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Chapter 3

Autor: Peachy
Isabella's words were colder than the December lake.

The key was an intercom. Only we could hear.

"Last month. In my bed," her voice was sickeningly sweet, intimate. "He was holding me. He told me your sad little story like it was a bedtime joke. He said the way you shake when you see deep water... it's like a pathetic stray dog."

I stood rigid in the icy water. The air left my lungs.

Three years.

I helped him take out his rivals.

I used my winery's shipping routes to connect him to the biggest network in South America.

Countless nights, up at 4 AM, analyzing territory for him.

The night he was shot, I was the one in that dark safe house, tending his wounds.

That night, he knelt on the blood-soaked carpet. He clung to my waist.

He cried. "Alessia," he said, "I'd be nothing without you."

And now?

Isabella was still laughing into the intercom. "He said I could do whatever I wanted, as long as I was happy. But..."

Her smile twisted. "He probably doesn't know I broke the controls. The water isn't going to stop tonight. It's going to go right over your head. Time to take out the trash!"

On the shore, Nico couldn't hear her.

He just saw the water was at my chest. Deeper than he expected.

He frowned. Not with fear. More like a parent whose pet was making too much of a mess.

He flicked his cigarette into the fire. "Isabella, that's enough," he said lightly. "The water's getting a little high. Don't go too far."

No anger. Just mild annoyance.

Isabella spun around. Pouted. Stamped her foot. "Are you mad at me? You promised you'd make me happy tonight! Didn't you say tomorrow's engagement is just for show?"

Her words shattered my last hope.

The water was at my chest. I could barely stand.

I bit my lip until I tasted blood. I stared through the glass at the man I had loved with my life.

"Nico... you'd let me die... just to keep her happy?"

My question seemed to snap him out of it. His indulgence vanished.

He frowned. I was embarrassing him in front of the other families. His eyes went cold and hard.

"Alessia, do not take that tone with me," he snapped. "The Falconetti family needs to expand. I need an alliance with the Rossis. I need their ports! This is a little prank. Stop acting like a victim!"

He made betrayal sound so reasonable.

"Then what am I?!" I screamed, my voice shaking.

Nico lost his patience.

He strode forward. His eyes were full of disgust for my defiance.

"What more do you want?!" he spat. "I'm making you my wife! You get my name! You get the respect! But I need the Rossi ports. Business is business. Learn the difference! You're a good swimmer, you won't drown. Stop making a scene!"

He threw his arms out, gesturing to everything around us. "You run a little winery. It's an honor to even have my attention! You're not helping me. Are you trying to destroy my alliance now?"

The crowd laughed again. Louder this time.

"You hear that? He was just playing with you!"

"She really thought she'd get a ring? What a joke. You have no family, no power."

The man in the loud shirt raised his phone again, aimed it right at me.

"Hey, look here!" he laughed, whistling. "Give us a smile! It's the last time you'll be the star!"

The flash blinded me.

Cold water filled my nose.

When you're in that much pain, you don't break down.

You get clear.

I looked at Nico's impatient face. At Isabella's triumphant smirk. At the pack of so-called mobsters on the shore.

The fire inside me, the one called "love," finally went out.

Extinguished in the ice water.

In its place? Cold, hard rage.

Three months ago, my grandfather—the true Don of the Vittorio family—sent his Consigliere, Leo, to me. He noticed Nico getting too close to the Rossis.

My grandfather's security team had a necklace made for me.

A diamond pendant. A tiny, hidden panic button.

"Alessia," my grandfather had said to me on the phone, "A Vittorio heir can love. But she will never be a lamb to the slaughter."

Three presses.

A kill order would go straight to Leo. And to the Vittorio family's enforcers.

I lowered my head. Let the water creep over my chin.

I pretended to choke, to cough violently.

As they all watched, mocking me, I raised a hand to my chest in "despair."

Nico had no idea.

He thought I gave him all my cards.

He forgot. Someone who crawled back from the dead once never truly gives their life to anyone else.

I lowered my head. My hand went to my chest.

One.

Two.

Three.

The pendant vibrated. The signal was out.
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  • He Let Me Drown Now Watch Him Burn   Chapter 16

    Six months later, at a charity gala, the lights were blinding.I was holding a glass of champagne, talking to an ally about a port expansion project.“Miss Marino,” my assistant whispered, leaning in. “Mr. Falconetti is at the entrance. Security stopped him. He said… he’s just begging to see you for a moment.”I paused.“Let him in.”Three minutes later, Nico appeared at the entrance to the ballroom.He was wearing an old suit, a size too big, hanging off his gaunt frame.The once-dashing Falconetti heir now looked like he could barely stand.He walked toward me, his eyes locked on my face, with a sick, greedy hunger.As if he was searching for any flicker of emotion in my cold expression.Even hate would have been something.“Alessia,” he said, his voice trembling. “I know I have no right to bother you.”He pulled a small, worn wooden box from his pocket and held it out with both hands.“This is…” he swallowed hard. “From three years ago. When I had nothing. I carved it myself.”I gla

