The silence in the Salinas estate was not peaceful; it was heavy, suffocating, like the air in a room moments before a bomb detonates.

I sat rigid in the corner of the drawing room, my knuckles white as I clutched the leather-bound book in my lap. I had salvaged it from the pile of "trash" my aunt had ordered the maids to incinerate. It was Alessia's prison diary, and it burned against my palms like a live coal.

Dr. Rossi descended the grand staircase, removing his spectacles to wipe them with a handkerchief. His movements were slow, deliberate, and radiating frustration. My aunt Isabella and uncle Marco rushed to the foot of the stairs to meet him.

"How is she?" Aunt Isabella asked, her fingers twisting the pearls at her throat. "Is it her heart? The leukemia returning?"

Dr. Rossi sighed, snapping his medical bag shut. He looked less like a healer and more like a judge. "Mrs. Salinas, I have run every conceivable test. EKG, blood panels, full-body MRI. Chiara is not just stable; she is physiologically flawless."

The room seemed to stop breathing.

"What?" Uncle Marco blinked, his face slack. "But she's... she's frail. She fainted."

"She is an actress," Dr. Rossi said, his voice cutting through the air like a scalpel. "Her heart is strong. Her blood counts are perfect. Frankly, she is healthier than I am."

"That's impossible," Isabella stammered, shaking her head in frantic denial. "The transplant... the rejection risks..."

"There are no rejection risks because there is nothing to reject. She is perfectly healthy," the doctor snapped, losing his patience. "She is playing you for fools."

With that, he turned and walked out. The front door clicked shut, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the cavernous hall.

Isabella sank onto the velvet sofa, her face ashen. "He's wrong. He must be wrong."

"He's not," I said.

My voice shook, but the truth clawing at my throat wouldn't let me stay silent. I stood up, my legs trembling, and walked to the marble coffee table. I slammed the leather book down. The thud made them both jump.

"What is that?" Marco asked, eyeing the book warily.

"Alessia's journal," I said, my voice hardening. "From Danbury."

Isabella waved a dismissive hand, looking away. "Burn it. I don't want to hear about that girl."

"You will listen!"

The command tore from my throat, a scream that shattered the decorum of the room. They both froze, staring at me in shock. I had never raised my voice to the heads of the family. Not once.

I opened the book to the page I had dog-eared. The handwriting was jagged, frantic.

"October 14th, three years ago," I read aloud.

"'They came for me at midnight. Transported to the clinic in Jersey. No anesthesia because the doctor was in a rush. They drilled into my hip. It hurt worse than the beatings in the yard. But it's for Dante. They said Dante is dying. They said he needs my marrow. So I gave it. I would give him my bones if it kept him alive.'"

I looked up. My aunt's face had turned a sickly shade of gray.

"You told her it was for Dante," I whispered, the horror of it making me nauseous. "You lied to her. You used her love for him to harvest her marrow for Chiara."

"We had to," Marco said, his voice hollow, trying to find a footing on the moral high ground that didn't exist. "Chiara needed a match. Alessia... Alessia was in prison. She didn't need her strength."

"She understood," I said, flipping to another page, my anger cold and precise. "She learned Spanish inside. She understood every insult you threw at her at dinner. Every single word."

"She knew?" Isabella covered her mouth, her eyes widening.

"She knew you hated her," I said. "And she left. She didn't run away in a childish tantrum. She escaped hostile territory."

I looked up at the ceiling, toward the master suite where Dante had just carried Chiara.

"And God help us all when the Don finds out," I said.

Giuliana POV

Dante had stormed out an hour ago, leaving a vacuum of terrifying calm in his wake following the doctor's report. He mentioned something about verifying financial records, but the look in his eyes promised retribution, not accounting.

The house felt haunted, heavy with the weight of unburied secrets.

I walked past Chiara's room. The door was locked from the outside now-a temporary cage for a volatile animal.

Downstairs, my aunt and uncle sat in the drawing room, nursing glasses of scotch in heavy silence, their gazes fixed on the wall as if it held the answers to their ruin.

I couldn't stay there. I needed to see it for myself. I needed to understand the hell Alessia had survived.

My feet carried me to the third floor. To the attic.

I pushed open the heavy door to the storage room where they had forced Alessia to exist.

The air was stagnant, smelling of dust and... an acrid, lingering undercurrent of smoke.

I frowned, stepping inside. I walked to the corner where Alessia's meager belongings were piled like refuse.

Her sketchbook lay there. Or rather, the corpse of it.

