Left To Die, Finally Free Chapter 08

Left To Die, Finally Free Chapter 08

Rosa forced a bright, honey–sweet smile onto her face, not a single crack in her perfect innocent mask.

“Draven, you must have seen wrong.”

Her voice was soft, syrupy, the same tone she’d used for four years to wrap every made man in this room around her finger.

“All the orderlies here are tall, broad women, handpicked for the job. It’s easy to mistake them for men from a distance.”

Draven’s jaw tightened, suspicion darkening his eyes, but when it came to Rosa, they’d always bent over

backward to believe her.

Every lie, every fake tear, every frame job.

Rosa smiled again, sweet and unassuming.

“I’ll walk Viola back to her room myself, make sure she’s settled. You all wait out here just a moment, won’t you?”

The second the heavy oak door slammed shut behind us, Rosa dismissed the two orderlies with a sharp flick

of her wrist.

She rounded on me, her sweet facade shattering to pieces, and grabbed my jaw in a bruising grip, her face twisted with vicious rage.

“Trying to call for help?” She spat out a bitter laugh, her nails digging into my skin.

“Save your breath. You really think those men don’t know what’s been happening to you in here? They know. They just don’t fucking care.”

A faint smile tugged at my lips.

I lifted my hand, and curled my fingers around her wrist.

Before she could react, I threw every last bit of my weight forward, slamming her to the concrete floor, pinning her down with my body before she could scream.

I clapped my hand over her mouth hard, the datura pollen I’d ground into a fine paste coating my palm.

I’d snuck a handful of datura blooms from the Rossi house, grinding them into powder every night.

I’d never counted on those four men to save me.

All I’d ever needed was to goad Rosa into a room alone with me.

In seconds, her lips turned from soft pink to bruise–purple, then deep, deathly black.

Her eyes blew wide, panic flooding her face as she realized what was happening.

She thrashed beneath me, screaming into my palm, her cries muffled and useless.

I bore down harder, every muscle in my body screaming, refusing to let up.

The scuffle inside the room was loud, chaotic.

But the button men and maids outside had heard this a hundred times before.

None of them dared to open the door.

Thirty minutes later, she went limp beneath me.

Cold. Dead.

Outside, they’d waited too long.

Their suspicion finally won out over their blind devotion to Rosa.

I heard Luca’s boot connect with the door, splintering the wood, followed by his enraged roar as he grabbed a maid by the collar.

“Where the fuck are Rosa and Viola? Why are there men on this compound?!”

The maid crumpled to the ground instantly, spilling every secret.

Four years of Rosa sleeping with her bodyguards, four years of fake assault claims, four years of framing me for every terrible thing she’d done.

This wasn’t a wellness retreat.

It was a torture chamber, built just for me.

Chaos erupted outside.

Screams, gunshots, the crunch of bone and blade filled the air.

The men who’d hurt me tried to run, begging for their lives, even the maids who’d stood by and watched scattered in terror.

I slipped through the back door of the room, quiet as a shadow.

Beyond it, the cliff dropped straight down into the churning black waters of the Long Island Sound.

This time, no one would stop me.

I stepped forward, my toes hanging over the edge of the cliff.

“VIOLA! DON’T!”

Four ragged, heartbroken screams ripped through the air behind me.

Marco, Vincent, Draven, Luca.

They stood in a line, faces streaked with blood and tears, broken and desperate.

The four men I’d spent 21 years begging to love me, to see me.

“Viola, we know everything now.” Marco took a shaking step forward, his voice cracking. “They’re all dead.

Come back with me, to the compound. I’ll give you anything. Everything.”

“No!” Vincent was sobbing, all his underboss pride gone, his voice shattered.

“My sister doesn’t belong to any of you. She’s coming home with me…. she just wants to come home.”

Draven dropped to his knees right there in the dirt, his eyes red and raw.

“Viola, are you really gonna leave me? You saved my life. It’s yours. Take it. Just don’t jump. Please.”

Luca held out a shaking hand to me, his voice thick with tears.

“Viola. I wanted to marry you when we were kids, Come with me. Chicago, Miami, anywhere. We’ll never come back.”

I laughed, soft and quiet.

“What about Rosa? I killed her. Don’t you hate me? Don’t you want to avenge her?”

They all shook their heads, frantic.

“We never knew

she was.”

Marco’s voi

Viola, C

Ism

m.
“Viola, come back. Let us make it right.”

make it right.”

cliff.

home for cake now. Goodbye.”

ir screams shattered the air, my nam

voice rang bright and clear in my h

ations. Mission complete. Your ter ze has been deposited into your fa

I could trade every last cent to

es, remembering is the wo

m agreed.

my request, no re

emories faded,

ir throats over and over as I fell.

he real world has been cured. A $1 billion

ant.”

of this world.

ped afte

y gave out, sitting on the shore until his lungs filled with

ever.

nd, every man who’d hurt me inside it, and let the flames take him

Luca went back to Chicago, and was found dead in his home days later, the snub–nose .22 he’d given me as a kid clutched tight in his hand.

The System told me it was time.

I nodded.

When I opened my eyes, I was in my bedroom, in my real home.

My mom threw her arms around me, sobbing with joy.

The hospital called, they said my illness was gone, completely cured.

My dad held up his phone, laughing so hard his voice shook.

“Baby, we won the lottery. Over and over. A billion dollars, total.”

I glanced at the clock.

It was the same day I’d left.

I curled into my parents‘ arms, and smiled.

“For dessert, I want chocolate cake.”