I Was The Outsider Chapter 06

I Was The Outsider Chapter 06

If this had happened in the past, I probably would have curled up under the covers and cried all night.

I would have blamed myself for causing trouble for my family again.

But now, I just found the whole performance laughable.

Bella always used the same trick: paint herself as the victim and make everyone believe that I was the one at fault.

It was a trick that worked everywhere.

But I never expected that an even crueler truth was waiting for me.

That day, Jessy pushed open my office door and placed a cup of espresso in front of me. She looked at me, her expression complicated.

I looked up. It was rare for Jessy to speak in such a serious tone.

She hesitated, then told me what my mother had said to her. “My own daughter is just spoiled. If she were half as composed as Bella, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

I stared at the fine golden crema in the cup, and a chill spread from my fingertips.

So that was it. In my mother’s heart, that’s who I was.

Even though she wasn’t my birth mother, she had raised me for so many years, and in my heart, I was as attached to her as if she were my own.

I had thought she felt the same way about me.

But only now did I finally wake up. To my mother, that was who I really was.

I put down the coffee and stood by the floor-to-ceiling window for a long time.

I remembered when I was eight, I fell down the spiral staircase in the manor and broke a rib.

My mother canceled all her family engagements for that week and slept in a recliner in my room for seven straight nights.

Every time I woke up in pain, she would immediately lean over and softly hum the old song she loved as a girl, humming until I fell back asleep.

At the time, I thought the special love she gave me would last a lifetime.

Only later did I understand that love can be transferred.

It can be transferred from one person to another.

The one left behind is never even notified.

A week later, Jessy’s group faced a critical deal.

A century-old couture house was in a debt crisis.

The old master had no heirs and had been schemed against by his own nephews, who were forcing him to hand over his controlling shares at an extremely low price. It was an undervalued gem, and its workshop was one of the few remaining of its kind in Europe.

I tore the acquisition file apart, dissecting it from top to bottom.

The direction for the new couture season, the restructuring of the boutiques, the joint collaborations with several old jewelry houses…

Jessy and I spent two straight all-nighters in the office, a full tray of coffee cups piling up.

On the day of the signing, the old master held my hand for a long time, his eyes red.

The sharp edges of the documents had left a series of small paper cuts on my fingers. After signing, I went back to the hotel and dabbed them with an alcohol wipe, hissing at the sting.

But my heart felt more grounded than ever before.

Every contract I signed had my name on the bottom line.

I no longer had to answer to anyone.

Jessy was incredibly generous with the profits, splitting them right down the middle with me.

“That’s too much,” I said.

She glared at me.

“If you think it’s too much, give it back. I could use it to replace that old yacht in the boathouse.”

I smiled and didn’t refuse again.

Just when I thought my life was finally on the right track and things were starting to look up, my mother found me.

She didn’t know my exact address, but she had tracked down Jessy.

She had someone connect her to Jessy’s private number and cried on the phone, saying she missed her daughter.

She asked Jessy to give her my address.

Jessy, of course, came to ask my opinion first. I said, “If it’s not too much trouble for you, just say you don’t know.”

Jessy nodded and went out to make the call.

I don’t know what she said to my mother.

I only know that after that, the overseas calls became noticeably fewer.

Occasionally, the Consigliere would have someone pass on a message, a few lukewarm words of concern.

I never replied.

The real turning point came on a morning two weeks later.

I was in a meeting with a designer brand’s factory, going over a batch of fabric samples.

Jessy pushed open the door.

“You need to see this.” She held out her phone. “It’s a leak from Salvatore’s youngest daughter. Overnight, these screenshots have been circulating in every group in the underworld.”

I took the phone. It was a screenshot archive dozens of pages long.

The sender was anonymous, but the source was clear: another mafia Principessa, one of Bella’s closest “best sisters.”

The screenshots were all of Bella.

I scrolled through it, line by line.

Every sentence was like a bullet, piercing through my chest, one after another.

“Today I mentioned I wanted Aurora’s limited-edition gown. By that night, it was in my room. The look on Aurora’s face was priceless.”

“I deliberately made her move to the small room. It’s tiny and shabby, and she actually did it. So stupid.”

“I heard that family necklace was from her birth mother. I just casually said it would look good on me, and the Donna herself put it on me that night. Aurora didn’t dare say a word.”

“Sooner or later, everything Aurora has will be mine, down to the last piece.”

“That family was a nest I chose very carefully. It took me three years to go from a stray on the street to the Moretti family’s little Principessa.”

“So what if she has Moretti blood in her veins? Sooner or later, all her resources will end up in my pocket, with interest.”

“Watching her handle all the dirty work like a servant is honestly the greatest joy of my day.”

Each message was clearly time-stamped, like a calm, proud list of trophies.

They documented how, step by step, she had pushed me out of the place that was supposed to be mine.

My fingertips trembled, not because I didn’t know these things had happened.

But because she had written them down herself, and they were presented before me so bloodily.

The tide in the underground social circle turned in an instant.

“Oh my god, to all the girls who were trashing the Moretti Principessa a few days ago, maybe you should come out and apologize?”

“This girl is way too manipulative. Her acting is definitely Broadway-level.”

“I feel so bad for Aurora. Pushed out of her own home by her own parents, and she still managed to survive until today.”

“The most chilling part is the Don and Donna, right? Ignoring their own flesh and blood to worship a thankless snake.”

I read the comments, and my nose stung, but I didn’t let a single tear fall.

I had sworn to myself that from that night on, I, Aurora Moretti, would never again shed a tear for any of them.

As for why these top-secret files were leaked, the reason was almost laughable.

I later learned from Jessy that Bella had a falling out with that “best friend.”

The two of them had set their sights on the same person: a young new hitman in the Salvatore family.

He was rumored to be incredibly handsome, with cold eyes and even colder hands. The hottest new commodity on the underground market.

The sexy way he casually cleaned his gun, in particular, had driven the two women into a white-hot rivalry.

Bella used a few tricks to lure him to her private suite for the night.

When her “best friend” found out, she went ballistic, anonymously dumping all the screenshots Bella had sent her over the years, along with surveillance footage from the suite that night, into the encrypted social network.

All of Bella’s secrets were laid bare, with no mercy shown.