Bloodline and Betrayal

CHAPTER 1

ROSALIA’S POV

Never, not even in my wildest dreams, did I picture my life would turn out like this. They say happiness is the greatest joy, but I sometimes wonder if that's something only others are allowed to have. For me, it feels like a distant dream, something I will never be able to get a hold of.

I never thought I'd be the girl trapped in a house that felt like a prison. I wasn't always the silent shadow in the corner, disregarded and ridiculed. Once, I was a child of privilege, the daughter of Elena Morales, a woman with an unwavering soul, a radiant smile, and a heart full of love.

“Your mother was a treasure,” the housemaids used to whisper when I was little. “She was amazing. She gave everything for you”.

They say the accident made a huge difference. My father, Alonzo, wasn’t the same after we lost her, and neither was I.

“You were the death of her,” Isabel would say whenever she found me clinging on to the stories of my mother. “Your mother would still be here if it weren't for you. She should've let you go and spared your father this misery.

The truth? I don't recollect much from that day. I have flashes-moments that come and go like glimmering candlelight. The brilliant shine of the sun as it set behind the mountains. My mom's soft giggles as I played with my favorite bunny in the backseat of the car. And then the chaos. The screeching sound of the tires, my bunny slipping away from my hand and rolling to the front of the car. I remember trying to grab it, my tiny fingers brushing against the bunny’s fur just as the car swerved. There was a loud crash, shouts, and then…. darkness.

After a few hours of being in a coma I woke up, and everything had changed. My mother was dead and my father could barely look at me. Though I remember little about her, the stories and the guilt have lingered haunting every moment of my life.

They say grief can break a man, and my father is proof of that. He adored my mom more than life itself, or so I was told. Her death broke him, and he took the jagged pieces of his heart and turned them into weapons against me.

Isabel was the one who finally told me what happened- or at least her version of it. According to her, I distracted the driver, causing the accident. My mother died because of me. She didn't have to say it out; her scoffing tone and narrowed eyes said enough.

“Your father doesn't say it, but we both know you're the reason Elena is gone,” Isabel once said when I was nine, her words piercing my heart. “Do you think he would ever love the person who stole his reason for living?”

I cried late into the night that evening and every night after for weeks. The guilt never truly left me. Through everything, the only thing I had left of my mom was a small silver bracelet. It was a small piece of jewelry, one she always wore engraved with the words siempre contigo and the initials EC, always with you.

The bracelet was found in the storage room, bent but still intact. It became my anchor, the only connection I had with the woman I barely remembered.

My father's resentment grew with each passing year. The accident had taken my mother's life, but left me behind, broken and fragile. My survival came at a cost, one he was forced to bear.

I was constantly sick, my body weakened by the injuries I'd sustained that day. The hospital visits were endless, the medical bills piling up, and the expensive drugs I needed became a regular burden. Every time the nurses handed over the bills to him, the anger in his eyes widened.

“You’re nothing but a liability,” he said to me once. “If it weren't for you, she would still be here. Instead, I'm stuck paying for the mistake that should've been buried with her.”

I stopped trying to win his heart after that, it was clear nothing I did would ever be enough to erase the shadow of what he believed I cost him.

Isabel always added fuel to the fire. After my mother’s death, she crawled her way into our home and my father’s life. Less than a year later, she became his wife. I never believed she truly loved him; to Isabel, the Morales name and wealth were the only things that mattered.

Clara, her daughter, was just as cruel. She was her mother's spitting image, childish, and spoiled. Together, they made my existence into a walking nightmare, a constant reminder that I was a stranger, an unwanted presence in my own home.

That night, as I lay in bed holding my mother’s bracelet, the heaviness of everything threatened to suffocate me. My father’s hatred, Isabel's cruelty, Clara’s mockery it was too much to handle and I was tired of it.

I wanted to leave. To run away and never look back. But where would I go? Who would take me in? Who do I even know?

A soft knock at my door broke the silence.

“Come in,” I called out hesitantly, sitting up.

The door squeaked open, and Clara’s smug face appeared.

“Father wants to see you,” she said, her voice laced with mockery. “Don’t keep him waiting.”

I scowled. It was late, far too late for one of his lectures.

As I followed her down the faintly lit hallway, my heart pounded so hard in my chest. When I entered his study, he was standing by the fireplace, holding a glass of wine. Our gaze met each other and I could tell that something was up. His gaze was cold, and calculating as always. Isabel stood behind him, a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips.

“Rosalia,” he said, his voice steady but sharp. “I can't keep doing this .” I looked up, wondering what he was talking about

And at that moment, I knew that whatever he was about to say, my life was about to change from his ready-made decision.