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Chapter 4

Autor: Peachy
Isabella saw my hand on my chest.

She thought I was finally breaking.

"Look! She can't take it anymore!" she screamed with excitement.

She ran to the water's edge, phone held high, camera pointed at me.

"Cry, Alessia! Tell the camera you're a manipulative bitch! Admit you don't deserve Nico!" she offered. "Do it, and I'll pull you out!"

I stopped coughing.

The water was at my collarbone.

I slowly raised my head. My eyes locked onto hers through the glass.

Ice cold.

"Isabella," I said. My voice was quiet, but dead. "Are you sure you want to keep going?"

She froze for a second. Then laughed.

"You're about to drown and you're still putting on a show?" She pointed at me. "Don't forget, Nico gave you everything! Without him, you're nothing!"

I ignored her.

My neck felt stiff as I turned to Nico on the shore.

I stood up as straight as I could in the chest-deep water.

"Nico," I looked at his arrogant face, and my voice was steel. "My place by your side... you really think you can just take it away?"

A shadow crossed his face.

He didn't like this. I was off script.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He was getting annoyed. "Stop this nonsense. Isabella, open the door. Let her out."

"No!" Isabella laughed, and in a flash of malice, she threw the key into the dark lake.

"You—" Nico was stunned for a second. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He still thought this was just a catfight.

I looked at him across the black water. And I delivered his sentence.

"It means, if anything happens to me tonight... there won't be an engagement party for the Falconetti family tomorrow. There will only be a reckoning."

The air went silent for a second.

Then, a roar of laughter from the shore.

"A reckoning? Is the bitch delirious?"

"Her little winery is going to bring a reckoning to the Falconettis? That's hilarious!"

Isabella was bent over, laughing so hard she was crying.

But Nico's face was dark.

My "delusion" was making him lose face in front of the alliance.

He strode to the very edge of the dock. He stared at me, his voice low and dangerous.

"Don't take yourself so seriously, Alessia."

He dropped all pretense. "Without the Falconetti family, without me, you are nothing! Stop bluffing! I'll have someone get tools to pry the door open. But you better lose that attitude. Now."

I stared at him.

The last bit of pain in my heart burned to ash.

He really believed it. That I depended on him.

His blind arrogance made him believe I could never escape his control.

My lips pulled into a cold smile. "Have it your way."

My defiance, my hint of a smirk, it sent Isabella into a rage.

She wanted tears. She wanted begging.

My resistance made her furious.

"You still won't beg?!"

She spun around and screamed at her bodyguards. "Kill the lights! Turn off every light on this shore!"

CLICK.

The huge spotlight went out.

Someone kicked sand onto the bonfire, extinguishing it.

In an instant, the world went black.

No light. Just the freezing water.

And the sound of it pouring into the small space.

"Isabella, that's enough!" Nico's voice was sharp in the dark. "Get someone with the tools! Don't actually leave her in there all night!"

See? Even now, he thought I'd be fine. He was just annoyed the game was dragging on.

Trapped. Dark. Deep water.

My three worst fears, all crashing down on me at once.

My vision went black.

A giant hand squeezed my heart. I couldn't breathe.

The nightmare from when I was eight years old swallowed me whole.

Cold river water. Sinking car.

My mother's desperate scream. "Alessia! Don't look back! Run!"

My body started to shake violently. I was drowning.

No! I am not dying here!

I bit down on my lip. Hard. The sharp pain, the taste of blood, jolted my brain.

The pain kept me awake. Desperation turned into fuel.

I took a deep breath. And plunged my head under the icy water.

My numb hands swept across the dark floor of the boathouse.

My fingers hit something hard and rough. Wood.

A broken piece of an old oar.

I grabbed it. I shot back up to the surface.

I held the heavy piece of wood in both hands. And with every ounce of strength I had left, I smashed it against the glass window.

CRACK!

The sound ripped through the night.

The crowd on the shore jumped at the noise.

"My God! Is she insane?!" someone yelled.

I heard nothing. I saw nothing but the glass.

I raised the oar again. Smashed it down.

The force of the impact shot up my arms. My wrists went numb.

My knuckles split open. Blood ran down my hands, washed away by the icy water.

Isabella screamed, stumbling backwards on the dock.

Her arrogant face was now a mask of fear.

"Nico!" she shrieked, grabbing his sleeve. "She's lost it! Stop her!"

Nico's jaw was tight.

He never expected this. This violence.

"Alessia! Stop!" he yelled from the shore, his voice full of rage and disgust. "Do you have to make such a scene?! I told you someone was getting tools! There's a limit to these tantrums!"

A scene?

A cruel smile touched my lips.

The show was just beginning.

I ignored him. I raised the bloody oar one last time. And I brought it down on the splintered glass with all my might.

The glass shattered. Cold wind hit my face.

I stepped out of the boathouse.

And I prepared for war.
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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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