresses. They patiently helped me practice opera. My mother had been an amazing singer when she was young. She used to hold my hand and teach me songs that were soft and beautiful. Then they died in a car crash, and the Don took me in. Alessandro and Matteo always looked out for me after that. They were the only warmth I had left. I thought the three of us would stay that way forever. But then Victoria came, and Alessandro and Matteo seemed to lose their minds. One after the other, they both fell for her. Now my time was running out. If that was how it was going to be, I should at least do something for myself with the time I had left. I picked up my phone. I happened to see a post about signing up for an international opera competition. The deadline was right around the corner. My finger hovered over the page for a long time. In the end, I opened the application. My mother never got to live her dream. I wanted to do it for her. I was still lost in thought when the door swung open. Victoria was back at the estate. Chapter 3 She glanced at my phone. Then she put on a sweet, harmless smile. "Sis, it's all my fault for being so sick. Alessandro and Matteo really didn't mean to leave you out there." "Let me say sorry, okay? They're downstairs and dinner's ready. Let's go down together." Before I could say no, she grabbed my wrist and dragged me down the stairs. She was shockingly strong. I tried to pull free a few times, but I couldn't. Only when she'd pushed me down into a chair in the dining room did I see that Alessandro and Matteo were both there. The whole table in front of them was covered in seafood. It almost looked like they were really welcoming me home. Victoria played the sweet, thoughtful one. She ladled out a bowl of fish soup herself and held it out to me with a big smile. "Sis, you must be exhausted. Have some soup first." The fishy smell filled the air. I fought back the nausea and said quietly, "No thanks. You guys go ahead." I pushed the bowl away and turned to go back upstairs. Victoria panicked. She chased after me with the bowl. "Sis, are you still mad at me?" "I know I'm nobody. I shouldn't keep living at the Moretti estate. If it upsets you, I'll move out right now, okay?" She cried as she talked, and she held on to my arm for dear life. Her nails nearly dug into my skin. She was pressing on my bad leg, and the pain went straight through me. My vision went dark. Before I could get my balance, she smashed the bowl on the floor and pulled me hard toward the stairs. We fell down together. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alessandro and Matteo rushing over. Neither of them reached for me. Almost at the same moment, they both pulled Victoria into their arms. They let me crash to the floor. My knee hit the stone step. The old pain shot all the way up my leg. "Isabella, what the hell are you doing?" Matteo was furious. He yelled right at me. "How many times have I told you? Victoria isn't well!" "She already said sorry to you. Why do you keep going after her? When did you get so vicious?" Victoria isn't well. They were all so worried about her. None of them knew that the girl they were yelling at only had a few months left. Looking at the rage on his face, I honestly couldn't tell what hurt more. My leg or my heart. For more than ten years, he had never once raised his voice at me. Let alone called me something like vicious. Maybe Victoria really was the woman fate had picked. Otherwise, why was it that the second she cried, everyone took her side without even thinking? I gritted through the pain and stumbled to my feet. When Matteo came at me like that, all I did was quietly remind him, "Matteo Moretti, I'm allergic to seafood." Matteo stopped mid-yell. Even Alessandro, who was still holding Victoria tight, finally looked up at me. Of course they remembered. The first time a seafood allergy put me in the hospital, they both sat by my bed the whole night. But now they'd let Victoria lay out a whole table of seafood. They hadn't even stopped to think whether I could touch it. I wondered if they felt even a little guilty right then. "Even so, you still shouldn't... you shouldn't have pushed Victoria down the stairs!" Matteo was quiet for a moment. Then he still forced himself to defend her. "You're right. I shouldn't have." I shouldn't have still believed in you, even now. I shouldn't have hoped you'd remember how good you used to be to me. I didn't look at either of them again. I just bit through the pain in my leg and walked back to my room alone, one step at a time. Chapter 4 My leg hurt so much. My stomach kept churning. I couldn't sleep all night. I swallowed two painkillers, dragged myself to the window, and counted the stars by myself. I couldn't remember much from when I was very small anymore. But I sort of remembered my mother telling me that if you made a wish on a star, good luck would come. Just then, there was a soft knock on the door. I turned around, on guard. It was the Moretti family's old butler. "Miss, you've been through so much these past few years." When he saw how swollen and bruised my knee was, his eyes went red right away. He gently patted my head. Then he brought over some ointment and carefully rubbed it into my knee. "The young master took Miss Victoria out to dinner. I came while they're gone to check on you." The cool ointment eased the burning pain. But the more he looked, the more upset he got. Finally, he couldn't keep it in. "Miss, as long as Victoria is in this house, you'll never have any peace." "Take it from an old man. Leave this place. Go anywhere you like. Just don't stay with the Morettis anymore." "I can't stand to watch you suffer like this." So there was still someone in this world who cared about me. But where could I even go? My parents were gone. In this world, I'd never had a home of my own. I looked at his red eyes and tried to comfort him. "Don't worry. Once I win the singing competition, I'll leave." The competition was in two months. If the doctor was right, I wouldn't have much time left after that. Maybe leaving this world would be a kind of relief for me. "All right. As long as you know what you're doing, Miss." He sighed, packed up the first-aid kit, and quietly left. Victoria ran the house now. Everyone knew that anyone who helped me behind her back would answer to her, and Alessandro never stopped her. I didn't want to drag down the one old man who still cared about me. The huge Moretti estate was all mine again. Just me. I drifted off leaning against the window. As I sank into the dark, I thought I heard someone whispering in my ear. "Isabella, if only you were just an ordinary girl." "If you weren't so set on winning, I'd love you so much..." The voice was soft and full of feeling. Like it was hiding a world of regret. When I woke up the next day, I was in bed. There was a brand-new tube of ointment on the nightstand. I picked it up and looked at it. Then I gave a short laugh and threw it straight in the trash.