Buried Alive, I Left the Don My Blood-Written Truth Chapter 01
On the seventh day after I was buried alive, someone dug up my grave. The man digging me up was my husband, Adrian Moretti, the young Don of the Moretti family. He had just returned from a turf war along the Mexican border. He believed I had poisoned his adopted son. To him, I was a cold-blooded murderer. He hated me so much that even death wasn’t enough. He wanted my corpse dragged out and whipped. Then the coffin lid came off, and he froze.
The inside of the coffin was covered in words. Every word had been scraped into the wood with my own finger bones. By the end, all ten of my fingers had been worn down to bare white bone.
“Adrian, I didn’t do it.”
“Lily was drowned by your mother in the backyard well.”
“She said the blood of a lowborn girl had no place in the Moretti bloodline.”
“I was still alive when they sealed the coffin.”
“I called your name for three days and three nights.”
The last line was so crooked it was almost impossible to read.
“Adrian, it hurts.”
…
“Do we continue, Don Moretti?”
The guard’s voice shook so badly he could barely get the words out. From above the coffin, I watched Adrian’s hand freeze in midair, the whip hanging slack from his fingers. Adrian said nothing. Someone beside him whispered, “Don Moretti, her hands…” Another guard staggered back.
“She… she was alive when they put her in the coffin?”
Then Adrian finally moved. He bent down as if he no longer recognized the curled body inside the coffin as mine. His fingertips hovered beside the bare white bones of my fingers. He didn’t dare touch them.
“Who sealed the coffin?”
The cemetery keeper’s knees buckled. He almost collapsed into the mud.
“Don Moretti, mercy. I was only following orders.”
Adrian snapped his head around.
“Who gave the order?”
“Margaret’s.”
The cemetery keeper pressed his forehead into the dirt.
“Margaret said the sinner had poisoned the Moretti bloodline. She said Don Moretti had sent a sealed order from the border outpost. The order said she must be buried at once and barred from burial in the Moretti family cemetery.”
Adrian turned pale.
“When did I write such a letter?”
The keeper trembled.
“I don’t know. All I saw was that the seal was real. It bore the mark of your signet ring.”
I stared at him. Now he was afraid. Too late. One of the guards spoke carefully. “Don Moretti, maybe… maybe there’s been a mistake.” Adrian didn’t seem to hear him. His eyes stayed fixed on the coffin wall.
“I was still alive when they sealed the coffin.”
Under that line, several bloodstained scratches had been scraped through. Those were the words I no longer had the strength to finish. Adrian reached out and touched the bloodstained letters. As soon as his fingertip brushed them, he shuddered hard.
“Elena.”
I heard him call my name. Not murderer. Not Miss Hayes. Elena. But I could no longer answer. A small silver bell rolled out from the corner of the coffin. It rang once. Adrian looked down, and his whole body went rigid. The guards recognized it too.
“Don Moretti, that’s Miss Lily’s good luck bell.”
Adrian crouched and picked it up. The silver bell had gone black. A strand of rotting hair had been stuffed inside its hollow. It was Lily’s hair. My Lily, only three years old, whose hair never stayed tied properly and who ran like a little sparrow. Adrian’s hand began to shake.
“Why is Lily’s bell here?”
No one dared answer. For one second, he stopped breathing. Then he shot to his feet, his voice hoarse and ice-cold.
“Back to the compound. Now.”
The guard froze.
“Don Moretti, her remains…”
Adrian tore off his black coat and covered my broken body with it.
“If anyone touches her again, that hand is gone.”
I floated behind him and followed him back to the Moretti compound. In the inner courtyard, the old well had been sealed under slabs of bluestone. I had once stayed here for three days, begging Margaret.
“Mother, Lily wouldn’t run away. She’s afraid of the dark. She would never walk far by herself.”
At the time, Margaret had been fingering her rosary.
“The child is gone because her mother failed to watch her,” she told me.
Now Adrian kicked over the stone altar beside the well.
“Dig.”
The butler rushed out, his face bloodless.
“Don Moretti, you can’t. Mrs. Moretti said this well was cursed and had to be sealed to protect the compound.”
Adrian drew his gun and pressed the muzzle against the butler’s throat.
“I said dig.”
No one dared stop him. The bluestone slabs were pried up. Bucket after bucket of rancid water came up from the dark. Adrian stood at the edge of the well without saying a word. When the water reached the bottom, someone below screamed.
“Don Moretti, there are… there are a child’s bones down here.”
Adrian’s knees nearly gave out, but he forced himself to stay standing. The guards lifted the tiny skeleton out of the well. A faded red cord was still tied around one ankle. Adrian had braided it himself. On Lily’s first birthday, while he was still in New York, he had held her in his arms and fumbled that cord around her ankle.
“My daughter,” he had said, “grow up safe.”
The cord was still there. Lily had never grown up. Adrian reached out and touched the small leg bone. When he spoke, his voice was broken past recognition.
“Lily.”
I floated beside the well and wanted to hold my child. But my hand passed straight through her bones. When Margaret arrived, half her pinned hair had come loose. Vivian followed behind her. The second she saw the tiny bones beside the well, she covered her mouth. Her tears came fast.
“Adrian, how could this happen? Wasn’t Lily missing?”
Adrian raised his head.
“Mother, do you know what was in that well?”
Panic flashed across Margaret’s face for only a second. Then she straightened her back. “You come home and start digging up graves and wells. Are you trying to disgrace every Don who came before you?” Adrian asked, “Did you kill Lily?” Margaret looked as if she had heard a joke.
“She was a little girl. She’s dead. Why dig her up?”
“Say that again.”
