Her Sister's Shattered Shadow

"Impossible!"

The color drained from Vincent's face as he denied it instinctively.

"My father would never..."

"Wouldn't he?" I cut him off, projecting a document onto the large screen behind me.

"This is a report from the FBI's reopened investigation. It clearly states that the hitman who planted the bomb was a Soldato of the Moretti family."

"The day before the bombing, a wire transfer for five hundred thousand dollars appeared in his family's account. The sender was your father's Consigliere."

"Vincent Moretti, are you going to stand there and tell me you knew nothing about this?"

Vincent's lips trembled, but no words came out.

The shock and disbelief in his eyes seemed genuine.

It was almost as if he really had been kept in the dark.

*Of course you didn't know,* I thought with a flash of contempt.

"From the very beginning, you were just a pawn in their game."

"You thought you were marrying your one true love, Seraphina. In reality, you were just a tool for the Moretti family to absorb the De Luca's influence in New York."

"And I, Aria De Luca, was the pathetic replacement, forced to live in my sister's shadow."

I looked down into the audience, where my father, Marco De Luca, stood with an ashen face.

He never imagined I would detonate our family's secrets in public.

"Papa, are you going to remain silent?"

"For the sake of the so-called family business, you sacrificed one daughter and threw another into the fire. Does your conscience even bother you?"

Marco flinched and bowed his head, unable to meet my gaze.

Vincent, however, seemed to have found a final, desperate lifeline. He lunged onto the stage and grabbed my shoulders.

"Aria, you're lying! You wanted to marry me!"

"You've loved me for years, how could you..."

"Love?" I let out a sharp, humorless laugh and shoved his hands away.

"Vincent Moretti, you are so breathtakingly arrogant."

"I have never loved you."

"I learned to sculpt, copied my sister's techniques, wore her style of clothes, and cooked her favorite meals, all to make you believe I was her."

"I endured you parading those replacements in front of me, forcing me to sculpt their faces, just to gather evidence. Just to wait for this day."

"To wait for the chance to send you, your father, and the entire Moretti family straight to hell!"

My voice, laced with a bone-deep chill, echoed through the museum.

Vincent staggered backward, bumping into the backdrop.

He looked at me with eyes full of fear and a horrifying lack of recognition.

"You... you're not her..."

"Who are you?"

I pulled a necklace from my throat and threw it at his feet.

It was a small pendant, a sculpting knife with the letter "S" engraved on the back.

"This was my sister's."

"Vincent Moretti, open your eyes and look."

"I was never your one true love."

"I'm the ghost of your own making, Vincent. And I've crawled out of hell to collect what I'm owed."