Chapter 2

Hearing this, Vincenzo frowned even tighter, his patience running dry.

He quickly glanced at the date on his phone, and his chest heaved.

"Doesn't she know what today is? How dare she show up at the hospital? Tell her to get out. I don't want to see her!"

Today was my eighteenth birthday, and also the eighth anniversary of our parents' murder. To punish me, my brother deliberately changed Lucia's birthday to today as well, celebrating it just for her.

Aldo's voice turned cold and hard, carrying an unquestionable seriousness.

"Vincenzo, this is the hospital's surgery schedule, not a visitor log! You'd better go find out what exactly happened to Eden yourself!"

"Even if you don't believe it, just go take a look at the regular room she's staying in. This kid grew up in the convent and has too much pride. She wouldn't beg you for mercy even if she was dying in pain."

Hearing my name twice in a row, my brother's patience completely snapped.

"Ever since she was sent to the convent, how many games has she played? She fakes a terminal illness every day, only to be perfectly healthy every time I check on her. Do you think I'm stupid?"

"She starves herself for sympathy, thinking I'm some soft-hearted saint? Someone who sold out her parents and lies through her teeth doesn't even deserve our last name! Stop talking about her!"

Aldo stood in front of him, trembling with anger at his attitude.

"If you won't ask, I'll go ask myself! Acting like this today, you will regret it later."

"If the old Don is watching from heaven, he would never allow you to treat your own sister this way!"

Vincenzo was equally angry, the rage in his eyes impossible to hide.

"I won't admit that Eden is my sister. She doesn't deserve it. When Lucia wakes up, I will announce to the Commission that she is the only Principessa of this family."

Aldo was left speechless. Suppressing his anger, he continued.

"If your father were alive, the first one to take a bullet would be you, you blind fool!"

"It's been eight years. You cut off her trust fund and made a kid do the hardest chores at the convent. Have you ever thought about how she survives? Have you ever looked at her hands, covered in calluses and scars?!"

"Do you know how cruel you are? Do you have any honor left? Vincenzo, as a Don you might be ruthless, but as a man, you aren't even fit to shine your father's shoes!"

The angry roars echoed in the dead silent hallway, but my brother's eyes turned red at the mention of that tragic memory.

A moment later, he shouted, "Don't mention them to me! If Eden hadn't been so spoiled and insisted on taking a detour, they would never have driven right into an ambush! I will never forgive her as long as I live!"

Those words pierced through my soul. Even without a physical body, I could still feel the pain.

A sense of powerlessness washed over me from head to toe. I slid down the wall and sat on the floor, hugging my knees.

I used to want to be like my brother, a mafia heir who would make our parents proud.

I still remembered when I was seven, I scraped my knee.

But the reality was that I did the hardest chores day and night at the convent. Hunger, cold, and endless torment finally gave me severe kidney failure three years ago.

When I used my scarred hands to hand him the medical records, he didn't even glance at them. He just clicked his lighter, burned the papers to ashes, and threw them in my face.

"Eden, do you think I'll forgive you just because you're sick like Lucia? Dream on. Try tricking me with a fake report again, and I'll make you disappear from this family forever."

But those records clearly came from the family hospital. If he had just let his men check the internal system, he could have verified they were real.

From that day on, I never mentioned the word pain in front of him again.

It was just that every time I fainted at the convent, the Mother Superior would call him. I couldn't stop her.

Brother, you'll never receive a call like that again.

This time, I'm truly gone.