Loading promotion info...
They Cast Me Out. Three Dons Brought Me Back
Novelix
Completed
"Ten years ago, the Moretti family drugged me, stole my inheritance, and sent me into an ambush meant for my sister. They believed I died that night. Now they have found me in the slums, scarred, forgotten, and surrounded by three children they dismiss as worthless. When my sister orders the children killed, I warn her that some lives are far more dangerous to touch than others. She laughs. But fifteen minutes later, armored convoys seal the streets, armed men flood the neighborhood, and three of the underworld’s most feared families arrive. They came for the children. But who will answer for what was done to me?"
Chapters (3)
第1章
Ten years after the Moretti family cast me out, my older sister, Alessia, found me in the slums.
I stood there in a threadbare coat, three children clustered around me.
To my surprise, Alessia’s eyes reddened.
“Vivienne, didn’t you always hate children? Wasn’t taking over the family the only thing you cared about?”
I took a bite of stale bread, scooped the smallest child up from the muddy ground, and waved the other two inside.
Isabella blocked the doorway, her arm linked through Lucian’s. She spoke as casually as if none of this concerned me.
“Vivienne, I was the one who begged Dad to have the doctor drug your wine. And Lucian was the one who gave a rival family your license plate and your route.”
“If you hadn’t taken my place in that car, I would have been the one killed in the explosion.”
She leaned into Lucian’s arms and smiled sweetly.
“Thank you. Truly.”
Lucian—my former fiancé—looked down at her without a flicker of emotion, as though he had not personally sent me into an ambush ten years ago.
Alessia’s voice turned cold.
“When Isabella first came back, you refused to surrender your place as the Moretti heir. You even ordered the guards to keep her out of a family council meeting. She was shot outside because of you.”
“Taking one hit for her was nothing more than repayment.”
Isabella shrugged.
“I’ve already forgiven you, Vivienne. We came to bring you home to the Moretti estate.”
Her gaze slid past me to the three children.
“But these children are beneath us. Keeping them would only disgrace our family.”
“Get rid of all three.”
I stared at her.
“All three?”
The boy crouched on the steps, playing with a folding knife, was Matteo—the sole heir to the De Luca family, which had ruled Sicily’s underworld for nearly a century.
The silent boy by the door was Ethan, heir to the Kane family, which controlled the East Coast’s ports and arms-trafficking routes.
And the sleepy little girl in my arms was Sofia—the only daughter of Don Valenti, the man every crime family in New York answered to.
“You’ll be better off without them,” Isabella said.
When I finally reacted, she smiled.
Her bodyguards stepped forward, surrounded me and the children, and drew their guns.
I pulled the child farthest away behind me and let out a quiet breath.
Sofia, above all, could not be harmed.
Her father had barely managed to save his only daughter during an internal family revolt.
“What is it? Can’t let go?” Lucian’s eyes were icy. “Vivienne, do you really expect to drag three burdens back to the Moretti estate?”
Matteo’s eyes flashed. He jabbed a finger at Lucian.
“What are you, blind? You think I’m a burden?”
“I wouldn’t join your pathetic family if you begged me.”
I frowned and covered his mouth before he could say anything worse.
That boy had the sharpest tongue of the three.
“Embarrassed?” Isabella’s eyes curved with amusement. “Lucian doesn’t even mind that you had children with another man. He’s still willing to let you come home.”
She made the offer sound like an act of unimaginable mercy.
“I’m not going back.”
They all froze.
Alessia’s face darkened.
“Ten years away, and you’ve forgotten how to behave?”
I nodded.
Ten years was long enough to let go of everything I had once cared about.
“Do it,” Lucian said coldly. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually grown attached to three nameless little bastards.”
He looked at the children as though they were filth in his way.
“They aren’t mine.” I tightened my arms around Sofia. “But you can’t touch them. None of you can afford the consequences.”
What difference would returning to the Moretti family make?
Couldn’t he see that none of these children looked afraid of him?
Lucian sneered and lifted one hand.
One of his guards fired toward the doorway.
The bullet grazed the wall and shattered a metal tag hanging from the frame.
