Chapter 9 Cracks In The Wall
Lorenzo’s Pov
“Run a fucking autopsy on the body!” I snapped.
The morgue was cold, sterile, and it smelled like bleach and steel. The covered body on the table didn’t move. Of course it didn’t. But I still couldn’t
believe it.
I stood rigid beside the doctor, fists clenched behind my back as I stared at the burnt corpse. The only thing remotely identifiable was the ring the wedding ring I’d given her hand seven years ago.
Still intact. Still glinting.
Just like she’d promised. “Till death do us part,” she’d said. Smiling like a fool. Crying like I was her whole world.
That was before she ruined mine.
“I need confirmation,” I said again, more tightly this time.
man
The doctor, a balding in his late fifties, nodded nervously. “We’ve already started DNA verification. The result will take another forty–eight hours. I advise you to be patient, Mr. Moretti.”
Patient?
I’d buried enemies with fewer words.
But I nodded anyway. Then I turned and walked out of the hospital, where Renata was waiting in the backseat of the car. Her eyes were red and puffy. She dabbed at them with a silk handkerchief like a grieving widow.
“This is all my fault,” she whispered when I slid into the car beside her. “If I hadn’t screamed that night… you could’ve saved her.”
I stared at her, then out the window. The streets were wet. Foggy. Miserable.
“She’s not dead,” I said flatly.
Renata flinched.
“She staged it. I know her. She wants attention, sympathy. It’s probably her way of punishing me for auctioning those pictures.”
“But the body-”
7:14 Tue, Sep 9
“Anyone can wear a ring.”
Renata said nothing after that.
目
When we got home that evening, the mansion was quiet. I kicked off my shoes, loosened my tie, and settled into the lounge.
“Bring my tea,” I told the maids.
Five minutes later, it arrived on a silver tray. I took one sip and spat it out immediately.
“What the fuck is this?” I growled.
The maids froze.
“This isn’t my tea.”
One of them bowed her head nervously. “I’m sorry, sir. Madam Sophia… She was the one who always prepared it. She traveled to the provinces to buy the herbs herself. Only she knew how to brew it the way you liked.”
I said nothing. Just stood, walked over to the tray, picked up the cup and hurled it across the wall..
The porcelain shattered.
“Get out,” I muttered.
They scrambled away.
I sat there for a while, the silence growing too loud. Eventually, my phone. rang. It was my father.
“You need to meet me tomorrow,” he said immediately. “The attack at the gala has rattled some of our investors. We need to settle their nerves.”
“I’ll come.”
He hung up.
Later that night, I went to the master bedroom. The lights were dim. The air was dry.
I opened the closet.
Empty.
No clothes. No scent. Not even her perfume bottle.
I checked the drawers. Nothing.
1/4 75.0%
