My husband, Lorenzo, was supposedly killed in a setup by a rival family. His dying wish was for me to take good care of the baby he had adopted. His parents and my best friend, Rosalie, all cried as they begged me. "Dinah, just sign the adoption papers. "It was Lorenzo's last wish!" I agreed. What I never expected was that the child had severe leukemia. For the next twenty years, I handled family business by day and avenged Lorenzo, then cared for the child at night. I kept going through it all, even when I was so exhausted I coughed blood. Even the child Lorenzo and I had conceived was lost in an accidental miscarriage while I was drowning in work. But on the day the child recovered and inherited the Don's position, someone shoved me from the eighth floor. My skull burst open on the ground. The last thing I saw before I died was Lorenzo holding Rosalie in his arms. "Useless thing. It took her twenty years to cure our child's illness. She kept our family of three apart all this time." Rosalie was gentle and vicious at once. "Forget it. At least that idiot did cure the child." "Let's go home and celebrate. Today is the day our family is finally reunited!" Watching them leave with smiles on their faces, I died with resentment burning in my chest. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of Lorenzo's funeral. ... "Lorenzo, how could you die and leave behind such a tiny child? How are Salvatore and I supposed to go on?" The shrill wail of Lorenzo's mother, Bianca, and the crying of an infant slammed into my ears. Before I could react, someone forced a baby into my arms. "The baby was crying just now, but the second you held him, he stopped. You really are meant to be, Dinah!" The family members around us clicked their tongues in wonder and instinctively gathered closer. "Yes, maybe the child likes Dinah." "What a shame the Don died so young. Otherwise, this would have been such a happy little family." "In a way, this child is something Lorenzo left behind for Dinah." A jolt went through me. I realized I truly had been reborn on the day of Lorenzo's burial. The child in my arms cried weakly. His features faintly resembled Lorenzo's, and his body was so thin he almost weighed nothing. Beside me, Rosalie's eyes were full of love, so obvious it was practically spilling out. I sneered inwardly. In my past life, I had been trapped in the pain and despair of losing Lorenzo and had noticed nothing. And the child had clearly been born with severe leukemia. He was nearly out of breath now, which was why he had stopped crying, yet they twisted the truth and called it fate between us. Bianca's usually elegant, soft gray hair now hung in a mess over her shoulders as she stared at the baby with tears streaming down her face. "The day before yesterday, Lorenzo told us he had found a baby who looked just like him. He said it was a bond sent by God..." Lorenzo's father, Salvatore, wrapped an arm around her shoulders. His voice shook with barely contained sobs as he spoke to me. "He was on his way back to find you. Who could have known he would run into an ambush halfway?" "But since this is the child Lorenzo wanted to raise, he is the heir of the Moretti family!" As he spoke, his gaze slowly hardened with resolve. "Dinah, from now on, you will take care of this child. Otherwise, even in death, Lorenzo will never be at peace!" The old couple clung to each other and wept over the infant. Everyone present looked pained. Rosalie gripped my arm, her eyes red as if she had been moved to tears. "Dinah, accept him." The family members who knew nothing joined in. "That's right. The child looks like Lorenzo too. "Maybe he really is your destiny." "Old Don, please don't cry. I'm sure the Don wouldn't want to see you this heartbroken from below." "With the Godmother here, taking care of this child won't be a problem." I noticed that while everyone spoke, Rosalie kept stealing glances at the coffin. Looking more closely, I suddenly saw several air holes in the side of the coffin. If I watched carefully, I could even make out tiny movements inside. Sure enough, Lorenzo was not dead at all. This funeral was a fraud he and Rosalie had conspired to stage so they could dump the child on me. For eighteen years in my previous life, I had given everything for that child and for the Moretti family, only to die with my eyes open. Meanwhile, their family of three stepped over my corpse and reunited. I shoved the baby straight into Rosalie's arms. Then I looked at everyone and spoke each word clearly. "I will not claim this child."