It hadn't just been torn; it had been eviscerated. Shredded with a blade, strip by agonizing strip, until the art was unrecognizable.

And in the corner, on the bare floorboards, I saw them-dark, jagged scorch marks.

Someone had tried to start a fire right next to the bed.

The rumors the maids whispered in the kitchen came flooding back. How Chiara liked to play with lighters. How she used to sneak up here when the house was asleep.

I knelt to inspect the burns. As I lowered my head, I spotted something shoved deep under the cot.

I pulled out a small, dusty box.

Inside were photos. Old snapshots of Dante and Alessia from high school.

But Alessia's face had been obliterated in every single one.

Violent, deep scratches gouged through the glossy paper, erasing her features entirely.

A chill raced down my spine. This wasn't just a spoiled brat wanting attention.

This was a predator trying to erase its prey.

Adrenaline surged through me. I grabbed the box and the remains of the sketchbook, turning on my heel. I ran downstairs, my footsteps thundering against the silence.

My aunt looked up, startled, as I burst into the drawing room.

"Look," I demanded, slamming the mutilated photos onto the coffee table. "Look at what your 'fragile' daughter did."

Isabella picked up a photo. Her hand trembled, the ice in her glass clinking softly.

"She tried to burn the room," I said, my voice shaking with rage. "There are scorch marks by the bed. She didn't just want to send Alessia to prison, Aunt Isabella. She wanted her gone. Permanently."

"No," Isabella whispered, her face pale. "They are sisters."

"No," I countered, ruthless. "One is a sister. The other is a monster."

Before she could respond, the front door slammed open, the sound echoing like a gunshot.

Dante was back.

And he wasn't alone.

He held a thick stack of files in his hand, his knuckles white. The darkness in his eyes made the air in the room drop ten degrees; I wanted to crawl under the table to escape it.

He didn't acknowledge us.

Instead, his cold gaze drifted upward, piercing through the ceiling beams toward the room directly above us.

Toward Chiara.

"Unlock the door," he commanded.

I kicked the door open and strode into Chiara's room.

She was sitting on the bed, idly filing her nails, the very picture of boredom.

She looked up, her lips curling into that perfect, innocent smile that had fooled me for seven years.

"Dante," she cooed, her voice dripping with syrup. "Did you come to tuck me in?"

"Get up," I commanded, my voice low.

"What?"

"Get up!" The roar tore from my throat, shaking the walls.

She flinched, dropping the nail file. "You're scaring me."

"Good."

I threw the file folder onto the bed. It exploded on impact. Bank statements. Police reports. They rained down around her like a judgment.

"I checked the accounts, Chiara," I said, stepping closer until I loomed over her. "The 'charity' money you needed for your treatments? It went to Cartier. To Prada. To a condo in Miami."

"I needed comfort!" she cried, her eyes widening with feigned victimhood. "I was sick!"

"And the hit," I said, cutting her off. "The Falcone guy you ran over. I read the original police report. The one your father paid to bury."

Her breath hitched. The color drained from her face.

"You weren't just high," I said, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "You ran him over twice. You backed up. It wasn't an accident, Chiara. It was a thrill kill."

"He was rude to me!" she shrieked, her mask finally slipping. "He didn't open the door for me!"

The air left the room. Silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.

She killed a man because he was rude.

And Alessia spent seven years in hell for it.

Giuliana stood in the doorway, holding a shredded sketchbook. Her face was pale. "She hates her, Dante. Look at this."

She showed me the photos. Alessia's face had been violently scratched out with a pen until the paper tore.

I looked at Chiara. I really looked at her. I didn't see a fragile flower. I saw a viper waiting to strike.

"You told me Alessia didn't love me," I said. "You told me she wanted to go to prison to get away from me."

"She did!" Chiara yelled, scrambling back against the headboard. "She never loved you! She was cold! I loved you, Dante! I needed you!"

"You didn't love me," I said, my tone icy. "You just wanted what was hers."

"She didn't deserve you!" Chiara stood up on the bed, her face twisting into something ugly, something monstrous. "She was always the smart one! The talented one! The strong one! I wanted her gone! I wanted her to rot in that cell until she died!"

My hand twitched toward my gun. The cold steel called to me. It took every ounce of control I had not to end her right there.

"You wanted her dead," I said.

"I wish she was!" she screamed, spittle flying from her lips. "I wish she had died in there!"

Behind me, I heard Isabella sob.

Marco walked into the room. He looked old. Broken. As if the weight of his daughter's sins had finally crushed him.

"That's enough," Marco said, his voice barely a whisper.