Chapter 3 - The Fractured Truth
The dinner party had dissolved into a scene of chaotic uncertainty. The guests, sensing the shift in power, had retreated to the fringes of the room, whispering and glancing toward the exit. Bianca stood by her chair, her grip on the edge of the table so tight her knuckles were white.
"You’re doing this because of her?" Bianca gestured toward me, her voice trembling with a mixture of fear and rage. "You’re going to let a servant destroy your life because you're paranoid?"
Nico didn't answer her. He kept his focus on his mother. "Mama, the floor is yours."
Donna Elena reached for the board again. Her movements were fluid now, fueled by years of repressed fury. She wrote with a speed that suggested she had been preparing for this moment for a decade.
She is not a wife. She is a cage.
I read the words out loud, the silence in the room heavy enough to crush bone.
Bianca let out a shrill, hysterical laugh. "She’s senile! She’s hallucinating. Look at her, she doesn't even know where she is!"
"She knows exactly where she is," Nico said, stepping toward Bianca. "And she knows exactly what you did the night of the accident."
The air left the room. My heart stopped. I hadn't known about the accident—not the details. I only knew it had taken her voice.
Bianca froze. Her facade, the carefully constructed mask of the grieving, loving fiancée, shattered completely. Her eyes, usually so calculated, flickered with genuine terror. "You don't have proof. You have a broken woman and a maid."
"I have the phone call, Bianca," Nico said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "I have the recording of you talking to your cousin, and I have the evidence of the bribe you paid to the driver who hit her car."
I looked at Donna Elena. She was staring straight ahead, her face a mask of iron. The pain of the past was etched into every line of her face, but there was a relief there, too—the kind that only comes when the truth is finally laid bare.
"You weren't just after my money," Nico continued, circling her like a wolf. "You were finishing the job."
Bianca bolted. She didn't run for the door—she knew it was guarded. She lunged toward the sideboard, pulling a small, silver-plated pistol from her clutch.
The room screamed. Guests ducked, scrambling under tables.
"Don't move!" Bianca shrieked, pointing the gun at Nico.
I didn't think. I threw myself in front of Donna Elena’s wheelchair, shielding her body with my own. My heart was thundering, a drumbeat of terror.
"You think you’re so smart, Nico?" Bianca spat, her hand shaking. "You think you’re the king of this city? You’re just a spoiled boy living in your mother’s shadow. She was a obstacle. She saw me with my lover, she saw the accounts, she saw everything!"
Nico stood perfectly still, his hands raised. "Put the gun down, Bianca. It’s over."
"It’s not over until I say it’s over!" she yelled.
She swung the gun toward me. "And you, Sofia. You little tea-bringer. You thought you were so brave? You thought you were the hero?"
She pulled the trigger.
The sound was a deafening crack that shattered the crystal chandelier above us. Glass rained down like shards of ice. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the impact, but there was no pain.
I heard a grunt, a heavy thud, and then the sound of metal hitting the floor.
May you like
I opened my eyes. Nico was standing over Bianca, his arm locked around her throat, the gun skittering across the floor toward the fireplace. She slumped against him, gasping for air.
He didn't kill her. He held her there, his face inches from hers. "You are done, Bianca. You’re not just leaving this house. You’re leaving this world."
