Home / My Mafia Family Thought I Was Faking My Death / Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

All Chapters of My Mafia Family Thought I Was Faking My Death: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

9 Chapters

Chapter 1

I didn’t know how much time had passed when my brother’s voice began playing from the cracked phone beside my body.“Alicia, stop sulking. Get to the hospital and apologize to Bianca. Or don’t bother coming home.”I looked down at my body on the basement floor. One hand rested against my stomach. Blood had soaked through my sweater and pooled beneath me. My eyes were still fixed on the stairs.I remembered listening for footsteps.Even after he hung up, I had thought Luca might send someone.No one had come. I had died alone on the basement floor, surrounded by blood, with cold air slipping beneath the door.Now his message was here.I wasn’t alive to answer it.For a moment, I couldn’t tell whether I wanted to cry or was relieved.It was time to leave. I didn’t care where I went, as long as I didn’t have to stay beside my body.Then something pulled at me, and the basement vanished.When I could see again, I was standing beside Bianca’s hospital bed.Luca sat beside the bed, staring a

Chapter 2

Bianca came home the next morning.The whole family ushered her through the front door as though she had just survived a terminal illness.Luca settled Bianca on the sofa and tucked a cushion behind her while Mom brought her a glass of juice. As Bianca reached for it, the glass slipped from her hand and shattered on the marble.“Oh, I’m sorry.” She started to get up. “Let me—”“Stay where you are.” Mom caught her arm. “You’ll cut yourself. I’ll clean it up.”She stood and looked around the living room. Her gaze settled on the door at the far end of the hallway.My room.She strode over and pushed it open without knocking. I was pulled along behind her.The bed was made. My brushes stood in a chipped mug on the desk, beside a stack of sketches.“So she had time to tidy up before her little disappearing act.”She opened my closet and pushed aside the clothes hanging inside.A clear storage box sat on the bottom shelf.Not that one. I cried inside.Mom lifted it out.“Please,” I shouted.

Chapter 3

“Where did you find that old rag, Mom?” Bianca looked down, a faint smirk on her lips. “I hope Alicia wasn’t saving it for something.”“Keep your feet up,” Mom told her. “It’s finally being put to use.”“What if she gets furious and blames me for this?” Bianca asked, slipping back into that small, wounded voice.“She can be furious.” Dad came down the stairs, his expression dark.“I had accounting check her card. Not a single charge since yesterday.”He stopped beside the sofa. “I’m done playing.”Dad sent a voice message to our family group chat. “Alicia, you have until eight tonight to come home. After that, don’t expect the gates to open for you.”No reply appeared.“She’s trying to make us worry. Don’t give her the satisfaction.” Luca sneered. “Cut her off, Dad. Give it three days. She’ll come running home in tears, begging us to forgive her.”I had already been dead for two days.I looked down at my translucent fingers. Police had taken my body out of the basement. I didn’t know

Chapter 4

One of Bianca’s friends had tagged her in a photo from the hospital. Bianca sat against her pillows, her bandaged wrist resting on top of the blanket.The caption read:Stop worrying about people who keep hurting you, B. You shouldn’t have to apologize for being loved.?Luca liked it.Then he left a comment.She’s fine. The other one will come home when she gets tired of the act.I watched him press Post.He hadn’t believed me when I called. Now he was making sure no one else would, either.“Luca,” Mom called from the living room. “Come help Bianca choose.”He pocketed his phone and closed my bedroom door.Inside, the shelves were bare, the drawers stood open, and the painting was gone.I tried to stay in my room, but the pull came again. A moment later, I was beside the sofa.Bianca had several costume options open on her tablet.“The white one,” Luca said, sitting beside her.“Really? You don’t think it’s too much?”“It’s for Halloween. It’s supposed to be too much.”Halloween was th

