The Real Mafia Heiress They Left Behind Chapter 09

The Real Mafia Heiress They Left Behind Chapter 09

Three Years Later

Winter in England was brutally cold.

Heavy snow blanketed everything outside the laboratory windows.

I sat beside the glass with a mug of hot coffee warming my hands as I watched the white landscape

disappear beneath another layer of snow.

Life had been good these past three years.

I’d earned a full scholarship.

I’d become one of my advisor’s core research assistants.

I’d also published two papers in internationally respected journals.

The timid girl who used to tiptoe around the storage room, terrified of upsetting anyone, no longer existed.

Now I was the graduate student my advisor praised most often.

The class genius everyone else relied on.

My phone vibrated.

A text forwarded from my old number flashed across the screen.

[Serena, it’s snowing in Washington, D.C. When are you coming home?]

The nine hundred and ninety–ninth message like it I’d received this month.

I didn’t even have to wonder who had sent it.

Luca.

Somehow he’d managed to get my new phone number years ago.

Every few days he’d send another pathetic message pretending to be hopelessly in love.

I didn’t even bother reading past the first line.

I hit Block without a second thought.

I’d heard life at the Moretti estate hadn’t been going well.

After I left, Ivy gradually stopped pretending to be sweet.

She’d grown so used to everyone revolving around her that the smallest inconvenience would send her into

dramatic crying fits.

One day Marco came home after getting chewed out at work.

Instead of finding peace, he walked straight into another one of Ivy’s meltdowns.

He finally snapped.

“Can you stop acting like the victim for one day? When Serena was here, this family wasn’t a complete

disaster!”

It was the first time Marco had ever raised his voice at Ivy.

Even my parents had begun losing patience with her endless theatrics.

They looked at the empty storage room.

They remembered the old metal box Mrs. Anderson had thrown at their feet.

Only then did they begin missing the daughter who had quietly endured everything without complaint.

They tried reaching out to me.

They even begged Luca to find me.

But Luca could barely save himself.

The once brilliant Georgetown graduate had become a shell of the man he used to be.

He turned down every opportunity his family arranged for him.

Instead, he spent his days drinking in bars.

Whenever anyone asked what had happened, he’d laugh bitterly and tell them he’d lost the only girl he’d ever

loved.

How ironic.

When he was crushing my dignity beneath his feet…

Why hadn’t he remembered I was supposedly the love of his life?

“Serena, are you ready? The conference starts soon.”

Vivian stepped into the lab, pulling me back to reality.

“I’m ready.”

I set down my coffee, gathered my presentation materials, and followed her out.

This year’s international academic conference was being held in Washington, D.C.

My advisor had specifically brought me back to the United States to present our team’s research.

The moment our plane landed in Washington, I took a slow breath.

The air felt familiar.

But it stirred no nostalgia.

Only quiet confidence.

The conference was held in the city’s largest international convention hotel.

Dressed in a sharply tailored suit, I stood confidently beneath the spotlight as I delivered our presentation in

flawless English.

When I finished, the audience erupted into applause.

I smiled and thanked them with a graceful bow.

As I stepped off the stage, I noticed four familiar faces seated near the back of the ballroom.

My father.

My mother.

Marco.

And Luca.

They stared at me in stunned silence.

Shock.

Regret.

Disbelief.

Every emotion was written across their faces.

My mother covered her mouth as tears streamed down her cheeks.

Marco gripped the armrests of his chair so tightly his knuckles turned white.

Luca couldn’t take his eyes off me.

His reddened gaze clung to me as though he wanted to carve my face into his memory forever.

I looked at them for only a brief moment.

With the same detached indifference I would have given complete strangers.

Then I turned away.

And walked toward my team.

Toward the people who believed in me.

Toward the future I had built with my own hands.

Toward the life where I finally belonged.