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หน้าหลัก / I Died the Year the Don Hated Me Most / Chapter 1

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I Died the Year the Don Hated Me Most
I Died the Year the Don Hated Me Most
ผู้แต่ง: Alyssa J

Chapter 1

ผู้เขียน: Alyssa J
Nine hours after I died, Vincent had my body sent to be cremated.

No funeral, no priest.

When the funeral home manager handed him the urn, the first snow of the year was falling on New York.

Vincent wore a black overcoat, and his face showed nothing at all.

"Don Moretti, the Whitmore family would like to bury the Donna in their family plot."

"She doesn't deserve it."

Then my brother Arthur's voice came from outside the door.

"Vincent, give my sister back to me!"

Arthur burst in and punched Vincent in the face.

Vincent didn't dodge.

His bodyguards had Arthur pinned to the floor in seconds.

Six years ago, Arthur had been the heir to Whitmore Bank. He lived in a mansion beside Central Park, had a driver whenever he went out, and could spend an ordinary man's monthly salary on a single meal.

Now Whitmore Bank was bankrupt.

My father was dead, and Arthur was in prison for financial crimes. Today he had been escorted out to claim my body.

And Vincent, whom Arthur had once looked down on, now controlled most of New York's underground business.

The docks, the casinos, the nightclubs, and the underground fight rings all paid him.

When the other families met him, they too had to greet him first as Don Moretti.

"Why is Eloise dead?" Arthur shouted from the floor. "What did you do to her?"

"She got Sophia killed and didn't dare face the consequences," Vincent said. "She killed herself."

"It wasn't her doing!"

Arthur cursed him, his eyes red.

"She was protecting you the whole time! You fool, you're going to regret this!"

Vincent sneered.

"The only thing I regret is letting her live six more years."

I stood beside him and heard every word clearly.

My body had stopped breathing the night before, but my soul had not left. I could only follow Vincent, and go no farther than thirty feet from him.

He took my urn and walked to the bank of the Hudson.

Suddenly I understood what he meant to do.

"No!"

I rushed to grab his hand and passed straight through his body.

Vincent opened the urn and poured all of my ashes into the river.

"This is what you owe Sophia."

A gust of wind blew past.

My ashes fell into the river, and a little settled on his black coat.

I looked at him, and suddenly I didn't want to cry anymore.

When he was seventeen, three boys ganged up on him at school and beat him.

I paid for the security footage and made the principal expel all three.

So he wouldn't know I liked him, I said to him on purpose, "I just didn't want you dying on school grounds and hurting the school's reputation."

He believed me.

Fifteen years later, he poured my ashes into the river.

I suppose that was what I got for lying.
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  • I Died the Year the Don Hated Me Most   Chapter 10

    Vincent rushed over and threw his arms around me."Ellie!"He held me so tightly that I almost believed I had truly come back to life."I knew you weren't dead.""Let go of me.""I'll take you to a hospital. If New York won't do, Switzerland. Anywhere you want.""Vincent." I looked at him. "You're the one who had my body burned. You poured my ashes into the river with your own hands."His body went rigid.After a long time, he sank slowly to his knees in front of me."I'm sorry.""I don't need an apology.""Then what do you want? Money, the house, Whitmore Bank, or my life?""All I ever wanted was for you to believe me. Just once."He looked up at me."And now?""Now I want nothing."My hands were beginning to turn transparent.Vincent panicked.He took a very ugly silver ring from his pocket."I made this for you when I was seventeen."That year, washing dishes at the restaurant, he had made it from an old silver spoon. He had meant to give it to me at the graduation ball.Arthur brok