My heart dropped.
Before Alessia could move, I shoved Sofia toward the house, kicked a length of pipe off the ground, and sent it crashing into the nearest man’s wrist.
His gun fell.
I ripped the knife from my sleeve and lunged for Isabella.
She clearly had not expected me to strike first. Her smile froze.
The blade stopped half an inch from her throat when Alessia seized my wrist and slammed me into the crumbling wall.
“How dare you!”
My back hit hard. An old injury tore open, and the taste of blood filled my mouth.
But I did not stop.
I gritted my teeth and came at Isabella again. My blade sliced through her sleeve and forced her to stumble backward.
A second later, Lucian fired at the ground by my feet. Stone exploded upward. My knees gave out, and I dropped hard into the dirt.
“Vivienne!” Alessia shouted furiously. “You dare attack Isabella?”
I braced a hand on the ground and slowly looked up.
“She wants those children dead. Why shouldn’t I come for her?”
The bullet that had shattered the metal tag had scraped Sofia’s waist, exposing a crest set with black obsidian beneath it.
Sofia went pale. Her eyes filled as she threw herself back into my arms, trembling violently.
I held her tight, my heart sinking lower by the second.
“Lucian.” I tore the tag from Sofia’s waist and held it up. “Recognize this?”
Black obsidian. A gold crown entwined with a serpent.
The Valenti family crest.
Isabella’s eyes widened in disbelief.
But Lucian raised his hand again, his expression hardening.
“You think a forged crest is enough to fool me?”
Matteo reached into his boot and pulled out a silver badge.
“My father is Don Marco De Luca. If you want to kill someone, come for me.”
Isabella flicked her hand dismissively. One of the guards knocked the badge away.
“Did Vivienne prepare that story and those props too?”
第2章
I pulled Matteo behind me, retrieved the silver badge, and pressed it back into his hand. Then I checked Sofia’s damaged crest. Only after I was sure she was frightened but unharmed did my expression turn cold.
“Isabella, do you understand what it means to terrorize Don Valenti’s only daughter?”
Alessia answered lazily.
“Don Valenti’s daughter? Vivienne, even for you, this performance is pathetic.”
Isabella clung more tightly to Lucian’s arm, her concern perfectly measured.
“She’s using children to impersonate heirs from three powerful families. If word gets out, she won’t go down alone. She’ll drag the entire Moretti family with her.”
“She still hates me.”
Lucian and Alessia both went cold.
“You’re safe. I won’t let her touch you,” Lucian said, pulling Isabella into his arms.
Alessia looked furious.
“Ten years, and you still haven’t learned. What exactly do you want?”
“Isabella is my real sister. You were only the orphan Father brought home. You occupied her place for more than a decade. What right do you have to resent her?”
The words cut into a part of me that should have gone numb years ago.
A small hand caught my bloodstained sleeve.
I looked down into Sofia’s red-rimmed eyes.
“You had a terrible life before us, Vivienne.”
I managed a faint smile and stroked her hair.
When I looked up again, every trace of emotion was gone.
“Wait fifteen minutes. Then you’ll know whether I’m lying.”
The children’s escorts were supposed to arrive in fifteen minutes.
That was when I usually returned them, one by one, to their safe houses.
“How long are you planning to stall?” Alessia snapped.
Isabella suddenly stepped in as though she were defending me.
“Fine. If Vivienne truly can’t bear to part with them, we don’t have to kill them.”
Lucian frowned, but when he looked at her, he still nodded.
“Whatever you want.”
Alessia said nothing more.
I held Sofia against me, my fingers tightening.
Isabella walked slowly toward me, naked challenge in her eyes.
“They can live.”
“But if you want to return to the Moretti family, you can never have anything to do with them again.”
She paused, then smiled.
“And so you remember, for every child you keep, I’ll leave one wound on your body.”
“I’ve been practicing with a knife lately. I could use a live target.”
All three children crowded around me.
“You people are sick!” Matteo shouted.
“Vivienne is stronger than any of you. Even my mother respects her!”
“Wait fifteen minutes if you have the nerve,” Ethan said. “When my father gets here, let’s see who still dares touch Vivienne.”
