I Lost My Baby, So I Burned His Mafia Empire Chapter 05
When I opened my eyes groggily, my stomach was already flat. I stared blankly for a long time.
“She was awake! Ms. Tyler is finally awake!”
A sea of olive green flooded my vision. The elderly man at the front had a stern expression, but the moment his eyes met mine, they reddened.
“Good… good, you’re awake. Thank God.”
“I’m never fighting with you again. Even if you still liked that man, even if people pointed fingers at me
and called me crazy, I would’ve dragged you home anyway.”
“Screw honor. Screw reputation. None of it matters.”
“I just want our Elise alive and well…”
“Grandpa.” I cut him off.
My hands–still bound together–lifted with painful slowness until my fingertips brushed his face. I managed a small, relieved smile. “Grandpa, I’m done. don’t like him anymore.”
“The cost of loving him was too high. I knew I couldn’t pay it. I should’ve listened to you. I never should’ve gambled on a man magically revealing his heart over time.”
He was almost a hundred, a man who had survived more battlefields than I had birthdays, a man who had risen to second–in–command of a military district.
And he bowed his head over me and cried–openly, helplessly.
He didn’t blame me for running away from home back then, trying to win Killian’s affection by shrinking myself to dust. He only blamed himself for letting our stupid fight push me into this hell.
If Emerson Metz hadn’t rushed over the moment he
saw the call, I truly would’ve bled out on the way to the hospital.
But even though he saved me, he couldn’t save the baby.
“He’d been trapped in the amniotic fluid for too long,” Grandpa said, voice breaking. “He tried so hard to hold on, to meet his mom, but he died on the road while you were crawling and begging for help.”
That was when the first tear finally slipped down my cheek. Pain flooded me from somewhere too deep to name, bursting through me like a dam breaking.
“Grandpa,” I whispered, “I’m not letting this go.” “What do you want to do?”
“I need you to trip up the Vittorio Family. Corner them. Force them to replace their current heir.”
I turned my head toward Emerson, who had been stationed at my bedside since the minute I woke up.
“Emerson,” I asked softly, “would you be willing to help me take someone?”
He smiled–slow, sharp, elegant–and braced one hand on his belt as he bent toward me. “Always happy to be of service.”
I took my meds every day and pushed myself toward recovery. Whenever Grandpa visited, he brought news of the Vittorios.
Killian had been busy with God–knows–what, too dis- tracted to control the internal chaos ripping apart the family. Grandpa simply gave things an extra nudge. Then Cora got into a car crash on her way home with the child.
She used to cling to Killian in front of me–pressing herself into his tanned chest, rubbing against him like she owned him–claiming that the Vittorio Family’s previous heir had died because of me, and that Killian owed her and her child a future.
I had pointed at the place where their bodies touched, my voice shaking with fury, and all I got was a cold, flat reply:
“If you hadn’t caused his death, I wouldn’t have to take responsibility for Cora.”
“This is the duty of the Vittorio Family’s head.”
And since it was duty, the more he took on, the better it made him look.
I closed my eyes and told Grandpa, “Spread the rumor that the Vittorio ancestors were dissatisfied with the current heir–so dissatisfied that even with heavy protection, an accident could still happen.”
The day after the rumor spread, Killian finally left the estate.
Emerson seized the moment and brought Raven back.
She looked nothing like the triumphant monster who had tortured me in that freezer. Her limbs had been broken, and she lay on the ground like a discarded rag doll.
When I leaned on Emerson’s arm and moved closer, Raven suddenly lifted her head, eyes going wild as she stared over my shoulder.
“Killian! I brought Elise out like you asked–can you let me go now?”