  • I Died the Year the Don Hated Me Most   Chapter 9

    Vincent put out a bounty across New York.Anyone who recovered a single gram of my ashes would get a hundred thousand dollars.He had the riverbank sealed off, the snow and soil collected, and divers sent into the river.Hundreds of people searched for seven days, and in the end recovered less than half an urn's worth.He kept the urn in our bedroom and slept holding it every night.At the same time, he began to undo what he had done wrong.He withdrew the false evidence against Arthur and had my brother released early.He used his own money to restore the pensions Whitmore Bank's ordinary employees had lost.He sold part of his casino holdings and set up a fund for women and children the crime families had hurt.When Arthur was released, Vincent went to meet him in person."I'm sorry," Vincent said.Arthur punched him in the face."You should be saying that to Eloise.""I don't have the chance anymore.""Then live," Arthur said. "And remember every day that you're the one who killed h

  • I Died the Year the Don Hated Me Most   Chapter 8

    Luca found an ultrasound photo behind the bathroom cabinet.On the back was one line: Baby, when Daddy comes home, we'll tell him together.Vincent stared at the photo."Whose child is this?"Luca lowered his head."Yours and the Donna's.""When?""The time the Donna fell down the stairs. Nine weeks. It didn't survive."Vincent grabbed Luca hard."You told me at the time she was only injured!""When the hospital called, you were at Sophia's grave. You said you weren't to be disturbed with anything about the Donna."Vincent punched Luca in the face.He was about to throw a second punch when he stopped short.Because he remembered.He had gone to the hospital that day after all.The doctor told him I had lost the child, and might never be able to conceive again.He threw up in the stairwell for a long time, then forced the hospital to bring in the best specialists to save me.But he never walked into the ward.When I woke, he was standing outside the door.The nurse asked whether he was

  • I Died the Year the Don Hated Me Most   Chapter 7

    When Vincent got home, he ordered everyone to get my things back.My clothes had already been hauled away by the garbage truck.He had the dump shut down at once and sent more than twenty men to dig through the trash.They searched all night and recovered only a single pump with the heel snapped off, half a sweater ruined by water, and the canvas bag I used for groceries.Vincent sat in the dump with those few things clutched against his chest.No one dared say a word to him.The next day, he had Malcolm brought in.To save his own life, Malcolm handed over a folder of documents.It recorded everything I had done for Vincent over the years.When Vincent first took control of the Brooklyn docks, the union president tried to extort five million dollars from him. I found proof the president had embezzled the union's pension fund, mailed it to him, and forced him to resign.When the FBI first set its sights on Vincent, the key witness was ready to testify. I sold my champion racehorse and

  • I Died the Year the Don Hated Me Most   Chapter 6

    When Vincent reached the prison hospital, Arthur lay with both wrists cuffed to the bed."Eloise called me seventeen times before she died," Arthur said. "Your people didn't let a single one through."Vincent's face changed."Why was she calling you?""Her chest had hurt for three days. The doctor said she needed surgery immediately. But you'd taken her bank cards, and she wasn't allowed out alone.""She could have come to me."Arthur just laughed."She did. You said that even if she died in that house, no one was to open the door."Vincent said nothing.I remembered that day.I begged him outside the study for ten minutes.He said I was faking illness again and had the bodyguards take me away.If he had only opened the door, he would have seen that my lips were already blue.Arthur tossed him a safe key.In the safe were my father's recordings, bank statements, and the documents the lawyer had left behind.The truth was plain.My father had been laundering money for the Moretti family

  • I Died the Year the Don Hated Me Most   Chapter 5

    When Luca was clearing out my dressing room, he found a wooden box under the floorboards."Throw it away," Vincent said.Luca didn't. He set the box on the desk instead.That night, Vincent opened it after all.Inside was a high school yearbook.I had folded down the corner of every page with a photograph of Vincent on it.Beneath it were a dozen receipts.The first was for his mother's surgery.Maeve had been diagnosed with kidney disease and needed an operation at once. Vincent couldn't borrow the money. I sold a diamond necklace and paid the whole bill in the name of a charity fund.The second was the lawyer's fee after Vincent was arrested.The police called it armed robbery. I found the footage from the shop's back door proving he had been in another neighborhood at the time, and had a lawyer bring it to the prosecutor.The third was Sophia's tuition for medical school.Her grades were excellent, but she couldn't pay. I donated to the school from my own trust fund so they could gi

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