The guards surged forward and dragged them aside.
A hand clamped over Sofia’s mouth. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
Matteo fought the hardest, his face red with rage.
Ethan was the quietest. He only stared at Lucian and Isabella, memorizing their faces.
Then the fifteen minutes were up.
“Miss Vivienne!”
A sharp shout came from the mouth of the alley.
Adrian, head of Valenti security, charged into the alley in black tactical gear, his face tight with fury.
“Stop! Who the hell are you?”
I looked behind him.
No one else.
My heart sank.
“You came alone?”
Adrian’s expression tightened. He lowered his voice.
“Every route into this area was blocked at once. The De Luca convoy and the Kane teams were cut off. Valenti headquarters hasn’t reached us yet either.”
“I came ahead to retrieve Miss Sofia.”
The smile on Isabella’s face faded slightly.
Lucian’s gaze darkened too.
“Another actor?” he said.
He stared at me, something unreadable beneath his anger.
“You really will do anything to protect these children, won’t you, Vivienne?”
第3章
Isabella’s smile stiffened, and her fingers tightened around Lucian’s sleeve.
Lucian did not look at her. His eyes stayed on Adrian.
“Vivienne,” Isabella cried, as though a thought had just occurred to her, “so that’s why you refused to come with us. Is this man your lover?”
Lucian’s expression turned instantly dangerous.
“No!” My chest tightened. “Adrian, go. Find someone from Valenti headquarters, the De Luca family, or the Kane network.”
Adrian hesitated, then turned to leave.
Something in Lucian snapped. He drew his gun and fired at Adrian’s back.
“Lucian, stop!”
My voice broke.
He ignored me.
Adrian twisted aside. Before he could regain his footing, Lucian’s guards rushed him from every direction.
Guns, batons, and knives boxed him in.
“Don’t hurt him!”
I lunged forward, but Alessia grabbed me.
A knife punched through the protective panel over Adrian’s shoulder.
He grunted and dropped to one knee.
Then the blows rained down.
When fragments of his black armor scattered across the ground, my mind went blank.
“Stop!” My throat was raw. “He came to take the children home!”
No one believed me.
By the time the guards stepped back, Adrian was covered in blood and barely upright.
Isabella walked toward him, smiling more gently than ever.
“Where did you find someone this stupid, Vivienne?”
“All this for three children raised in a slum?”
She waved one hand.
Three knives were placed in front of me, their edges gleaming.
“You should worry less about him and decide whether you’re saving these children.”
“I’m saving them.”
Three wounds.
None of them would kill me.
I owed their families too much to abandon the children now.
The first knife cut into me, and my vision went black at the edges.
The second sliced across my shoulder. My fingers clawed into the dirt until my palm was torn open.
Alessia stopped the third blade, fury blazing in her eyes.
“Vivienne! You still insist on protecting them?”
Sweat covered my forehead, but my voice did not shake.
“I’m protecting them. And I’m not returning to the Moretti family.”
Alessia lost control and slashed my shoulder herself.
“That is not your decision.”
“You still owe Isabella. You still owe this family.”
So that was why they had come to take me back. They meant to squeeze every last bit of value out of me.
Every breath shook with pain, but I forced myself upright.
Isabella watched the blood spread across my clothes, barely able to hide her satisfaction.
“She’s fighting this hard for a few little bastards,” Isabella said, covering her mouth as though a thought had just occurred to her. “Do you think she really slept around out here and had children?”
I looked down.
The blood on my clothes came from my shoulder and torn palm.
Lucian turned sharply, his eyes dangerous.
“Search her.”
Two guards wrenched my arms behind me and shoved me to the ground.
They tore open my coat, emptied my pockets, and pressed brutally into my old injuries, looking for anything that might prove the children’s identities—or reveal what I had done for the last ten years.
Pain exploded through my body. Blood flooded my mouth, and I could not speak.
“Those children aren’t hers,” Adrian rasped through blood. “I know exactly who their fathers are.”
Isabella turned to him and smiled slowly.
“If they aren’t hers, why are you so desperate to protect her?”