All Chapters of He Played Dead, I Played the Headlines: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

When the line of text first appeared in front of me, I thought my grief had overwhelmed me, making me see things. But after a moment, it was still there. And it kept changing."If Annie goes up to the mountain now, she'll see Matteo. He bought a whole villa up there for his mistress. It's being renovated right now.""Easy for you to say. Annie hasn't eaten properly in three days because she's so sad. She can barely walk without support. How is she supposed to climb a mountain on her own?"I looked at the live chat, then headed straight up the mountain without looking back.My weak body felt unbearably heavy. When I was close to the summit, I heard Matteo Cassimo's voice."The funeral she held for me isn't over yet?"One of his men, Tony Delmonte, replied, "Not yet. Ms. Morello even invited a priest today to pray for you. It seems that she doesn't realize that you faked your death."Matteo smiled coldly, then said with mocking amusement, "She really believes anything I tell her

Following the hints from the live chat, I found the Instagram account of Matteo's mistress, Julie Rossi. Only after seeing it did I realize that she hadn't appeared out of nowhere. Our lives had overlapped countless times long before I ever noticed.Julie was a microinfluencer online. She had attended many of Matteo's events.I had seen her a few times before, too, but I'd always assumed she was someone else's date. I never imagined that she and Matteo had this kind of relationship.Scrolling through her Instagram posts, I noticed several familiar locations. One street, in particular, I recognized instantly. Even the man's back in that photo was unmistakably familiar.There was only one person it could be—Matteo.Julie had captioned that post, "I thought our relationship was nothing, just a blank page. I never expected he would abandon his perfect-match fiancee for me."The post had thousands of likes, and the comments were full of envy."Oh, my God! This is straight out of a ro

My thoughts snapped back to the present.I had finished packing. The wind knocked over a photo of Matteo and me. I used to treasure this photo. Now, I stepped over it without a second glance.Matteo was already dead to me.As I left the Cassimo residence, Carla was still shouting insults behind me. "You're storming off now? You'll come crawling back anyway. Without my son, you're nothing."I didn't respond. But the live chat didn't hold back."Old lady, you've got it backwards. Without Annie, Matteo is nothing.""Exactly. With Annie's family's wealth, she was basically living a downgraded life with Matteo."Tony walked me to the door, saying, "Ms. Morello, if you ever need help, just say the word."I didn't reply.He added, "Actually, a priest once said that Don Cassimo's accident might not be what it seemed.""Oh, please! Now they're pulling this shit? They're just afraid that Annie's leaving will take business away from the Cassimo family.""It's a good thing Annie knows

I stood by the window, still thinking about the birthday party, when a message from Matteo popped up. His profile picture was a star against a black background."The meaning behind that doesn't need explaining.""Let's applaud the man who's been stalking Annie's Instagram on encrypted apps and finally worked up the nerve to message her today."I scrolled through his Instagram feed. It was almost all official family updates, with the occasional photo of him working out, skydiving, or flying a helicopter over fjords.Back in high school, William had far more admirers than Matteo. As the heir to the Valente family, William had always been the center of attention. He reminded me of my philandering father—never far from a scandal or danger.After Matteo confessed his feelings to me, William basically disappeared from campus. I later heard he'd been sent to Erowe early to take over part of the family business. At the time, I actually felt relieved.As my relationship with Matteo deepen

Third person POVOn the way back, Matteo kept thinking about Annie. The more he thought about it, the less he could believe she would marry someone else for no reason. Then he convinced himself that she must have been forced by her family.He had noticed long ago that William liked Annie. But so what? She still chose Matteo in the end.Since that was the case, he was confident that once he showed up, she would come back to him.With that thought, he dialed her number. He couldn't wait to tell her that he was back. He imagined her moved to tears once she found out.But when the call connected, no one picked up. The endless ringing made his heart pound uneasily.He opened his laptop and searched for information about Annie and William's wedding.But here was nothing! There wasn't a single trace online.He had no choice but to order his men to investigate.Days passed, but there was still nothing. Until finally, on the day of the wedding, he caught a lead.He rushed to the locat