Home / After I Died, Everyone Regretted It / Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

All Chapters of After I Died, Everyone Regretted It: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

In the seventh year after I cut myself loose from the De Luca family, I checked into Santa Maria Hospice under the name Nora Vale.My pancreatic cancer had already spread. The doctors said I had three months at most.When my parents, Marco and Isabella De Luca, found me, I had just finished signing my do-not-resuscitate order and my will. The last document renounced the De Luca name and barred my burial in the family cemetery."Sofia, come back to the estate with us." Marco stood beside the hospital bed. "You will confess to the Council of the Five Families."I closed the folder. "You have the wrong person. My name is Nora Vale."Isabella stared at my hollowed-out face, and her lips moved."Are you really this sick?"She reached out to touch me, saw the IV port on the back of my hand, and stopped."That is not your concern.""I am your mother.""You stopped being that seven years ago, the day you handed me to the Bertini family yourself."Marco tapped the floor with his cane. "That dec

Chapter 2

Long after they left, I still could not calm down. I kept thinking about the year Celeste first came to the De Luca family.That year she was six and I was eight.Celeste's parents, Victor and Elena Caruso, had taken the bullets meant for Marco and Isabella in an ambush. Afterward, my parents brought Celeste to the estate and told me she was my sister now.At first I was naive enough to think I had a little sister to protect.When Celeste had nightmares I slept beside her. When she was afraid to go to school alone I walked her to the classroom every day. The first time she called me her sister, I gave her every piece of candy my grandmother had sent me.Everything changed after that.My birthday party was cancelled because she dreamed about her parents. Isabella said she had just lost her family and I should be understanding.There was one place left at the church academy, and Marco gave it to her. He said I was their own daughter and I would get another chance later.She liked the rub

Chapter 3

After two more quiet days at Santa Maria Hospice, Celeste came to see me herself. The obsidian brooch of the De Luca heir was pinned to her chest, and my parents, Marco and Isabella, followed her in."Sofia, come home with me." She walked up to my bed."What are you talking about?" I sat up straighter and watched her put on the act.Celeste's voice broke with tears. "Dad, Mom, I did go to the docks that night. Sofia sent me a message using a code we had made up as children. She said she knew something about her escape seven years ago and wanted me to meet her at the docks. But by the time I got there, Anthony was already lying in a pool of blood!"She wiped her eyes. "Sofia has been on the run for seven years, and she has carried that hatred the whole time! She wanted revenge on both the De Luca and Bertini families, so she killed him with a gun registered in her own name and lured me there to take the fall...""Enough!" I cut her off and turned to my parents. "This is absurd! Three th

Chapter 4

The heavy round tore my chest open in an instant. The impact threw me backward onto the stone floor of the underground chapel. Blood bloomed across my chest, and the tearing pain lasted only a moment before giving way to boundless cold and emptiness."The blood debt is paid!" The Bertini representative holstered his gun. "The Five Families stand witness. The threat of war between the Bertini and De Luca families is lifted."The instant the shot went off, my father was the first to move toward the dais. "Elders, now that Sofia has confessed and the blood debt has been paid, have all warrants and execution orders against Celeste been revoked effective immediately?"He never even looked at me lying in my own blood.The elder on the dais gave the ruling. "All kill orders against Celeste are withdrawn. Family order is restored."Only then did my mother Isabella scream and throw herself at me."Sofia! Sofia!" She knelt in the blood, her hands shaking as she tried to press down on my chest.T

Chapter 5

The damaged recording kept playing in the deathly silent chapel.Celeste's soft, poisonous voice filled every corner of the chapel, "...The gun is in the spare cabinet in the armory, registered under that madwoman's name. I already altered the remote login records. Once she signs the confession, everyone will believe the traitor who ran seven years ago came back for revenge. My parents care so much about the family's reputation and mine that even if they suspect something, they will have no choice but to put Sofia in front of the firing squad themselves.""No... that is not me! It is fake!" Celeste crumpled to the floor, shaking all over, dragging herself backward.My father's face was ashen. My mother stared blankly at the player as if her soul had been torn out.Vito did not stop. He opened the scorched black strongbox and took out a thick stack of documents and two ledgers."Mr. De Luca, this is the complete evidence recovered from the abandoned warehouse." Vito's voice was cold and

