I Was The Outsider Chapter 07

I Was The Outsider Chapter 07

When my mother saw the viral screenshots, she froze.

She pushed the encrypted phone in front of Bella and asked her if it was true.

Bella’s first reaction was to deny it, claiming the accounts weren’t hers, that someone was deliberately faking them to frame her and destroy the Moretti family.

But one of the accounts was linked to a private communication device my father had personally given her three years ago, a detail the family’s tech people traced in no time.

Faced with ironclad proof, my mother broke down sobbing.

She cried so hard she could barely breathe, shaking her head.

“Bella, have we not been good to you? I brought you in from the streets. I let you wear my daughter’s gowns, my daughter’s jewels. We called you our little princess. Why would you do this?”

“Aurora is the child I raised, the true blood of the Moretti family. How dare you?”

Bella cried too.

Only this time, it wasn’t her usual, carefully crafted performance. It was true hysteria.

“Donna, I was just so scared!”

“I was terrified that you would throw me back to the slums at any moment, all for the real princess!”

My mother stood frozen.

“You were afraid we wouldn’t want you, so you pushed Aurora out of this family?”

“You took over her suite, stole her jewelry, and incited Enzo to be violent with her. Is this how you repay the family?”

But Bella just let out a neurotic laugh.

“I was just crazy with jealousy! From the day I set foot in the Moretti manor, I was jealous every single moment. Why was she born on a pedestal while I was born with nothing?”

“Why did she have everything, while I had to survive by putting on an act?”

My father stood at the other end of the long table, his face ashen, not saying a word.

Enzo looked as if he’d been struck by lightning.

He gaped, struggling for a moment before forcing out a trembling sentence: “Bella… you played me?”

His knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists. He started to say something, then swallowed it back.

The memory hit him: for this liar, he had pushed his own sister to the ground and left her bleeding.

He remembered the stinging sight of blood on Aurora’s lips, her swollen and bruised knees. Those images now burned like a red-hot gun barrel, seared into his heart.

My mother covered her face and wept for a long time. Finally, she asked my father in a hoarse voice, “Giovanni, what are we going to do? Aurora has blocked me.”

My father’s face was grim. He said nothing. He too had lost all lines of intelligence on me.

For the next few days, the manor was in chaos.

Bella was locked in her room, guarded by two maids in shifts.

My mother sat on the leather sofa in the living room all night, without sleeping a wink.

Enzo, like a lost soul, spent the afternoon in a standoff with the purebred horse that was supposed to have been mine.

Later, my mother used a secure channel she hadn’t touched in years to contact me. I still refused to answer.

She sent a long letter of apology: “Aurora, your mother truly knows she was wrong.”

“Mama shouldn’t have made you move to the small room, shouldn’t have made you give in to Bella every time, and especially shouldn’t have erased your name from the family dinner.”

“Please come back, won’t you? I apologize. Mama will never be like that again.”

I read it three times with cold eyes, then placed the phone face down on the table.

A few days later, the family’s Consigliere connected with me personally.

He spoke slowly, his tone more polite than I had ever heard.

“Principessa, the Donna has had a nervous breakdown.”

My heart skipped a beat, but my voice remained steady. “What happened?”

“The private doctor is calling it a nervous breakdown, triggered by severe depression. The shock of it all broke her.”

“The Donna locks herself in a dark room and cries all day. The Don hopes you will come back to see her.”

I was silent for a moment. “I’ll think about it.”

After I hung up, Jessy happened to walk in.

She glanced at me and asked softly if I wanted her to go back with me.

“Let me sleep on it,” I said.

That night, for the first time in a long time, I couldn’t sleep.

The scent of rose perfume from my mother’s childhood kisses on my forehead lingered in my mind, impossible to shake.

The next morning, I boarded the plane home.

When I returned to the manor, it was dusk.

My mother was sitting in the east-facing bedroom on the second floor, leaning against the window.

She was so thin she looked like a different person. Her once-proud face was haggard, with dark, heavy circles under her eyes.

When she saw me standing in the doorway, she froze.

Her lips trembled several times before she could make a sound. “Aurora…”

I stood at the foot of the bed, my voice devoid of any emotion. “Are you all right?”

She cried. “Mama is so sorry. Mama truly knows she was wrong.”

My father sat in the armchair by the window, his head down, an unlit cigar turning between his fingers.

Enzo was huddled in the farthest corner of the room, not daring to meet my eyes.

“The medical team says as long as she rests well, there are no major issues for now.”

I nodded. “I see.”

Then I turned to leave.

My mother suddenly called out from behind me, “Aurora!”

I stopped but didn’t turn back.

“I’m begging you, Aurora, please come home. I’ll have the chef make your favorite Osso Bucco. We’ll move your things back to the master suite. Mama will give you anything, anything you want.”