  • He Let Me Drown Now Watch Him Burn   Chapter 15

    I looked down at the hand gripping my wrist.His knuckles were white. He was squeezing so hard it felt like he was trying to crush the bone.“Let go,” my voice was soft, but it held a cold, absolute command.Nico didn’t let go. He looked up, his eyes laced with red.“Have some dignity,” I said, staring into his eyes. “Nico, it’s the only thing you have left to choose.”His fingers trembled, then slowly released their grip.“If that night,” he said, his voice raw, “if I had stopped Isabella… would you still have married me?”I looked at him, feeling nothing.“Maybe.”A flicker of light ignited in his eyes. A final, desperate hope.“But there are no ‘if’s in life.”I watched that light die.“You didn’t stop her,” I said. “That is the only fact that matters.”I walked out of the clinic and didn’t look back.It was a rare, sunny December day. The wind was sharp, a winter chill in the air.I tilted my face up, letting it wash over me.The heavy weight that had been crushing my chest for thr

  • He Let Me Drown Now Watch Him Burn   Chapter 14

    On the fourth day, the Rossi family’s port business officially imploded.The news alert popped up while I was signing a document.The headline: “Rossi Family Port Shares Frozen by Multiple Banks, Rumors of Bankruptcy and Suspected International Money Laundering.”The photo showed Mr. Rossi standing outside the Vittorio Holdings building, his suit a wrinkled mess, swarmed by reporters.He stood in the cold for two hours before security escorted him away, shoving him into a car like a common criminal.I swiped the notification away and kept signing.On the fifth day, the Commission’s enforcers pulled Nico in for a final sit-down to seize his remaining assets.When the news broke, Don Falconetti collapsed and was rushed to the hospital.Nico’s brothers, like sharks smelling blood, immediately began fighting over the power vacuum he’d left behind.The messages in the family group chats, all fawning over me, became more pathetic by the hour.A week later, Vittorio Holdings officially announ

  • He Let Me Drown Now Watch Him Burn   Chapter 13

    Don Falconetti’s face was grayer than a corpse.He opened his mouth but said nothing.Nico whirled on him, his voice wild with a final, desperate fury.“Dad, you’re just going to let an outsider walk all over us?!” he roared, his eyes shot with blood. “Decades of Falconetti family code, thrown away for a woman?!”Before his father could answer, I cut in.“When you were stealing from the trust, were you thinking about the family?” I pressed, stepping closer. “When you let Isabella throw me in a frozen lake, were you thinking about the family?”Nico froze.“No,” I answered for him. “You were only thinking about yourself.”No one in the room spoke up for him.The Head of the Commission stood and announced the verdict.“Nico Falconetti is stripped of his rank. The South District shipping line will be managed by the Vittorio team, effective immediately.”The sound of the gavel was the lid slamming shut on his coffin.After the tribunal, I turned to leave. He called my name from down the hal

  • He Let Me Drown Now Watch Him Burn   Chapter 12

    Ten minutes later, the official Vittorio Holdings account released a public statement with raw footage.Attached were three security footage stills.The first: Isabella at the boathouse control panel, locking the door.The second: Nico by the bonfire, a drink in his hand, watching me in the water with a cold, blank stare.The third: Me, covered in blood, climbing out of the shattered window.The caption was one sentence.“The facts don’t need spin.”The comments exploded.“‘Misunderstanding due to stress?’ Funny how that misunderstanding knew how to lock a door.”“The balls on Falconetti Jr. are thicker than a concrete wall.”His carefully crafted statement became a joke.At 1 AM, my phone rang. Don Falconetti.I answered. Said nothing.“Alessia,” his voice was tired, the voice of a truly old man. “I know Nico was in the wrong. Let him make a public apology. We’ll give you a bigger say in the alliance. Give you control of two docks in the South District. What do you say?”I laughed.“S

  • He Let Me Drown Now Watch Him Burn   Chapter 11

    That evening, the front desk called my office.“Miss Marino, there’s a Mr. Falconetti downstairs. He insists on seeing you. Security has him.”I put down my pen. “Don’t let him up.”Ten minutes later, my cell rang. It was Nico.I stared at the screen for two seconds, then answered.“Alessia.” His voice was raw, like he’d been shouting into the wind for hours. “I know I was wrong.”“Oh?” I stood up and walked to the window, looking down at the small, dark figure huddled in the wind below.“Just call it off,” he said desperately. “I’ll cut ties with the Rossi family completely. I swear, I’ll never see her again. I’ll hand her over to you myself!”I laughed. I couldn’t help it.“Nico, you think this is about jealousy?”Silence on the other end.“This was never about me fighting Isabella for you,” I said, my voice as cold as the glass. “This is about me fighting back against your betrayal. Your humiliation. The fact that you don’t know the difference is why you’ve lost so completely.”“Ale

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