The Day My Survival Score Reached Zero Chapter 04

Maybe I looked too calm. Maybe I no longer sounded like someone threatening death to be saved. Whatever he saw in me made his jaw tense and his eyes go dark. 

Without another word, Julian called for his car, wrapped the coat tighter around my shoulders, and walked beside me all the way out of the conservatory.

I did not struggle.

I closed my eyes and began counting the minutes until they looked away again.

Julian did not take me back to the main house. He brought me to his private clinic on the edge of the Bellandi estate, wrapped me in a blanket, checked my temperature, then called Dante in front of me as if I were another Bellandi problem that needed to be handled.

Dante arrived less than twenty minutes later.

Adrian came with him.

So did Sophia.

She had changed out of her veil, but she was still wearing the wedding dress. The moment she saw me on Julian’s couch, she stepped behind Adrian and gripped his sleeve as if I might lunge at her.

Adrian looked at me with the same coldness he had shown at the altar.

“Isabella, was this necessary?” he asked. “Today was my wedding. Did you really have to turn yourself into a tragedy just to make us look at you?”

I stared at him without moving.

He frowned harder. “You already humiliated Sophia once. Wasn’t that enough?”

There it was again.

No matter what happened, they always believed I had a motive, a plan, a knife hidden somewhere behind my back.

I looked past Adrian and met Sophia’s eyes.

“What if I told you she was the one who ruined me?”

Sophia’s fingers tightened around Adrian’s sleeve.

I said, “Those messages were edited. The videos were cut. The accounts that dragged my name through the mud were paid for. Sophia did all of it, then stood in front of you and cried like I was the monster.”

Sophia’s face went white for only a second before tears filled her eyes.

“How can you still blame me?” she whispered. “You used the Bellandi name to threaten me, Isabella. Everyone saw it.”

Adrian immediately stepped in front of her.

Dante’s expression darkened. “Enough.”

I looked at him.

He did not ask whether I had proof. He did not even hesitate.

“You caused that scandal, and now you’re trying to frame her for it?” he said sharply. “Apologize to Sophia.”

Julian stood beside the medical cart with his jaw tense. “Isabella, don’t make this worse.”

Dante looked furious, Julian disappointed, and Adrian did not even bother looking at me anymore because all his attention had gone to Sophia’s tears.

In this world, Sophia’s tears counted as evidence, and my truth counted as another lie.

I had spent twenty-five years fighting for a life that had never truly belonged to me.

I pushed the blanket off and stood.

Julian stepped closer. “Where are you going?”

“Away from you.”

Dante stepped in front of the door. “So you can disappear again and pull another stunt?”

His voice was harsh, but his eyes stayed fixed on my face as if he was checking whether I would break.

“You’re staying here tonight,” he said. “Julian and I will take turns watching you.”

I looked at Adrian.

He had already turned back to Sophia, lowering his voice to comfort her.

Sophia leaned into him and did not look at me again.

A few minutes later, Adrian took Sophia back to the reception, while Dante told the guards no one was to disturb the clinic and Julian called off his night staff. They called it observation, but neither of them left me alone for even a minute.

Dante tried Mother’s voicemail.

Julian tried clinical questions.

I responded to neither.

By midnight, I was sitting on the couch, staring through the dark window at the trees outside. My body felt distant, as if I had already stepped out of it and left only something hollow behind. Dante snapped at me twice. Julian kept asking questions in his calm doctor’s voice, but I did not answer either of them.

Near dawn, Julian finally crouched in front of me and checked my pulse.

“Isabella, look at me.”

I did not move.

“Do you know who I am?”

I looked at him, but there was nothing inside me to give back.

His expression changed when he felt how slow and faint my pulse was.

Dante noticed. “What’s wrong with her?”

Julian stayed silent for a moment, watching my face as if he was finally seeing something he should have seen years ago.

Then he said, very quietly, “She’s not pretending.”

Dante’s face stiffened.

Julian swallowed, and when he spoke again, there was something almost like fear in his voice.

“I think she’s shutting down.”