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The room was silent, my heavy breaths being the only rhythm my ears could pick up. Shakily, I placed the paper on the table, gripping the edges as some support to keep my body from falling face flat on the table.
The paper was crumpled, the brownish taints being the only evidence that she did indeed write this letter herself. The few words just before the paper was ripped off were neat, meaning that someone else had opened the letter and prevented me from reading on.
That wasn't the only worrying thing.
My own mother had to warn me about my family and she didn't die because of me.
I wasn't the reason for her death.
She never died due to blood loss like my family had told me, someone killed her.
I still hadn't fully processed her words.
The few sweet moments I had with my family were all a blur now, my brain not being able to decide which ones were fake and which ones weren't.
Those few words on that crumpled up letter quite literally changed my perspective on life, making me question whether this was some sick joke.
For most of my life I've been treated like a porcelain doll, my heart fragile and my mind too weak to comprehend the cruelty of this world. Everyone expected me to sit on a shelf and look pretty for my family's reputation, picking my clothes for me and the hobbies I had to do.
Whenever guests came over, I had to plaster a sickly sweet smile and act like the perfect daughter, forced to boast about how grateful I was for my father being around, and then be the sweet little sister that admired her older siblings.
Which was a fat fucking lie.
I loathed my siblings, praying to the seven seas that one day Lucian would drop dead and free me of his belittling comments.
The de Vinci estate was a goddamn dollhouse.
And then suddenly I read a letter that says that everything I've ever done to please my family was worthless because at the end of the day they were all fucking liars. It was all a sick fucking game.
I was a distraction— I was distracted.
All my life I had played the part of Valeria Nasri Amunet de Vinci, thinking that I was the liar. I didn't have to act like the perfect daughter or the proud sister, no I was manipulated. I was distracted by lying to the whole world when I could've focused on the liars my family were.
My mother was murdered, Luciana was fucking murdered and they didn't bat an eye. I should've known.
