To tell my father the truth.
To make him see I wasn’t the monster Matteo was painting me into.
My hands shook as I signed the papers. My lawyer kept talking—something about staying silent, about truth eventually coming out—but it all blurred together.
All I could hear was my heartbeat and the dull hum of the world outside the station.
When I finally stepped into the car, I exGrantd shakily for the first time in what felt like days.
I was free.
Or so I believed.
Halfway through the ride, headlights suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Everything happened too fast.
Tires screamed against asphalt. A horn blared. The world tilted violently as if it had been ripped off its axis.
Then came the crash.
Metal screamed. Glass shattered. Everything went white—then black.
When I came to, pain was everywhere.
My neck. My ribs. My legs. I tried to move, but nothing responded the way it should have.
Panic rose instantly.
“What—what’s wrong with me?” I gasped.
A nurse rushed in, her voice trying to stay calm. “Ma’am, please try not to panic.”
“My legs,” I whispered, voice shaking. “I can’t feel my legs.”
She hesitated before answering. “You were in a severe accident. You’re lucky to be alive.”
I tried to sit up, but my body didn’t feel like mine anymore. It felt distant—wrong, disconnected.
That’s when it truly sank in.
“My legs don’t move,” I said again, quieter this time.
The nurse avoided my eyes. “The doctors are doing everything possible.”
That night, the ward was quiet.
Too quiet.
But I wasn’t alone.
Voices drifted from outside my room—low, tense, familiar.
One of them was Matteo.
“Just keep her under observation,” he said coldly. “Make it look like treatment is ongoing.”
A doctor responded nervously, “Sir, with proper therapy she might regain—”
“No,” Matteo cut in immediately. “I don’t want that. I prefer her like this. Helpless. Easier to control. She can’t run around, can’t interfere, can’t ruin anything anymore. At least now she knows where she belongs.”
My breath stopped in my throat.
The doctor hesitated. “That’s… not ethical.”
“I don’t care,” Matteo said flatly. “Do your job. Keep her alive, keep her quiet. That’s all she’s useful for. She can watch from there while I live my life.”
Their footsteps faded down the hallway.
I lay frozen, gripping the sheets so tightly my fingers ached. Tears blurred my vision, but I refused to let them fall.
He hadn’t just taken my freedom.