Chapter 8
704words
Isabella scrambled up from the floor. Her movements weren't fragile anymore. She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand, her beautiful features twisting into a mask of pure jealousy and spite.
She pointed at our unconscious parents, then at her brothers kneeling on the floor. Her eyes were like poisoned daggers.
"Why are you looking at me like that? Like I’m some kind of monster?"
"She’s the one who deserved to die! That bitch Elena!"
She shrieked, her voice so sharp it nearly broke the eardrums of everyone in the room.
"I am the eldest daughter of the Falcone family! I’m the firstborn!"
"For eighteen years, while I was fighting stray dogs for scraps in the slums, while I was being used by punks and sleeping in gutters—what was she doing?"
Isabella rushed to the big screen and pointed at the frozen image of my bloodied body.
"She was wearing couture gowns! She was taking piano lessons! She was riding horses! She was enjoying everything that belonged to me!"
"She was nothing but a damn replacement! A knock-off!"
Her chest heaved, the venom in her eyes practically overflowing.
"Every time I saw her looking so innocent, it made me sick! Mom and Dad only had her to fill the hole I left behind. Well, I’m back now! The original is home, so the replacement needs to be destroyed! You get rid of her like a piece of outdated trash!"
The room was deathly silent, save for her manic raving.
"To make yourselves feel better, you’ve spent the last few years spoiling me. You bought me things, you took me on trips. But that was charity! Every time you looked at me, you were looking through me at 'elegant' Elena. You thought I was crude. You thought I was low-class!"
"I wanted her gone for good. I wanted my life back! Only when she’s dead will you actually see me!"
Isabella walked up to Lorenzo.
Lorenzo was still clutching that blood-stained ring.
Isabella looked at it, a twisted sense of triumph on her face.
"And you, Lorenzo... stop acting like you’re some heartbroken lover."
"I wasn't the only one who killed her. You did too! All of you! Especially you!"
She jabbed her finger hard against Lorenzo’s chest.
"If you hadn't dumped her on the side of the road like a dog just for me, those men would never have had the chance."
"If you weren't so pathetic, believing every word I said without even listening to her explanation, she wouldn't have died in despair."
Lorenzo shook with rage. He wanted to choke the life out of her, but her words pinned him to the spot. He couldn't move.
Isabella turned to face Matteo.
"And you, my 'dear' brothers."
"If you hadn't been so busy watching those damn fireworks with me, if Matteo hadn't personally hung up the phone when she called for help... she’d still be alive."
Isabella laughed so hard she started to tear up again.
"She got through! She called for help! And you’re the ones who hung up! You thought she was just acting out for attention. You’re the ones who cut off her last lifeline!"
"While that first pipe was breaking her legs, you were clapping for me."
"While those men were cutting out her tongue, you were wishing me a 'Happy Birthday'."
"In that moment, every single one of you was the murderer! Hahaha!"
Those words were the sharpest blades of all—precise, brutal, and aimed straight for the heart.
The truth was too cruel, laid out there in all its bloody glory.
Isabella might have been the one who held the knife.
But every man in my family had taken turns sharpening it and handing it to her.
Luca clutched his chest, coughing up a mouthful of blood.
Matteo looked at his own hands as if they were stained crimson with my blood.
My soul drifted in the air, watching them crumble, watching the regret eat them alive.
Isabella was right.
I was a replacement.
But in the end, it was the people who claimed to love me who joined hands to send me to hell.
