Chapter 3

After I hung up, I started packing.

There wasn't much to pack. Alice had already taken almost everything I owned in this house.

The only thing I wanted to take was the smiling porcelain doll my mother had painted by hand for me before she died.

I opened the safe in my room, but the doll was gone.

My first thought was Alice. No one else in this house would take my things.

I hurried to her room. Through the gap in the door, I saw my father and brothers gathered around her bed while the family doctor changed the bandage on her arm.

She was holding my mother's porcelain doll.

My breath caught. I shoved the door open, strode in, and said sharply, "Give that back. It's mine."

When Alice saw me, she pretended to be scared and shrank back against my brothers, still clutching the doll.

"Nina, what are you trying to pull now?!" Enzo stepped between us and glared at me. "Alice just wanted something to comfort her. You won't even let her hold it?"

"That's what my mother left me." My voice shook. "Who said you could give it to her?"

"I gave it to her." My father walked over, his face cold. "The doctor said she needed something to calm her down. She liked that doll, so I sent someone to get it."

My eyes burned, and something in me snapped. "That's the only thing my mother left me. You promised me nobody would ever touch it! It's mine!"

"Nina, please don't be mad..." Alice gave me a deliberately wounded look. "I'll give it back right now..."

I reached for it, but Alice deliberately stumbled, and the smiling doll tumbled from her arms and hit the floor hard.

With a sharp crack, the doll shattered. The smiling face my mother had painted broke into pieces, the cracks making it look as though it were crying.

A deafening roar filled my head, and I froze.

"I'm sorry, Nina! I didn't mean to!" Alice said timidly, her eyes filling with tears.

"Don't cry. You didn't do it on purpose!" Luca pulled her protectively into his arms, then turned to me.

"Nina, Alice didn't mean it. Try to understand and stop making a scene."

I didn't answer. Shaking, I knelt on the floor and picked up the pieces. Even when the shards cut my hands and left them covered in blood, I didn't stop.

Regret and pity flickered across my father's face. Enzo's lips parted, and he seemed about to step forward and help me up.

Alice noticed the concern they couldn't hide, and jealousy flashed in her eyes.

The next moment, she covered her face and started wailing.

"Nina, I'm sorry. It's all my fault... I'll get you another doll. Just please don't hit me again like you did last time, okay?"

At that, my father and brothers went rigid.

Before they could ask anything, a maid assigned to Alice stepped forward to back her up. "Don Moreland! Ms. Moreland picks on Ms. Rossi whenever you're away. When I tried to help, she threatened to throw me out."

Enzo slowly withdrew the hand he'd been reaching toward me.

"Nina..." Every trace of pity vanished from my father's eyes. Deep disappointment and fury took its place. "How did I end up with a daughter as vicious as you?"

I didn't have the strength left to argue. I just laughed bitterly. "So you'd rather believe her lies than believe me?"

Enzo roared at me, his eyes bloodshot. "We want to believe you, but the evidence is right in front of us. How are we supposed to believe you?!"

Luca's expression was just as cold. "Nina, you've really let us down."

I gave a cold laugh. So a maid's word was all the proof they needed. I shook my head. I didn't want to say another word.

Nobody would believe me anyway.

When I didn't react, Enzo reached out to help me up. But when he saw the numbness in my eyes, he froze.

"Nina..."

Just then, Alice spoke softly. "Luca, I think my arm's starting to hurt again..."

Their attention immediately shifted to her. They crowded protectively around Alice and hurried her out the door.

Not one of them looked back at me as I knelt on the floor with my hands covered in blood.

The moment they left the estate, a plain black sedan pulled up at the side gate.

I got up, wrapped the bloodstained shards, put them in my suitcase, and calmly walked out.

Professor Davis's assistant opened the back door for me. Just as I got in, a message from Luca appeared in the family group chat.

"Enough. When we get back, you're going to apologize to Alice."

I let out a short, humorless laugh and didn't reply. I just rolled down the window and threw my phone out.

The tires crushed it, severing the last thread that tied me to the Moreland family.

From that moment on, Nina Moreland no longer existed in that house.

And they would never find me.