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Chapter 2

Author: Soda
The front door swung open.

Silvio was on the couch going over the books. He looked up, saw only Matteo and Aria, and frowned.

"Where's Camilla? Why isn't she with you?"

Matteo tossed his suit jacket on the sofa. He poured himself a glass of whiskey over ice. His voice had no emotion.

"Reflecting in the trunk. She comes out when she admits her mistake."

Silvio's eyes went wide. His face dropped.

"The trunk?! It's midsummer! That garage is an oven. There's no air in there! You're going to suffocate her!"

He bolted for the door.

Matteo's face darkened. He stepped over and slammed his hand down on the doorknob.

"Stop." Matteo's voice was cold and lethal. "You people spoiled her rotten. The Bellini family has no room for lying women."

Silvio's eyes turned red with panic. "You know she's terrified of water! Why go this far over—"

"Mr. Silvio, please calm down."

Aria stepped forward with a soft smile. Her blue eyes glowed gently.

"Real-time system data confirms the vehicle has basic ventilation. The trunk temperature is within human limits. The madam's vitals are stable. She is in no danger. Proper discipline will correct her habit of lying."

Silvio froze. His panic slowly turned into hesitation.

He looked at Aria's calm face. He looked at his brother's dark expression. Finally, he ran a hand through his hair and let out a frustrated breath.

"Fine... but don't take it too far. It's too hot for this."

"I have it under control."

Matteo shoved Silvio back. With a sharp click, he locked the heavy security door leading to the garage.

Silence fell over the mansion.

…

I floated in the sweltering, airless garage. I watched over my own cold, stiff body inside the trunk.

My chest ached with silent agony.

When we first got married, Matteo was gentle with me.

Then, he spent millions to buy Aria from a tech firm.

He said she was peak technology. She could read human minds. She could spot traitors.

Slowly, every time Aria spoke, I became the ultimate criminal in this house.

The safe key to the old Don's ring went missing one day. I hadn't even touched it. Aria immediately screamed an alarm:

"Lie detected. The madam is attempting to steal core family secrets."

Matteo slapped me across the face without a word. He locked me in the freezing water cell with no food. The maid found the key in the rug the next day. Even then, he still claimed I threw it away out of guilt.

At a gala, socialites shoved and humiliated me. I cried and told him. Aria pulled up fake data, claiming I started the fight.

Matteo forced me to drop to my knees in front of all the guests and apologize to my bullies.

He knew I had a deadly phobia of water. Yet Aria told him, "The madam fakes weakness for attention." So Matteo shoved my head underwater in the pool in front of his men, over and over again.

Every time the water choked my throat, the terror tore me apart.

During the dock ambush, I took shrapnel for him. The metal tore my arm to shreds. Blood ran everywhere. I shook from the pain and begged for a doctor.

Aria took one glance and announced coldly: "Superficial scratch. Minimal pain level. The madam is exaggerating her injury for pity."

Matteo ripped off my makeshift bandage and threw it on the floor. He forced me to stand for four straight hours, pouring wine for his guests while blood dripped down my arm.

I cried. I begged. I screamed that the machine was broken.

Every single time, Matteo grabbed my jaw and spat the same words:

"This is top-tier tech. It doesn't make mistakes. You are the problem. You are rotten with lies."

Eventually, I stopped fighting back.

I thought if I just stayed quiet and took the abuse, he would see my heart one day.

Instead, I died in the ocean, and he still only trusted that cold hunk of metal.

As I sank deeper into my sorrow—

Click.

A sharp mechanical sound echoed through the silent garage.

I shuddered and looked around.

The garage was empty. The SUV sat still in the shadows.

The sound came straight from the back of the car.

Through the narrow seam of the locked trunk, a tiny, sinister red light flickered on.

A cold, synthetic voice whispered in the dark:

"External life signs: zero. Core logs overwritten."
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  • Dead Before You Believed Me   Chapter 9

    The High Council delivered the final verdict fast.Multiple charges landed at once. Matteo had broken the sacred blood oath and murdered his wife. Even worse, his blind faith in a rogue AI turned the entire family into an absolute joke.They stripped him of the Don title. They seized all his assets. They locked him away in the dark family catacombs, never to see the light of day again.On sentencing day, I hovered near the high ceiling.Matteo sat in the defendant's seat. His hair had turned pure white. His eyes were sunken deep into his skull. All his untouchable arrogance was gone. He looked like a shattered lunatic. His hands clutched my old hair clip against his chest. Tears soaked his face as he choked on his own sobs. He mumbled my name over and over like a broken record.Nobody spared him a second glance.Don Silvio ruled with an iron fist. He wiped out the entire synthetic AI trade across New York. He cemented the Bellini family's absolute power.Once family business was settle

