Buried Alive, I Left the Don My Blood-Written Truth Chapter 09
Her hair was a mess. She still refused to lower her head.
“Adrian, are you really going to put me on trial?”
Adrian said, “I’m not putting you on trial. The law is.” Margaret laughed.
“The law?”
“I’m the widow of the former Don.”
“I remained a widow for the Moretti family for twenty years. I helped put the Don’s ring on your hand. I held
the Moretti compound together for you.”
“I removed one troublesome girl, one useless adopted son, and one vicious woman. What exactly did I do
wrong?”
The crowd broke into horrified whispers. Some women covered their mouths and cried. Adrian’s eyes turned
bloodshot.
“Lily was only three. How did she trouble you?”
Margaret shrieked.
“She was a daughter.”
“Being a daughter was her mistake.”
“Elena couldn’t bear a son. She should have made way for the Moretti family.”
“She even dared let that gutter-blooded child call you Daddy. Who did she think she was?”
I floated at the door of the Moretti compound’s meeting hall. This time, it didn’t hurt. It only left a cold, hollow place where pain should have been. Vivian was being held to the side. She shouted, “Mrs. Moretti, don’t push
all the blame onto me.”
“Years ago, when Elena was pregnant with her second child, you were the one who had the private doctor dose her every day with herbs meant to weaken her womb.”
Adrian snapped his head around.
“What did you say?”
Vivian looked as if she had grabbed a lifeline.
“Adrian, you didn’t know, did you?”
“Elena had a miscarriage.”
“It happened in the second year after she married into the family. She was not far along. Mrs. Moretti
despised Elena’s background. She was afraid Elena would give birth to a legitimate male heir and threaten the so-called purity of the Moretti bloodline. So she had the family doctor drug Elena every day with herbs
meant to weaken her womb.”
“Elena was afraid you would be distracted at the Mexican border outpost. She didn’t dare tell you.”
“The private doctor later said the child had already formed. It was a boy.”
Margaret went ashen. Her lips moved.
“No way.”
Vivian laughed until she shook.
“Mrs. Moretti, you spent your life begging for a boy.”
“But your grandson was destroyed by your own hand.”
The Moretti compound’s meeting hall went terrifyingly quiet. Adrian stood there as if someone had hollowed out his chest. I remembered that child. Back then, I had been in pain all night. Blood soaked through the bedding. I gripped the bedframe and told the private doctor, “Don’t tell Adrian. He’s fighting at the border.” After the child was gone, Margaret said only one thing.
“A bad omen.”
Adrian walked up to Margaret.
“Daughter or son, they were all my children.”
“Who gave you the right to decide whether they lived or died?”
Margaret threw herself forward and grabbed his clothes.
“I’m your mother.”
“Adrian, I did all of this for you.”
“Without a male heir, the Moretti family would be laughed at.”
Adrian pried her fingers loose, one after another.
“Elena was Lily’s mother too.”
“When you killed her child, did you ever remember she was a mother?”
Margaret cried out.
“What kind of mother was she? She couldn’t even give birth to a son.”
Adrian stepped back.
“Guards.”
The detectives moved forward. Adrian closed his eyes.
“Margaret, for three counts of murder, forgery of a family order, and all related crimes, hand her over to the police and charge her to the fullest extent of the law.”
“Vivian poisoned a child, destroyed letters, and hid evidence. Hand her over as well.”
The Family Council panicked.
“Adrian, spare the Family some dignity.”
Adrian looked at the old photographs and memorial plaques in the meeting hall.
“The Moretti family’s dignity will not be covered with my wife’s and daughter’s blood.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a row of old photographs and memorial plaques in the hall crashed down.
Only the silver bell from my coffin rang once, clear and sharp. Adrian lifted his head. His voice came out
broken.
“Elena, did you see that?”
“Who touched her old bedroom?”
Adrian stood in my courtyard and asked the question slowly. The maids stood in a row with their heads down, shaking with fear. No one dared answer. Ava took a bundle of torn fabric from the bottom of a chest.
“Don Moretti, this is her wedding dress.”
Adrian reached out and took it. The red wedding dress had been cut into more than a dozen pieces. On the back of each piece, words had been embroidered. They were not love poems. They were the names of the
border outposts.
