Chapter 3

Of course, Arianna would never let them check the surveillance cameras, because then everyone would have realized that I never appeared anywhere after all!

She leaned next to Mamma and said, "There's no need to check the surveillance. It's just a dress. We'll just pretend that it wasn't Carlotta's fault."

"But…"

"Mamma, I had a terrible nightmare last night about the kidnapping, and my head really hurts now," she suddenly said, avoiding Diego's eyes and hugging Mamma next to her instead.

Mamma held her in her arms, her expression heartbroken, and began chiding Diego.

"Arianna just experienced a kidnapping. Stop making her upset because of Carlotta! It doesn't matter whether this was really Carlotta's fault, since she's not home anyway. The important thing now is to cheer Arianna up and keep her that way."

Although Mamma had already put it that way, Diego's suspicions still made Arianna uneasy.

I saw the cogs turning in her head for a while before she suddenly got to her feet and said, "Mamma, maybe we've all wrongly blamed Carlotta for everything after all.

"I suddenly remember seeing a gift box next to my bed when I woke up in the morning. Maybe it's a gift she left me to celebrate my safe return last night. Let me go and retrieve it to see what she got me."

She turned and made her way upstairs.

Diego was the only one who still looked suspicious about everything.

Suddenly, there was a loud scream from her upstairs.

She grabbed a gift box as she stumbled down the stairs, her arms now covered in angry red rashes.

"Mamma! It itches so bad! There's nettle powder on the gift box!"

I looked at the gift box containing a brooch in her hands. It was my favorite brooch, and everyone had seen me wearing it before.

Papa didn't say another word as he glared at the brooch. Meanwhile, Mamma pulled Arianna into her arms again with comforting words while Giusto's face turned darker than thunder.

"I knew it! I knew Carlotta was nothing but an evil witch! She still hasn't shown up at home because she's been meaning to escape after harming Arianna!"

"Stop it with the yakking and get the antidote for Arianna now!" Papa said, grabbing the gift box Arianna stole from my room from her hands and tossing it straight into the trash.

"The antidote is in the basement. Let me go and get it," Giusto said.

Arianna immediately stopped him. "I'm just allergic, Giusto. You just need to get the Famiglia doctor for me. I don't need the antidote."

I watched as Giusto stopped in his tracks. If only he'd gone down into the basement, he would have immediately noticed my rotting body.

However, he listened to Arianna's words instead and ran off to fetch the doctor.

All it took was just Arianna twisting the truth, and all of a sudden, I was this evil, ungrateful, and unreasonable person— someone who had run away from home, ruined Arianna's dress, and poisoned her with stinging nettle because I was ostensibly jealous of her.

And yet, I hadn't even lifted a finger toward her.

Diego stood next to the window, watching everything unfold in silence.

A short while later, he said, "I'm going to look for her."

"And where do you think you're going to find her if she's set on hiding from us? It's going to take a miracle for you to find her," Mamma said impatiently.

"I'm going to the few places she often goes to," Diego said, hurrying toward the door. "The church, the library, and the cafe in the east of the city… I'm going to find her somehow."

I suddenly felt like laughing while I floated behind him.

As it turned out, Diego still remembered the places I liked going to. Many times over the past two years, I had tried to get him to go with me to the library and the cafe on dates, but he would always leave me for Arianna's lies instead.

As for the church… He had a point. I was supposed to be at the church with everyone witnessing me becoming his bride, but I'd already died at home before I even had the chance to go there.

Diego spent a long time patrolling the streets, but he couldn't find me anywhere.

Ultimately, he stopped his car in the abandoned alley near a warehouse in Queenton District, where they'd all rescued Arianna from just the day before. It was also the place where he'd hung up on me.

He walked in, retrieved his phone, and began recording a voice message for me.

"Carlotta Capuano! Where on earth are you? Arianna had an allergic reaction thanks to the brooch you gifted to her… I always thought that you were a kind soul, but I never thought that you'd ever stoop so low.

"You'd better have a proper explanation for this. Otherwise, I'm going to call off—"

He hesitated for a moment before deleting the message and recording another.

"Whatever. Stay hidden forever if that's what you want. You'll be back once you've thought things through anyway."

His phone screen then lit up for a moment, showing that the voice message had been successfully sent to me.

I stood behind him and said softly, "I'm never coming back, Diego."

But he couldn't hear me after all.