Once Rejected, Now Rising Chapter 01

Once Rejected, Now Rising Chapter 01

Three years after being sent to that so-called “special” prison, my family finally requested a meeting.

My husband, Mayor Rinaldo Ferraro, spoke first. “The surgery that led to our daughter’s death… Azura performed it as the lead surgeon.”

My father, Veymont’s most renowned criminal lawyer, added calmly, “I personally defended Azura and got her acquitted.”

I shot to my feet. “She was just an intern! Who allowed her to perform the surgery as the lead doctor? Who let her touch my daughter?!”

My body trembled as I turned to my father. “Dad! Nola was your granddaughter! Azura is a murderer! Why are you defending a killer?!”

Looking at the two of them, my voice nearly failed me. “Why… why are you doing this?”

My father lowered his eyes. “Azura needed this lead-surgeon record to get certified. And after living under the label of ‘illegitimate child’ for over twenty years, the Crowe family owed her. Consider this us repaying a debt.”

Rinaldo’s gaze hardened. “Now, you have a choice. You can come home with us, still as Azura’s sister, and never speak of this again. Or… you can stay here, in this prison, forever.”

Tears burst forth uncontrollably. My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

My legs gave out, and I slid down the wall to the floor.

Rinaldo crouched beside me, holding me tightly. “At this point, crying won’t help.”

“While you were in prison, the guards already pressed your fingerprints onto the paperwork. That agreement to settle and drop all claims, you signed it a long time ago.”

This prison wasn’t officially sanctioned. It was a place meant to “teach lessons.”

In winter, we were stripped naked and forced to lie in freezing sewage until our skin stuck to the ice and numbness set in.

In summer, at the sun’s peak, we were tied to the metal bars on the yard with scalding stones shoved in our mouths.

Faint, revived, and faint again.

Once, delirious from fever, I was forced to press my hand onto a piece of paper.

It was then that my Nola had already been “abandoned.”

I lifted my head, tears streaking my face with despair. “Why… why are you only telling me now?”

“Because you finally learned your lesson,” my father said. “Look at you now, so composed.”

Composed?

I remembered Nola’s last moments.

I had rushed to the doctor’s office, kneeling and crying, begging for one last glimpse of my daughter.

Rinaldo and my father dragged me into a car and delivered me to that prison.

All to give Azura a chance at certification, while my daughter lost her life.

For years, I slept locked in a dog cage, eating from the floor like an animal.

I grabbed the ashtray from the coffee table, smashed it, and lunged at Rinaldo with the sharpest shard.

He caught my wrist, twisted it, and kicked me in the stomach.

I flew back, smashing into the wall, the glass shard slipping from my hand.

“Nerissa! Are you crazy?!”

“I am crazy!”

I curled on the floor, clutching my stomach, my voice shaking. “You drove me mad! How can you be so shameless?”

“For your mistress’s daughter, you killed your own daughter, your own grandchild! You’re all insane! Animals!”

The memories I had forced down for years surged up.

I thought of my mother, struck suddenly by a cerebral hemorrhage, gone in an instant.

Within a month, my father had married Azura’s mother.

A horrifying thought pierced me like ice.

I lifted my head and glared at my father. “Tell me, was Mom’s death… because of you? Did you…”

“Shut up!”