Chapter 6

My father did not execute Celeste in the underground chapel.Under the rules of the mafia, private vengeance would have been the gravest insult to Sofia's memory.He had Celeste taken back to the De Luca estate and summoned every De Luca captain, along with witnesses from the Five Families.The century-old De Luca crest hung high on the wall of the great hall.Celeste was on her knees in the center of the hall, her gown stained with blood. She looked up at my parents on the dais and still tried to clutch the hem of Isabella's dress, crying pitifully, "Mom! I was wrong, I was really wrong! But I was just so scared... I was scared Sofia would come back and take your love away from me! My parents died to save you, so for their sake, please forgive me one more time!"Every other time, one mention of her dead parents had made Isabella give in without question.But this time, my mother sat in her chair with a face as white as a corpse and no warmth in her eyes. She did not look at Celeste ev

Chapter 7

The clergy at Santa Maria Church received my body with solemn reverence.In accordance with my wishes, my ashes were sealed temporarily in the chapel on the hill behind the church. They would remain there until they could be scattered at sea, never entering the De Luca cemetery.Three days later, my mother held a public memorial mass for me at Santa Maria Cathedral.The church was full.Besides the representatives of the Five Families and the De Luca captains, there were dockworkers from Port San Vito, the old doctor from the underground clinic, and the girls I had once helped.They wore plain clothes and carried white flowers, and they had come on their own to see me off.Celeste was brought there too.My mother did not allow her a seat in any family section. Celeste was dragged in by two bodyguards, dressed in a rough black gown with no family insignia, and forced to kneel alone on the cold stone at the center of the church.Vito stood at the lectern and read the full account of ever

Chapter 8

Without the protection of the De Luca family, Celeste's world collapsed in an instant.After fleeing the church, she sought help from the wealthy socialites she once called friends, but they shut their doors on her. She tried to hide in a hotel owned by the De Luca family, but her credit cards had already been frozen. She ran to the docks to buy passage out, only for the killers and criminals who had once taken her orders to hunt her through the streets, determined to silence her before she could expose them.The untouchable heiress had become a stray that everyone in the underworld wanted dead.All she could do was hide in a reeking abandoned slaughterhouse and in damp, black harbor warehouses.Fear and hunger tormented her. Whenever night fell, she could not shake the feeling that a figure stood in the dark."Sofia... Sofia, stay back! I did not kill you! The Council pulled the trigger!" She would curl up in a pile of garbage and scream at empty air like a madwoman.In truth, I only

Chapter 9

After Celeste died, my father returned to the underground chapel of the Five Families.He stood alone before the patch of stone floor where I had fallen and remained there all night.The blood on the floor had dried long ago, but that dark red stain had burned itself into his soul."Sofia... the one who should have paid that blood debt was me," he murmured to the empty chapel.Twice he had chosen the simplest, most convenient answer. The first time, he thrust me into enemy hands as a hostage. The second, he let them put a bullet through my heart.He was a mafia don, accustomed to sacrificing others for gain and order. In the end, he had sacrificed his only biological daughter.Early the next morning, my father made a decision that shook the entire underworld.He dismantled the De Luca family with his own hands.Marco walked into an FBI field office carrying several crates of the De Luca family's most sensitive files.He surrendered the entire underground network the De Luca family had

Chapter 10

Seven days after my father died, my mother finished paying compensation to every victim's family.She emptied the vast De Luca estate, removed a century's worth of portraits of past dons from the great hall, and donated the property outright to the Sofia Refuge.When all of that was done, she put on the plainest white dress she owned, wore no jewelry and no brooch, and went to Santa Maria Cathedral.She carried my sealed urn out herself.My mother held me and made her slow way onto an old seawall outside Port San Vito.This was where I had seen the ocean for the first time, the year I was six.In my memory, the sun had been bright that day. My father lifted me onto his shoulders, laughing as he called me the De Luca family's little princess. My mother gently fastened my kite string, took my hand, and promised, "Do not be afraid, Sofia. Mom and Dad will never leave you."That was the only stretch of happiness the three of us ever had.My mother sat on the seawall as the sea wind tossed

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