My Mafia Brother’s Abandoned Little Moon Chapter 04

My Mafia Brother’s Abandoned Little Moon Chapter 04

This was probably a trap.

I turned to run, but a group of thugs appeared all around me. They pinned me down. I growled, “Carmela, what are you doing?”

Carmela tilted her head slightly and flashed a smile that was both innocent and cruel.

“Antonella, don’t worry. I just want you to… reenact that scene from back then.”

She gestured toward Giuseppe’s study.

The two bodyguards immediately dragged me in that direction.

“Giuseppe’s been looking at your files lately. Does he actually still care about you? I have to make it crystal clear to Giuseppe just how unrepentant that traitor who leaked classified information all those years ago really is—how… unrepentant.”

“If it doesn’t work the first time, I’ll try twice. If that still doesn’t work, I’ll try three times. Eventually, Giuseppe will grow thoroughly sick of you, you phony.”

No sooner had she finished speaking than a bodyguard roughly grabbed my right hand, forced my index finger straight, and pressed it hard against the fingerprint scanner on the control panel.

“No—!”

Then he pressed my hand down on the keyboard and started typing randomly.

“Error: Password verification failed.”

The screen flashed with a blinding red light.

A piercing buzz erupted from inside the panel, piercing my eardrums. An electronic voice rang out:

“Alert. An attempt to access the system with unauthorized privileges has been detected.”

“Location: Main Study Security Panel. Triggered by: Antonella. Permission Status: Frozen.”

“Alert Level: High Risk.”

At the same time, a red warning message scrolled clearly across the display:

[Real-time alert sent to linked device: Giuseppe. Security Center has responded.]

The entire Romano family sprang into action at the command. The sound of hurried footsteps echoed from all directions.

The bodyguard let go of me, and I was thrown to the ground, gasping for breath as my heart pounded.

Carmela quickly took a few steps back and put on a look of panic.

Pointing at me and the control panel, which was still flashing and beeping, she shrieked at the butler who had burst in:

“She—she just barged in.”

“I don’t know what she was trying to do. She lunged at the control panel, and I couldn’t stop her. Then…”

Just then, a familiar voice, tinged with suppressed anger, rang out.

“What’s going on?”

Giuseppe had arrived.

Carmela rushed over, grabbed Giuseppe’s arm, and wept uncontrollably.

“Giuseppe, you’re finally here.”

“I’m so scared… that she’ll burst in suddenly and I won’t be able to stop her. It wasn’t enough that Antonella put Dad in a vegetative state—now she’s stealing classified information from your study, trying to kill you.”

Carmela’s tears came at the drop of a hat.

Giuseppe looked at me, pale as a ghost, then glanced at the control panel blaring alarms, and finally turned to Carmela, who was crying her eyes out. His expression instantly turned grim.

He closed his eyes, as if the sight before him had stung him deeply.

“Antonella, I was going to give you another chance—to restart the investigation into the accident from three years ago—but I never expected you to be so unrepentant. You’ve let me down time and time again.”

“It wasn’t me. Carmela set me up. She grabbed my hand…” I protested frantically, but Carmela cut me off.

She cried out, feeling deeply wronged.

“ Antonella, are you still trying to frame me at this point?”

“I know you hate me, and you hate the Romano family, but how could you do this… Father would never forgive you.”

I screamed with all my remaining strength, tears streaming down my face.

“I didn’t.”

“It was Carmela’s men who grabbed my hand and forced it there. She’s framing me.”

“Giuseppe, can you trust me just this once?”

Giuseppe looked as if he’d heard the biggest joke in the world; pointing to the irrefutable alarm record, he sneered:

“Frame you? The system doesn’t lie, and your fingerprints don’t lie.”

I cried out in anguish; the immense injustice nearly broke me. “She did it to make you hate me even more. To destroy me completely.”

In an instant, I was reminded of that hall. Giuseppe and I had once said our morning prayers there, and we had watched Don execute a traitor there. It was also there that I was accused of being a traitor. At that moment, I collapsed to the floor from severe dehydration, and the Romano Family Crest on the ceiling kept spinning in my mind.

Giuseppe walked toward me step by step, grabbed my chin, and shoved me viciously to the ground.

“Do you really think there’s anything left of you to ruin? Antonella, you’ve already ruined yourself completely.”

“I won’t let you get away with this again.”

“Guards, take her to the basement of the auditorium and lock her up. In five days, I will personally judge this traitor.”

I was forcibly dragged out of the study, screaming at the top of my lungs, my voice shrill and desperate.

“Giuseppe, I’m innocent.”

“I didn’t, I really didn’t.”

No one answered me.

Just as I was being dragged toward the basement entrance, my unfocused gaze caught sight of a figure standing quietly around the corner.

It was my mother.

I didn’t know how long she had been standing there. Tears streamed down her face, and her lips trembled slightly.

There was no sound.

But I could read her lips.

She was saying, “I’m sorry.”

I suddenly realized that it was all a plot hatched by Carmela and Mother.

Even if Giuseppe checked the study’s security footage, he would only see fake footage.

Mother would quietly smooth over any issues.

Just like three years ago.

The altar in the auditorium was pushed aside, revealing a gloomy corridor. I was shoved into the auditorium’s basement. It was freezing cold and pitch-black down there.

The iron door to the basement swung shut right before my eyes.

The struggle and screams drained my last ounce of strength, and my heart began to ache from the intense emotional turmoil and lack of oxygen. Staring into the pitch-black darkness before me, I collapsed onto the cold, damp floor, barely able to breathe.

I knew my heart was acting up again.

I instinctively reached for my medicine, but my pockets were empty.

It must have fallen somewhere while I was struggling.

I felt like crying, but suddenly burst out laughing instead, feeling a sense of relief.

Maybe… that was just the fate I should end up to.

My body began to twitch uncontrollably, like a fish out of water, thrashing and convulsing futilely on the ground. The sound of my fingernails scraping against the floor was sharp yet distant.

In the end, the last person I thought of was Marco.

I felt a little guilty toward him.

He had said he would cure me, he had said he would help me uncover the truth, and he had said that once I was cured, he would give me a surprise.

I had actually known what the surprise was all along. I’d seen the ring he’d prepared—my name was engraved on the inside. It turned out Marco didn’t want me to stay his mistress; he wanted to marry me.

Did that count as finally I found someone who loved me in the final stage of my life?

After a long while, the excruciating pain in my chest, along with the feeling of suffocation, suddenly vanished.

Sorry, Marco.

After all that hard work, it was all for nothing.

I might… not be able to wait for you.