Chapter 5

Luca lowered the phone.Bianca was still holding his arm. “Who was that?”He didn’t answer.“What is it?” Dad stepped away from the photographer. “The police.”Mom’s smile vanished.For a moment, I thought she understood.Then she set down her champagne. “What has Alicia done now?”“They found a body.” Luca looked at his phone again, as though he might have heard the name wrong. “They think it’s Alicia.”Dad took the phone from him.“This is her father.”He listened.Around us, the guests had stopped talking.“Yes, she has dark hair,” Dad said. “I can’t remember every detail of…”He turned to Mom. “Does Alicia have a scar under her chin?”Mom hesitated. Then she looked at Luca.Neither of them answered.I touched my chin.Dad had been there when I fell off my bicycle at six. He had carried me inside, annoyed that I’d been riding when he’d told me to stay with Bianca.“What are they saying?” Mom caught his arm.He pulled it free and stepped toward the hallway.“We’ll be there.”Luca re

Chapter 6

Dad caught Luca by the arm.“She told you she’d been stabbed, and you hung up?”Luca didn’t pull away.“I thought she was lying.”“Lying?”“She knew we were at the hospital. Bianca had just…”“Enough.” Dad’s voice carried through the room. The attendant stepped closer. “Please. We can continue this outside.”Mom turned to Luca, shaking her head. “Why didn’t you send someone? Why?”Luca opened his mouth, then lowered his head without a word.I had begged like that when they stabbed me. Now they were begging for an answer that could make it bearable.The attendant withdrew. Detective Harris waited by the door.They later learned that I had died from blood loss. The wound hadn’t killed me immediately. When I called Luca, there had still been time to send help.A delivery driver found the studio door open the following afternoon. A package was still outside. When no one answered, he stepped inside and saw the blood.By then, I was already dead.My family had watched the police wheel my bo

Chapter 7

That night, they went through my things as though I had belonged to someone else.Mom sat on the edge of my bed, folding clothes she had never noticed me wearing. Luca sat beside the torn portrait, trying to bring the edges of the canvas back together.Dad stood beside the desk.A maid came to the door.“Shall we put the books back, sir?”“No. Leave them.”He picked up a blue folder from the top of the pile.I knew what was inside.For a moment, I wanted to take it from him. Even now, I didn’t want to watch his face while he looked at my work.He opened it.There were photographs of paintings, a copy of my application, and a letter folded along its original creases.Dad unfolded it.He read the first few lines, then looked at the name at the top.“Florence?”Luca looked up from the torn portrait. “What?”“She was accepted into the Florence Academy of Art.”Dad read further.“There was a scholarship.”Mom looked up.“When?”He checked the date.“Three years ago.”She put down the sweat

Chapter 8

My funeral took place three days after they identified my body.Dad’s captains came with their wives. Business associates filled the rows behind them. Some of the same people who had told Mom to let me sulk now embraced her and said how sorry they were.A photograph of me at six stood beside the coffin.Mom approached the lectern with a sheet of paper.“Alicia loved painting,” she began. “She was quiet. She…”She looked down.I stood a few feet away, waiting with everyone else.During the preparations, the funeral director had asked about my favorite flowers.“White roses,” Mom answered.Then she remembered those were Bianca’s.Dad said I used to paint the roses in our garden. Neither of them knew whether I liked them.When asked for a recent photograph, they had been certain there were plenty.Luca searched his phone. Dad searched his. Mom brought down the albums.They found birthdays, Christmases, family dinners. Bianca smiling beside a cake. Bianca opening presents. Bianca sitting b

Chapter 9

After the funeral, life slowly returned to its usual routines.Meals were served at the same hours. Cars came and went through the gates.Dad tracked down the men who had attacked me. The rival family soon lost its territory, its businesses, and its boss.But no one sat in my chair anymore.On the first evening after the funeral, a maid began removing the extra place setting.“Leave it,” Mom said.So she did.Bianca sat across from the empty chair. She barely touched her dinner.After a while, she put down her fork.“Are we going to do this every night?”Mom looked up.“I didn’t mean…” Bianca’s eyes filled. “It just hurts to keep looking at it.”“Then don’t look,” Luca said.She turned to Dad.He continued staring at my plate.My room stayed as it was.No rails were fitted. No mirrors arrived.When Bianca asked what to do with the gowns she had already packed, Dad told her to put them back upstairs.“But there isn’t enough space.”“Then keep fewer dresses.”She waited for him to soften

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