บททั้งหมดของ They Sacrificed Me for Her: บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 20

Inside the room, Sophia let out a soft laugh."Luca thinks it happened the night of the charity gala. He was blackout drunk, and the timing lines up. He won't suspect a thing."The doctor hesitated. "But the baby's real father...""Just some fighter from an underground boxing ring." Sophia sounded like she couldn't care less. "Is he really going to make a better father than the Moretti heir?"She rubbed her still-flat stomach, then snorted as if something had just occurred to her."Victoria cried her eyes out when she lost hers. I'm not going through that. Once I'm married to Luca, I'll just give him one that's really his."The maid beside her asked in a small voice, "But you're already marrying into the Moretti family. Why did you have the dogs put in the safe house?"Sophia was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was cold."Even after I marry Luca, I still have to come first with my brother."Ever since Victoria came back, he's started feeling sorry for her. Once I'm

When the plane touched down in Los Angeles, the sky was just starting to lighten.I walked out of the airport, my right arm still too sore to lift. My suitcase held only a few clothes, my passport, and the carving tools I hadn't used in two years.Professor Walker was waiting for me at the campus gate.She looked at my injury and asked only one thing. "Can you still hold a chisel?"I tried. My right hand shook badly."Not yet.""Then heal first." She handed me the keys to my dorm and my class schedule. "Your admission's been reinstated, and your spot in the studio is still there. It's up to you when you pick up the chisel again."No one was pushing me to prove my worth, and no one was making decisions for me because I seemed fragile.It took me a long time to get used to that.During my first week of school, I spiked a fever in the middle of the night. I fumbled for my phone and started dialing Vincent's number without thinking. For two years, even if all I had was a cough or a stomach

A year after I left New York, I finished my first series of large sculptures as a grad student.I named it Second in Line.In the first piece, a woman huddles behind a door while every face outside it is turned toward someone else. In the second, she's still waiting. In the third, she looks down and sees her own hands. In the last, she pushes the door open and walks alone toward an empty clearing where no one has planned anything for her.Professor Walker asked me, "Why didn't you carve her a house at the end?"I looked at the figure in the stone, caught mid-stride."Because she doesn't know where she's going yet. But she's not afraid of having nowhere to go anymore."The series was chosen for the school's annual exhibition.On opening day, for the first time, I saw my name printed by itself on a gallery label.Victoria Bellini.Not the Donna of the DeLuca family. Not anyone's sister, wife, or arranged match.Lots of people walked past my work in the gallery. They didn't know about my

The next day, the dorm manager told me someone had delivered a whole carload of things downstairs.Two bodyguards in black suits stood at the door, with a private doctor, a nutritionist, and a driver lined up beside them. Parked nearby was a bulletproof sedan, its trunk packed with medicine, clothes, and food flown in from New York.Vincent was standing in front of the car.It had been a year, and he was much thinner than I remembered. But he was wearing the diamond cufflinks I'd designed at 18.When he saw me, his eyes slowly turned red."Victoria."I didn't come down the steps."What are you doing here?""Your shoulder hasn't fully healed, and the clinics near campus aren't great. I brought a doctor from New York." As if he was afraid I'd say no, he quickly added, "I found you a new place, too. It's only ten minutes from your studio. The driver will take you wherever you need to go, and security won't get in the way of your life."He was as thoughtful as ever.Whatever he decided was

A week later, the Five Families Commission held a special session in New York. It wasn't until a lawyer sent the full minutes to Los Angeles that I learned Vincent was the one who had asked to stand trial.That day, he didn't take the DeLuca family's seat. Instead, he stood at the far end of the long table.He admitted in front of everyone that at the time of their wedding, he'd filed only a temporary declaration of marriage so he could clear the way for Sophia and Luca's engagement whenever he needed to. He admitted that Victoria hadn't lost the baby because she was weak. He had ordered the family's private doctor to sedate her and end the pregnancy. And he admitted that after the port accident, knowing full well she hadn't signed that order, he'd still sent her to be punished in public, then locked her in a safe house illegally under the pretense of protecting her.Every word went into the permanent record.Vincent's uncle was so furious he flipped his chair over right there."Do you