Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
It's been a few hours since I woke up and I've been locked in my room for that time. I refused to go out, especially after embarrassing myself like that in front of everyone.
Instead, I've resorted into staring at the ceiling, my room covered in dust from unfinished renovations and my head scattered amongst the dust as well. My mind was never quiet, it was raging with thoughts. So many things had happened in my life that I just brushed under the rug, claiming that what's in the past deserves to reside in the past and to only focus on tomorrow. Or should I say I was forced into that lifestyle.
De Vinci's never dig into history unless it's to do with work. Not a word had been spoken of my grandfather since his disappearance on Lucian's 20th birthday. I was only 6 years old then, yet I still had vivid memories of him. He was quiet, never spoke unless he needed to. He was always by his sons' sides and always saw the good in the bad they committed.
But I know for a fact there were more people here, more relatives. For example, in the library that's near the tea room was a portrait subtly hidden behind a bookshelf, the gold edges of the frame was peeking out from behind it. It was in the library in my room, I hid it there for a reason. I know that Marcello de Vinci had a total of 6 kids with Caroletta, only one of which that we know, Leonadus. In the portrait, there were a total of 8 figures, 4 being men, 2 women and the other two being fraternal twins , one was a boy and the other a girl. From the portraits displayed around the house, I confirmed that two of the men and one of the women were Caroletta, Marcello and Leonadus. The other 5 were unfamiliar. What I did notice were the facial features that they all shared.
I knew for a fact that the portrait was the generation that existed before me, but the question was where are they?
Caroletta and Marcello are dead, Leonadus is MIA, but what about the others?
They would probably range between the ages of 60-80, so surely they still will be alive.
But if they were alive, that meant we had a whole other family-families that we didn't know existed. Aunts, uncles, cousins, possibly nieces and nephews, a whole chunk of the bloodline just forgotten. Were they together? Did they know we existed?
How do they even have the money to live? From what I know, the whole inheritance went to our grandfather, the whole inheritance meaning the empire. Without it, I probably wouldn't be wearing such expensive clothing as I am now.
All the answers to my question had incinerated the moment I realised the person who had all the answers had also died. Grandmother.
She knew everything, every dirty secret that this family has committed was forever planted in that vast mind of hers. She was a walking USB stick, not one wrong doing we committed didn't go past her.
But now that's she gone, there was no hope of getting the answers I desperately needed.
The resonating sound of a knock made my heart skip a beat. There was a pause, where it was completely silent before another knock came followed by a sharp voice, "Valeria."
