He Wanted to Cut My Finger, I Wiped His Family

Chapter 4

He let out a quiet laugh, his eyes dripping with contempt, like I wasn't even worth the air I breathed.

"The Coppola family? Don't make me laugh. Why would I bother with a family that's hanging by a thread? It's just you and that old man pretending the family still matters. Everyone knows you're the orphan who got your own parents killed. You're bad luck wrapped in human skin. And the old man actually thought I would marry you? That's the funniest joke I've heard all year!"

My pupils contracted. The words "got your own parents killed" stabbed straight into my heart.

When I was eight, my parents took me on a cruise back to visit my grandfather for my birthday. But a traitor had sold our whereabouts, and our enemies were waiting for us on the open sea.

My parents secretly lowered a lifeboat and forced an old servant to take me away first. He held me tightly and rowed toward the shore like his life depended on it. I looked back one last time, only to see my parents fall under a storm of bullets from our enemies.

I watched as their bodies were thrown into the endless ocean, the waves quickly turning crimson with their blood. I wanted to scream, but the old servant covered my mouth and held me firmly in his arms.

Albert's words dragged that nightmare back to life. The memory replayed in my mind like a broken record. I curled up inside the boat, shaking violently as tears poured down my face.

The only words left on my lips were soft whispers.

"Dad, Mom, please come with me. Let's escape together."

Stella watched me falling apart on the boat and clapped like she was enjoying a performance.

"So she really is the monster who killed her own parents! She must be cursed or something. Albert, we need to stay away from her. We can't let that kind of bad luck follow us home!"

When I went to Lorenzia City to study, nobody there knew what had happened to me.

At Coppola's Manor, my grandfather had forbidden every servant from mentioning my parents' deaths because he couldn't bear to see me suffer again. He had even ordered the lake on the estate to be completely filled in.

The guilt and regret I had buried for years finally broke through all at once. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to jump into the water and beg my parents for forgiveness with my own life.

Then my phone rang. It was my grandfather's custom ringtone.

The sound snapped me back to reality.

The entire Coppola family had been reduced to just the two of us. After my parents died, he had buried his own son and daughter-in-law. The pain he carried was no less than mine. If I left him too...

I couldn't bring myself to imagine what would happen next.

I took a deep breath and fought to hold myself together, forcing my trembling hand toward my phone.

But Stella immediately ordered someone to grab a stone and hurl it at me.

My depression had triggered a physical reaction, leaving my hands shaking uncontrollably. The stone struck my phone, knocking it straight into the lake. The screen flickered twice before fading into complete darkness.

The old wooden boat was also struck with two holes, and the icy water quickly seeped inside, soaking through my clothes and sending a chill through my entire body.

"Barbara, weren't you the one who wanted to throw yourself in and reunite with your parents? Well, I'm giving you that chance now. You should be grateful instead of complaining!"

Albert stood on the shore with his arms folded, watching with cold indifference as I slowly sank into the water.

"That old bastard you call Grandpa won't be far behind. I'll make sure your entire family ends up in hell together!"

I struggled weakly, but it was useless.

'Grandpa, I'm sorry.'

Just as the water rose over my nose, a familiar set of footsteps cut through the chaos. An ebony cane came crashing through the air.

"Don't you dare kill my family!"