ManyWriters

My sister was framed for seducing the Don of a rival family.
As punishment, my husband, Vincent, chained her in a cold storage for three days and nights.
To save her, Vincent demanded a price: my mother's signet ring—the last piece of her I had left—for his mistress.
Blinded by tears, I twisted the signet ring from my finger.
But just as I was about to hand it over...
My son kicked my hand away, his face twisted in disgust. "Who said you could stand?"
"Crawl over here. On your knees. And put it on Aunt Tessa’s hand yourself."
I knelt on the floor and crawled on all fours toward the woman who destroyed my life.
That night, they took a lobe of my lung and gave it to her.
I woke to learn my sister had frozen to death anyway.
Wiping away my tears, I made a call.
"I'll take your deal. But I want ten times what you offered."

He Loved Me in the Morgue

My eyes locked on the urn. With the steel pipe raised high, my arms trembled. I couldn't bring it down.


Seeing my hesitation, Tessa, still pinned beneath me, cried out, "Isabella, it was just a ring! Were you really going to melt my face off for a ring?!"


Not far away, Vincent and Luke echoed her outrage. "Isabella, how did you become so vicious?!"


"You've gone too far! How could you try to disfigure Aunt Tessa? Someone like you doesn't deserve to be my mother!"


My hands trembling, I slowly lowered the steel pipe.


I had no choice. I couldn't watch them smash my mother's urn.


The moment I lowered the pipe, the father and son rushed forward, shoving me off Tessa.


Tessa got to her feet, brushing herself off. Her eyes were red-rimmed as she said to me, "Isabella, if you really wanted the ring back, I would have given it to you. You didn't have to be so cruel!"


I was so furious I screamed at them, "I wasn't trying to hurt her! She's the one who poured the acid!"


"The one who's been disfigured is my sister! Her body!"


Vincent and Luke froze, their gazes shifting to the still form on the floor.


Seeing them waver, Tessa quickly adopted a wounded expression. "Why are you telling such lies to deceive them?"


"I already had your sister released! You were the one who brought some chemical in here, pouring it everywhere and screaming that I deserved to die for taking your ring."


She sighed, a perfect picture of a magnanimous victim. "Let's just forget it. It's not like you succeeded, anyway. Let's just let this go…"


Hearing her words, the resolve hardened in Vincent and Luke's faces.


"We can't just let this go!" Vincent snarled. "For a signet ring, you were ready to kill Tessa. If I don't teach you a lesson, who knows what you'll do next!"


The moment he finished speaking, with a resounding crash, Vincent slammed the urn onto the concrete floor. It shattered, sending porcelain shards and gray dust everywhere.


He kicked at the broken container, scattering the ashes.


My eyes felt like they would burst from their sockets. I lunged forward like a madwoman, scrambling on the filthy floor to gather the dust.


I couldn't pick them up... I could only watch helplessly as the ashes drifted down onto the bloody, filthy floor of the cold storage unit, mixing with pools of animal blood.


Seeing me in such pain, Vincent looked satisfied.


He walked over and looked down his nose at me. "Stop trying. Those aren't your mother's ashes."


"That was just a warning. If you ever try something like this again, I'll make sure your mother's real ashes are scattered among the pig carcasses."


I was the one who placed her ashes in that urn. How could I not know they were hers?


After they left, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number that had sat untouched in my contacts for nearly ten years.


"Don Antonio," I said, my voice cold and clear. " I'll take your deal. But I want ten times what you offered."


Chapter 4