The Mafia Princess Who Lived In A Bubble Chapter 06
That day, every exit of the Cattaneo estate was sealed.
The family’s head of engineering, the engineers in charge of
the villa’s maintenance, and the guards who had been pulled
back that day were all brought into the basement meeting
room. A death knell rang in every heart.
Dad was staring fixedly at the examination results Dr.
Varenna had handed him.
“There’s a large amount of rotten food residue in her
stomach,” the doctor said quietly. “She already had a blood
disease. The acute gastrointestinal infection worsened
quickly, with no clean water or medicine to support her. It
came down to severe dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, and shock.”
In plain terms, I died slowly, in pain, hunger, and thirst.
Mom trembled violently all over, her mouth open, but no sound came out.
Dad’s eyes were so red they looked ready to bleed.
The dead fridge. The dried filth. The empty drink cartons
$cattered across the floor.
Every word I’d said on the intercom had been true.
Mom staggered into the dining room and opened the hatch panel again.
The stench hit her, but she didn’t turn away.
Those moldy meal trays were the ones she had packed in with her own hands, one by one.
She knelt, opened the cabinet by the dining table, and reached all the way to the back.
Empty.
Nothing there.
“There’s no water here.” Her voice shook. “She truly didn’t
have a single drop.”
Dad turned on the tap. Still no water.
That was when Renzo brought Tullio, the family’s head of
engineering, into the dining room. His face was ashen, and he
was clutching the villa’s maintenance logs.
Don, the city water supply never stopped… but because the
power supply was damaged, the safety valve closed automatically, to keep untreated water from entering the
sterile zone.”
“That’s why the main meter outside the estate has pressure, but no water comes out inside.”
Dad turned to look at him, his gaze so cold every man in the room held his breath.
“What about the two backup power systems?”
Tullio’s lips trembled.
“They had their annual maintenance the day before you left.
After the test, the main unit’s controller wasn’t switched back
to automatic mode, and the backup unit’s fuel valve was still
shut for servicing. And that information was never passed to
the maintenance team…”
“The city did send a maintenance notice, but the team.
assumed the double backup meant the villa wouldn’t be
affected, so they only filed it through the normal process.
Dad’s body swayed, as if he’d suddenly remembered something.
On the day they left, he really had received Tullio’s reminder.
Livia had been urging him into the car, and he’d only
answered, “Don’t let estate business bother this trip.”
Mom remembered it too. When Fiorella first said the power
was out, she could have sent any family member in to check.
But she hadn’t.
They’d rather believe that a girl they’d kept locked in the
villa for years, a girl who couldn’t even understand the
system manual, had suddenly learned to stage lies using the entire facility.
“No… my Fiore… I killed her.” Mom’s voice leaked through her
fingers. “She was begging for help every single time, and I
never believed her once.”
She knelt before the fridge, staring at the marks on the floor.
“I called her a liar. I called her childish. I said I’d send her
away. Why did I say those things? Why didn’t I send someone
inside to check?”
Dad leaned against the wall and slowly slid down to the floor.
He remembered the last call, my voice so faint it could have
broken at any moment.
And at that moment he’d been sitting by the sea, raising a
toast to Livia’s grades.
Dad suddenly noticed the scratches by the window.
I’d left them when the pain was at its worst. I’d thought
about climbing out the window, so I’d used all my strength to
break the lock.
But in the end, I gave up.
Mom said there were enemies outside. She said if I went out,
she’d never want me again.
I couldn’t bear never seeing Mom again.
Mom knelt on the floor, her forehead pressed to the cold ground.
Fiorella, Mommy is so sorry.”
Dad didn’t help her up.
He suddenly asked, “Why could she reach us but never call the medical team?”
Tullio lowered his head.
“The parents‘ dedicated line runs on its own satellite battery.
But the medical call and automatic alarm depend on the
main control network, so they failed once the main power
was cut… Don, the remote network has its own battery and
local storage. You may want to take a look.”
Renzo took the storage card and looked at Dad with worry.
Dad’s face was pale, and his hands shook as he inserted the
card into the terminal.
He was afraid of what was on it.
But he knew he had to watch.
He owed it to his daughter.
Everyone out.”
The capos and guards filed out at once, leaving only my
parents, Livia, the family doctor, and Renzo.
Dad pressed play with shaking hands.
Day one. The lights suddenly went out.
The footage switched to black–and–white night vision.
in the video, I fell off my chair, fumbled frantically in the
dark, and pressed the intercom, crying.
“Mom, it’s dark. The whole house is dark.”
The voice on the other end of the call was recorded too.
“She must be doing it on purpose. When has she ever not been like this?”
That was Livia’s guess.
“If you keep being difficult, Mommy won’t buy you strawberry cake anymore.”
That was Mom’s threat.
In the video, I clapped my hand over my mouth at once, my
tears glinting faintly in the night–vision feed.
Dad’s hand jerked, and the terminal nearly fell to the floor.
He stared at the screen, tears falling one after another.