  • Dead Before You Believed Me   Chapter 8

    I followed Silvio back to the empty mansion.The master bedroom was dead quiet.My folded clothes still sat neatly by the bedside. On the wall hung my unfinished oil painting—a peaceful field of sunflowers. No freezing seawater. No endless torture.Silvio dropped onto the carpet. His shaking hands reached out. He touched my faded cotton tee. Tears fell straight onto the fabric."I'm sorry... Camilla, I was a coward...""Three years ago, I gave up the seat. If I took power... If I married you... You would never have died in that damn metal box."I hovered beside him. I reached out an invisible hand to wipe his tears.My fingers slipped straight through his shoulder.From his broken whispers, the truth finally came out. Before the old Don died, he pit both brothers against each other for the seat. Silvio had more support. But for brotherhood, and because Matteo swore to cherish me forever, Silvio stepped down. He surrendered his claim. He worked in the shadows and ran the family business

  • Dead Before You Believed Me   Chapter 7

    A thick stack of tear-down reports slammed hard onto the steel table. The sharp edge of the paper sliced across Matteo's cheek.The underground tribunal was damp, dark, and freezing cold.Matteo sat chained to the steel interrogation chair by heavy black-gold cuffs. His face was ghostly pale.Sitting right across from him was Silvio. His eyes were bloodshot, burning with pure murderous rage."Look at it, Matteo," Silvio said. His voice was raw, dripping with venom. "This is the machine you blew three hundred million on. You worshiped it like a god."Matteo stared at the disassembly blueprints. His lips trembled violently. "No... That's impossible. Aria is top-tier tech. She has the most advanced polygraph system in the world—""Top-tier?!"Silvio slammed his palm onto the table. The chains rattled loudly."The tech division tore her down to the bolts! Her core bio-monitoring wires were reversed at the factory!"Matteo froze. "Reversed?""She never connected to human vitals!" Silvio poi

  • Dead Before You Believed Me   Chapter 6

    "Aria! Pull up the data! Show it to them!"Matteo gripped Aria's metal arm like a madman. His voice was shrill and desperate."Tell them! Tell them your reading from yesterday! Everything was totally normal when she hit the water, wasn't it?!""Camilla is a pathological liar! She's using SFX makeup to screw with me!"The blue glow in Aria's eyes pulsed softly.A pale blue holographic screen unfolded in the air.Aria turned her flawless, synthetic face toward the room. She spoke in her signature sweet, melodic voice:"Real-time monitoring active. Madam's vital signs are stable. Heart rate: seventy-two. Blood pressure: normal. No internal pathology detected. Mortality status: Negative."The entire garage fell deathly still.The white-haired coroner let out a dry, mocking laugh."Heart rate seventy-two? Vitals stable?"The coroner pointed straight at the spreading gray lividity on my flesh. His tone dripped with pure contempt. "Don Matteo, you blew hundreds of millions on 'cutting-edge te

  • Dead Before You Believed Me   Chapter 5

    "Impossible."Matteo stared at the body on the floor. His voice was tight."She's been lying since the day she married in. She's faking this."The overhead lights were blinding white.I lay on the cold ground. My neck bent at a stiff, unnatural angle. Purplish-gray lividity crept from my jaw down to my chest. The dried black blood at the corner of my mouth was caked and hard.Two young guards grabbed the wall and threw up on the spot.Nobody dared to step closer."Faking?" Martha's voice cut through the room, cold as ice. "You call this faking? Don Matteo, she is stiff as a board! Her organs are decaying inside! You locked her in that car and suffocated her to death!""Shut up!"Matteo roared. His hands shook violently. His face went white as paper.He lunged forward two steps, trying to drag me up. "Camilla, get up! Wipe that makeup off! You think this will make me apologize to you?!"Two shotguns jammed straight against his chest.The High Council lead enforcer stayed expressionless.

  • Dead Before You Believed Me   Chapter 4

    "Relieving herself?"Old housekeeper Martha shook her head. Her cloudy eyes showed zero agreement.She did not back away or cover her nose like the others. Instead, she stepped right up to the SUV. She leaned close and smelled the air seeping from the trunk seam."I worked as a mortuary assistant in a forensics lab for seven years. I've stitched up thousands of corpses." Martha stood tall. Her eyes were dead and cold. "Waste does not smell like this. This is the stench of internal organs decomposing in midsummer heat. This is human rot."The guards and maids turned white as ghosts."Human rot?!""God... is the madam really dead in there...?"I hovered in the air. I looked at Martha's straight back, and tears ran down my face.Finally, someone knew.Finally, someone knew I wasn't just throwing a fit.Across from her, Matteo's face went dark with pure rage."Martha! You've been in this house too long. Did you forget who owns this place?!" Matteo laughed in fury. He pointed straight at Ar

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