After that, we were completely severed.

Dante almost never returned to the house that was once called home.

The only window I had into his life was Olivia’s Instagram.

She often posted photos of hospital rounds at Massachusetts General Hospital, her captions filled with words like "mercy" and "healing" which were meaningless platitudes. In the background, Dante was always there. Sometimes it was his silhouette, sometimes just his hand, sometimes the Patek Philippe watch I had given him.

The comments underneath were always the same.

"This is truly God’s perfect arrangement!"

"Dante and Olivia are the epitome of true love!"

"Bless you both!"

Every time I saw them, it felt like a knife twisting in my heart. Under the weight of blow after blow, I decided to go down in flames with them.

I uploaded our marriage certificate and the evidence of Dante’s affair to the internet. Along with it, I attached irrefutable proof that Olivia had stolen my notes on cancer gene therapy, including timestamps, experimental data, and even the original spelling errors; all of it was identical.

That wasn’t all.

I also discovered that Olivia had hacked into my private cloud server and downloaded a massive amount of raw data.

I was ready to rip the veil off completely, but I had underestimated the Falcones.

Dante struck harder than I ever imagined.

He bribed Dr. Matthew Caldwell, my mother’s attending physician and cardiac specialist the family had paid heavily to recruit from a top East Coast medical institution. Dr. Caldwell suddenly claimed he needed to return to the coast and halted my mother’s treatment.

My mother, Elena Rossi, suffered from severe heart failure. Without Dr. Caldwell's proprietary treatment, she could die at any moment.

Dante called me. His voice was as cold as January in Boston.

"Sofia, post a clarification video immediately. Say the marriage certificate was photoshopped. Say the academic fraud was something you fabricated. Otherwise, your mother’s oxygen supply at the hospital might be ‘accidentally’ cut off."

The moment I heard that, my phone slipped from my hand.

I collapsed to my knees and screamed into the line, "Dante, that’s a human life! She once paid for your education! How can you be this ruthless?!"

Dante did not waver.

I could even hear the sound of whiskey being poured on his end.

"Sofia, don’t expect mercy for enemies. Since you chose to stand against the family, you bear the consequences. Go clarify. Don’t destroy Olivia. She’s the family’s future cash cow."

In that moment, I finally understood that the man I loved was already dead.

Or perhaps, he had never existed at all.

What reduced me to disgrace did not stop there.

My mother’s condition could not wait. I had no choice but to compromise.

Facing my phone camera, I uploaded a clarification video to YouTube. I personally admitted that the marriage certificate was photoshopped.

I claimed that I had maliciously fabricated the so-called evidence of academic fraud and that everything I had done stemmed from jealousy of Olivia’s talent and achievements.

I said that I did that because I had foolishly loved Dante, yet could never have his heart, so I committed those insane acts.

Even now, the comment section under that video was still flooded with filth, most of it from bots hired by the family and from people who never knew the truth.

"Girl, have you gone crazy over a man?! You even faked a marriage certificate!"

"What a lunatic. And you dared to slander a good woman like Dr. Ricci as a mistress. Pathetic."

"Women like this shouldn't be allowed online! Smearing doctors is unforgivable!"

"Dr. Ricci saved so many people. Who do you think you are to ruin her?"

"Let’s crowdfund it. I’ll put up a hundred. Who’s going to slap her awake?"

"I’ll do two hundred."

"Count me in! A vicious bitch like this deserves to be taught a lesson!"

…

During that time, I drifted through each day like a walking corpse. I lived under overwhelming humiliation and pain.

All I could do was hide in my apartment in the Cambridge district, staying by my mother’s hospital bed.

Perhaps my condition was too obvious. Even though I never let her near the internet, my mother sensed that something was wrong.

Lying in her hospital bed, she reached out with her frail hand and held mine.

"Sofia, I'm sorry. If it weren’t for my illness, you wouldn’t have had to suffer so much."

I shook my head, tears spilling uncontrollably. "Mom, don’t say that. This is because I’m useless."

She sighed and began talking about the past, about Dante and me.

Young love is always the purest.

Ten years ago, Dante was three years ahead of me. Though he was Italian-American, he had not yet been formally acknowledged by the Falcone family. At the time, he was still an illegitimate son, a graduate student at a top technical institute in Boston.

He first saw me at a medical symposium.

