Four Empty Coffins, One Terminal Diagnosis Chapter 06
Serena’s face drained of color. Her voice came out shrill and panicked. “Lena! Mommy told you to rest! What do you think you’re doing out of bed?”
She scrambled to pull Lena away, but Adrian shoved her aside.
Adrian’s expression was pure disbelief. His hands clamped onto Lena’s shoulders.
“What is this? Lena, your legs are fine?”
Lena trembled under their stares. Her eyes grew wet with hurt and confusion.
“Serena didn’t get hurt… Mommy said if they thought Serena was hurt, then that woman wouldn’t
try to steal Daddy anymore.”
The silence that followed was absolute. The kind that belongs in a morgue.
“Serena…” Adrian’s voice was barely above a whisper. “You lied to us? You framed Vivienne?”
Serena’s face was sheet-white. She shook her head frantically, over and over.
“No-Adrian, Lena is lying-”
“My daughter doesn’t lie.” Adrian’s voice went cold as the morgue freezer. “You taught her that.”
He pointed at Serena’s face. His finger was trembling. “You made her fake an injury. You made me turn on Vivienne. You got her thrown out of her own home. You let her die alone in a hospital.”
The expression on Serena’s face finally cracked. The tears stopped. When they dried, all that was left was something raw. Ugly. Naked.
“She deserved to die.” Serena’s voice changed. “What did Vivienne ever lack? The eldest daughter of the Vale family. The fiancée of the Bellandi heir. Everyone born into this world owed her
something.”
“And me? My parents died for Gideon. The Vale family took me in like some act of charity. Damian says he sees me as a real sister, but the way he looks at Vivienne is never the same as the way he
looks at me.”
“When you all faked your deaths, and I stayed at the Vale estate with her, I watched her cry for you every single day. I watched her slit her wrists. I watched her lose your baby. You know how satisfying that was?”
“Every time she broke down and said ‘I miss Adrian,’ I wanted to tell her-he’s not dead. He’s in my bed. He just doesn’t want to see you.”
Damian walked forward from the end of the corridor.
His eyes were red. “So those three years…”
“I did it on purpose.” Serena turned to face him. “Every time you asked about Vivienne, I told you she was fine. She wasn’t fine. She’d lost so much weight she barely looked like herself. She had nightmares every single night.”
She let out a cold laugh. “I wanted her dead.”
Damian’s fist slammed into the wall.
He grabbed Serena by the collar and threw her hard to the ground.
“Serena! When did this family ever screw you over? Mom and Dad raised you like you were theirs. Vivienne handed you everything she loved. Why the hell would you do this? Do you get it now- because of your lies, we thought she was the one playing us the whole time…”
Damian’s voice cracked and broke.
“During the worst, most brutal moments of her life-we weren’t even there!”
Evelyn stared at Serena, her reddened eyes full of anguish and disillusionment.
“I never should’ve betrayed my Vivienne just to give you and Adrian what you wanted. She was my real daughter…”
Gideon seemed to age decades in a single moment. He shut his eyes, unable to even look at Serena.
“Your parents did save my life. That’s why I told my family to be grateful to you. But you can’t treat my daughter like this… I’m the one who owes a life debt. If you wanted to hurt someone, you should’ve come for me. Framing Vivienne-what was that?”
Gideon steadied Evelyn and guided her toward the elevator. His voice was ice. “Leave New York before tonight is over. Don’t let me see you again.”
Serena’s smile vanished. “Gideon-”
He didn’t turn around.
Adrian moved toward the elevator, too.
“Adrian!” Serena chased after him. “Where are you going?”
“Adrian! I’m your wife! Lena is your daughter!”
She stared at him, and for once, real tears spilled down her cheeks. “You’re just going to leave?”
Adrian met her eyes. “I’ll send someone for Lena.” His voice was dead calm. “You’ll be hearing
from my lawyer.”
“Adrian-”
“You killed her.”
He looked at her with pure hatred.
The elevator doors slid shut.
Serena collapsed to her knees. Her tears streamed down without end.
No one noticed that at the corner of “Vivienne’s” mouth, there was a very thin, almost invisible scar. The kind of mark only left behind after facial reconstruction on a corpse.
And the doctor who had been waiting for them in the morgue-inside his breast pocket lay a card.