The moment the words left my mouth, Salvatore's expression froze. Bianca pointed at me, tears pouring down her face all at once. "Dinah, Lorenzo died because he was going to find you. You won't even agree to this one request?" Salvatore's eyes reddened. "When Lorenzo was alive, aside from handling family affairs, he gave you all his time and every asset he had. He even hired a nanny because he was afraid you would work too hard. He personally cooked the food you liked. In what way did he ever wrong you?" "You've been married for five years and your belly has shown no sign of life. Now you won't even adopt a child?" "We've already lost our son. Are we not even allowed to keep one last reminder of him?" Tears shimmered in his eyes as his gaze swept over Rosalie almost imperceptibly. Rosalie gritted her teeth and viciously pinched the child in her arms. The baby instantly threw back his head and cried until his face turned bluish-purple. "Dinah! This child became an orphan at such a young age. If you refuse to raise him, you're sending him to his death!" Her tears fell in streams. "Before Lorenzo died, he specifically told you to take good care of this child. Do you want him to die unable to rest?" "This is all your fault!" Bianca lost her mind, lunging at me and beating me with both fists. "If you hadn't been lazy and slept until noon, why would he have rushed home to cook for you? Why would he have fallen into an ambush? Why would he have lost his life?" "You killed my son, and now you want to throw away the Moretti family's only heir. You might as well kill me!" She collapsed on the floor sobbing. Even the family members around us could no longer watch in silence. "Godmother, the Don left so suddenly, but since he asked you to take care of this child, please accept him. It is not as though the Moretti family cannot afford one child." "That's right. The Don treated you so well. Don't break his heart." "And with the old Don and old Godmother helping, the child will survive somehow." Everyone envied me for having such a husband, but they had no idea what the truth was. On the surface, Lorenzo was the strategist Don outside and the attentive, capable husband at home. In reality, I handled the Moretti family's affairs behind the scenes while he merely announced the results to everyone at meetings. Otherwise, after he "died" in my previous life, I could never have held the entire family together. His so-called tenderness was an illusion too. He could not cook at all. He did not even know I was allergic to milk. Every time he brought me a glass of it, all I could do was stare at it in silence. Thinking of all the grievances from the past, I was so furious I blurted out, "That child is a bastard to begin with. He is Lorenzo and--" Before I could finish, Bianca slapped me across the face. Then she pulled out an adoption agreement and smacked it onto the table. "Lorenzo is dead. Whether you want to or not, this child must stay, and you must take good care of him!" "This was Lorenzo's dying wish, and it is what you owe the Moretti family!" One glance showed me that my name had already been signed on the adoption agreement. All that remained was for me to press down my fingerprint. My mind exploded with a buzz. "What gives you the right to sign for me?" I screamed and lunged forward, trying to tear the agreement to pieces, but Salvatore yanked me away. My forehead slammed hard against the coffin. "You will sign this agreement whether you want to or not!" he shouted, pointing at me. "For all these years, Lorenzo loved you more than he loved himself. He spoiled you rotten. What right do you have to kill Lorenzo and then leave the Moretti family without an heir?" "Ungrateful wretch! You have no conscience at all! If I had known, I never would have let Lorenzo marry you back then!" The pain in my forehead and the noise around me made my nerves ring. Then I heard a soft laugh from inside the coffin. It was Lorenzo. He was laughing at me because I could not break free of this damned fate. I could only follow his script toward death. My chest felt so tight it might burst. Then I caught sight of Bianca taking the child from Rosalie. She rubbed her cheek tenderly against the child's face and murmured. "...Don't be afraid. I'll find you good bone marrow..." Those words struck the crown of my head like a thunderbolt. Blood dripped from my forehead as I stared hard at Bianca. Lorenzo had supposedly found the child only the day before yesterday. This should have been their first meeting. How did she know the child was ill? How did she know he needed a bone marrow transplant? So Lorenzo's fake death had been known to them from the beginning. The Moretti family and Rosalie wanted to use this funeral to turn me into that bastard's blood bank.
I thought of my previous life, when I had been busy crushing the rival family that had "killed" Lorenzo, working myself into a miscarriage until I was so thin I weighed barely seventy pounds. Even when my grandmother died, I, her only family, had not made it in time to see her one last time. And before I died, Lorenzo and Rosalie had laughed and called me an idiot. My rage surged out in a roar, but my mind became calmer than it had ever been. They had staged this elaborate drama because they wanted me to be the sucker and still keep their good name, didn't they? Fine. Then I would make sure they lost every scrap of reputation they had. I bit down hard on the tip of my tongue, forcing down the storm of emotion, lowered my head, and called 911. Then I turned to glance at the coffin and suddenly asked in a soft voice, "How exactly did Lorenzo die? What time, down to the minute? Is there a death certificate?" "What do you mean?" Salvatore immediately shot back. "Lorenzo died because of you. If he hadn't been coming home to cook for you, how would he have walked into an ambush? And now you dare suspect him?" "Really?" I gave a faint scoff. "But after I heard the news of Lorenzo's death, I fainted. When I woke up, I had not even seen his body before you tried to bury him. Isn't that wrong?" The roomful of family members exchanged looks. "That's true. I never saw the Don's body either." "I didn't see a death certificate." "He went straight from the hospital into the coffin. That is a little fast. At the very least, we should have been allowed to say goodbye." A cold gleam flickered in Rosalie's eyes. She handed the child to someone else, turned, and walked out. Bianca answered shrilly, "That's because Lorenzo was covered in wounds. I was afraid it would frighten all of you!" Salvatore quickly picked up the thread. "This is life and death. Could anyone fake something like that?" At that, the family members who had begun to doubt nodded one after another. "True. Who would joke about the Don's life?" "And there really was someone inside the coffin. I saw it when they closed the lid." I sneered. "As his wife, I am not allowed to see him one last time? Then now--" "I will go say goodbye to Lorenzo properly."
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