Back then, I had just started my freshman year at a prestigious Ivy League university, yet I had already presented a paper on cancer treatment at the conference.

Dante was drawn to my talent and began approaching me on his own. He helped me organize experimental data and saved seats for me at the main campus library.

When I stayed up late doing research, he brought me coffee and donuts.

Until that day in a public park near Cambridge, when a group of street punks started following me. They were small-time thugs from a nearby Irish gang, known for harassing female students.

Dante tried to protect me. He was beaten so badly that he was hospitalized at St. Catherine’s Medical Center.

He had three broken ribs, and a scar was left on his face.

After that, we naturally ended up together.

Back then, Dante's family had not reclaimed him yet. He was still that poor graduate student working late shifts at a cafe just to pay his tuition fees.

It was my mother who helped him all along. She even funded him so he could finish his education. She borrowed money for him, allowing him to continue his studies at that institute.

Alas, now, the kindness my mother once gave had become the blade stabbing straight back at her.

She had no idea what her daughter was facing. She also had no idea that the child she once treated as her own was now using the most ruthless methods against us.

I watched my mother’s face grow thinner by the day.

My heart felt like it was being cut apart.

I thought, 'Maybe this is enough. At least, I still have my mother. At least, I’m not completely alone. As long as she’s alive, I still have a reason to keep living.'

Unfortunately, God seemed to enjoy tormenting the miserable. He was unwilling to leave me even this last sliver of hope.

When I received the notice that my mother was in critical condition, I lost my mind and rushed toward Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

The Uber was stuck on Storrow Drive for half an hour. My entire body trembled with panic.

Seeing how frantic I was, the driver said kindly, "Miss, you might want to get out and run. The traffic ahead is completely jammed."

I shoved the door open immediately and sprinted toward the hospital.

I was stopped cold at the entrance of my apartment building.

A crowd surrounded me aggressively. They had dug up my personal information and tracked down my address in the Cambridge district.

They wore slogan-printed T-shirts and held signs reading "Protect Dr. Ricci" and "Stop the Lies". They looked organized, like a coordinated group.

They demanded that I apologize to Olivia.

"Sofia Rossi, you liar, come out!"

"Slandering a good person like Dr. Ricci… do you have no conscience?"

"Dr. Ricci saved my mother’s life. Who do you think you are to hurt her like this?!"

Rotten vegetables, foul-smelling eggs, and even unopened cans of drinks rained down on me.

I covered my head and tried desperately to force my way through. "Move! Please move! My mother is in the hospital. She’s dying!"

No one listened.

Someone shoved me hard.

I crashed onto the concrete. My knee split open, blood pouring out. The pain made me gasp, but I didn’t dare stop. I struggled to push myself up.

"You want to pass?" a woman at the front shouted. "Then admit on camera right now that you’re lying!"

She held up her phone. The camera was practically shoved into my face, the flash blinding me.

"Record it! Let the whole world see what a liar looks like!" the crowd jeered, tightening around me again, leaving no path at all to get away and to see my mother one last time.

I gave in.

I collapsed onto the ground, filthy and humiliated. Ignoring the blood streaming down my forehead, I stared into those cold lenses and spoke words that went against my soul, trembling like a puppet on strings.

"It was me... I lied. I was jealous of Olivia. The photos were photoshopped. The data was fabricated. I’m sorry, Olivia Ricci..."

Humiliated tears mixed with blood and ran into my mouth. In that moment, my dignity was ground into the dirt.

Those righteous crusaders looked like they had just won a battle. They smiled in satisfaction.

"If you’d done this earlier, it wouldn’t have come to this."

"Since your attitude is acceptable, we’ll forgive you."

With the video they wanted secured, they dispersed contentedly, as if they had just carried out some great act of justice.

I was finally able to continue to the hospital.

However, by the time I reached Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, it was already too late.

My mother had stopped breathing. She lay on the hospital bed, her face pale, drained of all color.

The doctor removed his mask and sighed. "I’m very sorry. The patient went into cardiac arrest half an hour ago. We did everything we could."

For a brief moment, I thought I was trapped inside a long, endless dream.

When the dream ended, I would still be the little girl who slept in her mother’s arms. I would not have met Dante or have lived through these nightmares.

My mother would still be alive and healthy. We would still take walks and talk together by the Boston River.

However, reality struck me down without mercy.

I chose the wrong man, and I didn’t even get to see my mother one last time.