Vendetta E Ossessione (De Angelis Book 1)

chapter 13

Chapter 13.

——♣——

The next morning brought a cold feeling for Millicent. Her tumor was starting to act up again.

It wasn't the first time she was waking up to find herself in such situation but this time around, it was worse. The pain was intensifying, which wasn't much of a surprise either.

She was already a ticking time bomb.

But still, that didn't mean she'd sit and endure the pain. So the moment it increased, she had gone to get water and luckily her journey was made quicker due to the help of a nearby staff.

Now she was back in her room, or rather the unknown room she's been sleeping in, with her medications lying around the bed.

Millicent didn't even see the point in using them anymore, after all she was going to die soon. And at this rate, her body would become a storage of drugs.

“Ugh,” she grunted, shifting her weight on the bed. “As much as I don't want to take this, I have no choice,” she muttered, grabbing the bottle of water.

She had to survive for Luca.

Just as she open the cap, prepping herself to take the medicines, Millicent heard the soft sounds of tyres drifting through the window of her room. And instead of carrying along with her task, curiosity got the better part of her as she moved to the window, watching a black car pull up to the main entrance below.

One of the estate staff was already at the door, and Angelo was descending the front steps.

Millicent watched as the car door opened and a woman stepped out.

Even from the window, even at the far distance, she could see everything perfectly.

And that face…

She recognized it.

*It was the lady in the portrait*

And somehow, that realization filled Millicent with something she didn't want to acknowledge.

What was she doing in the estate? With Angelo?

Was she his lover? Or a mistress perhaps.

She wouldn't put it past him.

Observing them from where she stood, Millicent noticed the woman walking slowly, and she was smaller than she had imagined, dressed simply in a pale coat that made her look like something gentle placed into a world that didn't deserve her.

Millicent hadn't even finished concluding when Angelo reached out for the lady.

“Ugh,” she rolled her eyes in disgust, watching Angelo's face soften toward the woman as he embraced her, bringing her Into the estate.

And at that moment, Millicent's nose flared up.

She wasn't jealous.

No.

*She couldn't be.*

She was just upset. “I can't leave the estate but he can bring his lover?” She scoffed, then stepped from the window.

And before she knew it, she was already headed downstairs…

——♣——

Millicent came downstairs following the sound of voices drifting from the main sitting room, and then she paused in the doorway.

Angelo was seated beside the lady, his jacket off and his posture easier than she'd ever seen it. The woman was speaking in something low that Millicent couldn’t catch, and Angelo was listening with his elbow resting on his knee, his full attention on her face, with the most human expression she had ever seen him look.

*Tch. How romantic.*

Then as if sensing her presence, the lady glanced toward the doorway and saw Millicent.

Her face opened immediately. Not with a rude, arrogant expression like Millicent had expected, but with something genuine and sweet.

And for a brief moment, the lady looked… *Old*

"Millicent," she said, and rose from her chair with steadiness.

Angelo stood too, reflexively, and turned. His expression going back to it's cold mask.

Millicent stepped into the room.

What did she want to say? Warn her to back off from Angelo?

Millicent rolled her eyes inwardly. The lady had better save her breath because she had no interest in Angelo.

At. All.

But before she could even get the chance to speak, the woman crossed to her and took both her hands.

“Lasciami guardarti," she said softly, in Italian, and then smiled. "Angelo didn't tell me how lovely you are."

Millicent opened her mouth….

And closed it.

Lovely?

She genuinely did not know what to say to that. “Um–”

“My name is Isabella De Angelis,” the woman cut in, gesturing her head toward Angelo. “His mother.”

Millicent choked a breath.

His Mother?

And she had been…

*oh God.*

Oblivious to the war she was going through, Isabella fixed her gaze back on her. “And you must certainly be Millicent. You are beautiful.”

"Thank you," Millicent managed, still in shock. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine," Isabella said simply, and squeezed her hands once before releasing them. "I hope this house hasn't been too overwhelming. It's a lot of marble for one person."

Something close to a genuine smile pulled at the corner of Millicent's mouth. "I've been managing."

"Good." Isabella patted her arm once, then turned back to the room. "Gelo, sweetie please have someone bring tea for us. We'll sit,” she said, sitting with ease.

And Angelo, the Don of I Corvi, the most feared man in Italy, moved toward the door to pass the instruction to staff.

Without argument and without hesitation.

Millicent looked at the floor briefly to hide the expression that nearly crossed her face.

She needed to get out of here.

Rising to her feet hastily, she muttered. “I need to go and wash up. I'll be back.”

And without waiting for a response, she left.

Not for the toilet, but just somewhere away.

She couldn't stay in that room. Not after she had judged the innocent woman even before receiving her kindness.

Now that she finally thought of it, the woman had been moving slowly and looked a bit old.

“How could I have been so dumb,” she muttered.

How could she even face her again?

Soon, Millicent found herself in the corridor after twenty minutes of replaying all that happened. Apparently, her mind had drifted off and now she was in the wrong side of the estate.

And the moment she looked ahead, she saw him.

Angelo.

And judging from his expression, she could somehow tell that it was not an accidental crossing of paths.

But she didn't have any strength to deal with him. So she stopped walking and turned.

“Why are you running away, cara,” , his voice rang out, deliberately adding a mocking tone to the last word.

Millicent heard him take a few steps, pausing at what sounded like a feet away from her.

"We need to be clear about something," he said quietly.

She waited.

"My mother is here because she chose to be and I will not take that from her." She heard him take a step closer.

"But understand this, Millicent. Whatever game your family sent you here to play, whatever you were given to do, whatever mission you're running beneath that composed little face of yours… it does not come anywhere near her."

His voice dropped lower.

"You don't use her kindness. You don't use her warmth." He paused. "If you try to harm her… if I find out you've gone anywhere near her with whatever it is you're actually here for, there will be no more warnings. There will be nothing left to warn."

Then his breath ghosted her ear, with the feeling of his body pressed close. “Don't say I didn't warn you, cara.”

After that, she heard him walk away, the sound of his retreating footsteps echoing in the corridor where she stood alone.

He didn't trust her around his mother. She wasn't going to touch Isabella.

Not now. Not ever.

But she couldn't believe Angelo would think such of her.

She had heard stories of Isabella De Angelis. The hell and suffering she went through in the hands of her husband and she had still looked at the world, looked at *her* with a smile.

Millicent couldn't hurt her. She couldn't even do anything, she wasn't a monster. But Angelo didn't know that. She hadn't given him a reason to.

She had once been eighteen years old, and frightened, and sick in ways she hadn't fully understood yet. And she had made choices that could not be unmade.

Horrible choices.

Now Angelo De Angelis had built walls which she couldn't quite blame him for.

And she'd forever live with the guilt of what she had done and what she was about to do.