Chapter 3
He stepped into the room and saw Celene crying, blood covering her face. His expression turned cold right away.
“How could you be so cruel to a kid?”
Maddalena’s cars were still ringing from Celene’s cries. She tried to steady the chaos inside her heart and said quietly, “It wasn’t me.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Albergo, it was my fault,” Celene whispered from Vittoria’s arms, her voice shaky with fear. “I shouldn’t have touched your things. Please… please don’t hit me, okay?”
Vittoria held the child tight and wiped her tears.
“I’m sorry, it’s all our fault. We must’ve mistaken the main bedroom for the guest room. When we lived abroad, we were always in the basement. Today, Celene saw that this room had good lighting and just wandered in.
“I’ll take her away right now.”
She stood up and was ready to leave, but Silvano stopped her with a hand.
He looked at Maddalena with a cold gaze, his voice sharp and spaced out, “Apologize to them.”
Maddalena had not expected him to trust Vittoria and her daughter without question. Her already aching heart felt like
it had just been smashed to pieces. That last bit of hope inside her was gone.
She lowered her eyes and said in a raspy voice, “I didn’t push her.”
“You’re still denying it?” he snapped. “Then leave this room to them as compensation.”
Strangely, Maddalena felt calm when she heard that. She was going to leave anyway, so this just sped things up.
“Sure,” she said. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”
She paused, then said slowly, “Let’s call off the engagement.”
The room went quiet for a second.
Silvano looked at her, and for some reason, his heart skipped a beat. A strange feeling of panic crept up on him. How- ever, he quickly brushed it off.
To him, Maddalena was just an orphan. She had nowhere else to go but to him. Talking about the engagement now must be some kind of her trick to get attention.
This playing-hard-to-get game was seriously annoying.
Silvano picked up Celene and said with a frown, “Think about what you’ve done. Don’t let anything like this happen
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Chapter 3
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again.”
Then he left with Vittoria. The sound of the car engine faded into the distance.
Maddalena stood still, staring at the mess around her. Her heart ached like it was being wrung dry. Regret wrapped around her like an invisible web.
She should have left long ago. She should not have stayed just because of that last sliver of hope. Now, even her mom’s keepsake had been ruined.
Maddalena blinked back tears and knelt down to pack up her things. Just then, her phone buzzed. It was a message from an unknown number.
“Ms. Albergo, it’s Vittoria.”
Maddalena’s face turned a little cold, but she still waited for the following message. She figured Vittoria had some- thing to say, but the chat stayed silent.
She frowned and was about to put her phone down when she suddenly saw that Vittoria had posted on her Instagram story.
It was a seemingly casual video from the driver’s seat. Vittoria’s voice played in the background, “Silo, aren’t you afraid Ms. Albergo will get mad and move out if you talk to her like that?”
Maddalena froze for a second before clicking on the next story. Silvano’s cold voice followed, “She’s just an orphan. Where else could she go?”
Then, the next story. Vittoria said, “But I saw her packing her bags.”
And finally, the fourth one. Silvano said indifferently, “She’s just playing hard to get.”
His voice was casual, totally unconcerned.
