6 Chapter 6
My slap stunned Viktor. The moment he recovered, he tried to strike back, but my father held him back tightly. (1)
But still, I felt Dante’s gaze on me, filled with concern and a deep, aching tenderness. I gently patted his hand, signaling him to be at ease.
“Mother has been preparing my dowry these past few days. She dotes on me so much, she wishes she could empty the family’s coffers to give me the very best of everything. That’s why it’s a little cluttered. You don’t mind, do you?”
And this was the exact moment I had been waiting for.
I stood there in deliberate silence, ignoring Sophia’s feigned enthusiastic embrace before shoving her away.
She thought I was the same Katya I used to be, not knowing that such things could no longer wound me.
“The Torrino family’s affairs are not for you to comment on! Viktor, are you trying to drag the entire Kovalenko family down to their graves with you?”
“Viktor, hurry and pull the Don away!”
“Don’t get too comfortable. No one knows how long you’ll get to be the Matriarch. After all, the Torrino family won’t tolerate a crippled Don…”
In public, Dante still maintained the facade of a cripple-haggard and confined to a wheelchair-to deceive everyone. It was no wonder Viktor looked down on him; even I had been fooled by his masterful disguise.
The gesture caught Sophia’s eye, and she began to mock us, her tone exaggerated.
I truly hadn’t expected her to spew such explicit and vulgar words. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to remain calm. But Dante wrenched his hand free and seized Sophia by the neck, his eyes ablaze with a towering rage.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Mother said that since you’re married now, it was a waste to leave this room empty, so she turned it into a storage room…”
The anger simmering in Viktor’s chest boiled over.
1/3
“Oh! So the cripple actually knows how to care for someone. Katya, it looks like you didn’t marry the wrong man after all!”
Her birth had always been a thorn in Sophia’s side. As expected, her words grew more reckless.
My parents and Viktor burst through the door, arriving just in time to see the scene, and were instantly frantic.
My parents were in a complete panic.
“Katya, you’re so pathetic. After being a wife to this cripple for a few days, don’t tell me you’ve actually slept your way into having feelings for him?”
“Katya, you’ve become the Matriarch of the Torrino family, and you’re still just as venomous, never passing up a single opportunity to torment Sophia!”
“So what if he’s a cripple? As long as the Torrino family doesn’t disown him, I am still the rightful matriarch. You, the bastard child of a maid-we are worlds apart!”
Instead of getting angry, I smiled, and continued to provoke her.
“Hmph! It’s not like I’m wrong. Look at him, his eyes are vacant. He’s a useless cripple. How could he possibly lead the family?” He shot Dante a contemptuous glance and muttered under his breath.
They greeted me, but I ignored them.
Before he could finish, I slapped him across the face without a moment’s hesitation.
“She is a Torrino now! We can’t afford to provoke her!”
I didn’t stoop to Viktor’s level. Leaving the Soldati to wait outside, I pushed Dante’s wheelchair through the main doors of the Kovalenko estate.
“I’m honestly curious, what can a cripple even do in bed? Don’t tell me you have to take the initiative… get on top of him and do all the work yourself? With those legs, what kind of pleasure could he possibly give you?”
“Look at you now, pushing that wheelchair. You look just like a nanny.”
Viktor rushed forward at the command, but Dante was like a stone statue, impossible to budge an inch.
<
6 Chapter 6
“Sophia! Don Torrino! What is going on!”
Sophia wore an expression of apology, but her eyes were sharp with provocation.
Dante arrived with a large retinue of Soldati, so when my parents saw me, they regarded me with a respectful distance for the very first time.
I tuned out our surroundings. Now that it was just the three of us in the room, she no longer bothered to hide her innate, spiteful nature.
The party’s formalities had just concluded when I pushed Dante to my room on the second floor, only to find the once simple yet warm bedroom was now unrecognizable. In just a few short days, it had been piled high with a jumble of boxes.
