He Chose Another Heir, Now He Wants Me Back novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Livia Answers

Livia stood.

She left the guards behind her and walked up the aisle alone, in her plain black dress, with her hands empty.

Ruggero's smile slid away.

"The child has nothing to add," he said. "She is overwrought."

"Sit down, Ruggero," the old man said, without raising his voice.

My uncle sat.

Livia stopped at the center table in front of the spilled letters and looked at them for a long moment.

Then she turned to the benches.

"I sent Serena the registry page six years ago," she said. "I told her to let me handle Alessio. I wanted her gone."

Her voice was steady, and her hands were not.

"I took his letters from the courier and I opened every one. I took hers to Mama and I locked those too. Seventy-two from him, seventy-two from her. I read them at night."

A woman on the benches made a sound of disgust.

"Why?" the old man asked.

"Because he never wrote me a single line, and he wrote her seventy-two," said Livia. "Because I wanted to be the one Mama waited for. Because I was twenty and afraid."

She turned to me.

"I am sorry, Serena. It is not enough, and I do not ask you to take it."

I said nothing.

I could not.

"There is more." She took a breath. "Four nights ago I gave a man the card to Mama's room. Ruggero told me he was a doctor who would give her something to sleep so she could not be moved. I wanted that. I wanted Serena to have no reason to stay in this house."

"You are lying," Ruggero said softly.

"I am not." She looked straight at him. "You told me the Don's bride would be gone by the vote, and that I would be Signora with no one to say otherwise. You told me the boy would be safe."

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