My soul remained trapped in the mansion. I watched Papa and Mamma stay with the spooked Arianna until she fell asleep before finally leaving her room, and I watched Giusto wake up early in the morning to prepare breakfast for her.

Everyone seemed to have already accepted the fact that I wasn't even home.

Suddenly, Arianna emerged from her bedroom, clutching a bundle of fabric while sobbing quietly.

"This is the dress I prepared to attend the Cioffi Famiglia's ball next week… But how did it turn out like this?"

Mamma hurriedly took the fabric from her and unfurled it, revealing a champagne-colored satin dress with three long slashes from the chest to the hem. The remaining fabric hung down in tatters.

Papa frowned as Giusto leaned over to have a look. Their faces turned dark immediately.

"It's been cut with shearing scissors," Giustio said. "It wasn't an accident. It had to have been Carlotta! She must have been so resentful about Arianna ruining her wedding that she sneaked back in the middle of the night to ruin her dress!"

Arianna wiped the tears from her eyes and feigned sadness as she said, "Carlotta once told me that she really loved this dress of mine… I had even thought about gifting it to her… But I don't think she would have done such a thing…"

"Who else could it be if it wasn't her? The home security system is working well. Nobody else could have broken in."

Giusto was furious.

While watching Arianna orchestrate this act of her own and pretend to be the pitiful victim, I suddenly understood why Papa, Mamma, and Giusto all hated me so much. Arianna certainly had plenty to do with it.

She had always been jealous of my identity as the Principessa of the Capuano Famiglia. She kept fabricating evidence of my bullying her or betraying the Famiglia, framing me, and then using her acting skills to point the finger at me and gain everyone's trust.

Every time, Papa would just lock me up in the basement without waiting to listen to my side of the story.

It wasn't until Diego appeared that I felt there was a ray of sunshine in my life once again. Yet, he was also always fooled by Arianna's pitiful acts.

Giusto slammed his fist into the couch cushion in fury.

"I knew that it was Carlotta! It's just a stupid wedding! What's the big deal about it? Arianna nearly lost her life then! She just wants the whole world to revolve around her and nobody else!"

After a few seconds of silence, Arianna's quiet sobbing resurfaced. "Forget about it. Carlotta has never liked me in the first place. It's just a dress. I shouldn't blame her for it…"

"What do you mean, 'forget about it'?" Mamma exclaimed, wiping away her tears in a heartbreaking manner. "I won't let this blow over just like that! When Carlotta comes back later, I will make sure she explains exactly what she's up to!"

"We'll talk about it again if she ever comes back," Giusto said with a cold grin on his face. "There's still no trace of her anywhere."

Papa got up and walked over to Arianna, lowering his head to look at her. "Throw this dress away. I'll have the family seamstress come over tomorrow to make you ten new dresses instead."

Arianna was stunned for a moment. Then, she threw herself into Papa's arms and exclaimed, "Thank you, Papa!"

"Also, Carlotta's room is facing the south, and it gets good sunlight during the day. You can move in. There's no point keeping it empty now that she's not coming back."

Arianna looked up at once, her eyes still brimming with tears. However, her lips lifted momentarily in a sly smirk, and I was the only one who caught it.

"But… But Carlotta will get angry about it…"

"Who does she think she is?" Giusto spat.

"She ran away from home just because her wedding got cancelled. What's the point of leaving the room for her? It's not like she cares about this Famiglia anymore anyway!"

Mamma nodded and said, "He's right. Haven't you always wanted your bedroom to have a balcony, Arianna? It all works out just fine."

Arianna nodded happily, smiling sweetly at them.

I floated next to them, taking in everything with my own eyes.

I had only gotten that bedroom for myself when I turned ten years old, and I'd been delighted for an entire month just because of it.

But now, the room was going to belong to someone else instead.

It was fine. I wasn't going to be returning to it anyway.

Meanwhile, Diego stood by the window without saying a thing.

After Arianna finally calmed down, he turned around and said with a frown on his face, "The Carlotta I know would never do a thing like this. All the rooms have surveillance cameras. We just need to check them to know the truth."

Arianna got flustered and gripped the hem of her dress at once.

Of course, Arianna would never let them check the surveillance cameras, because then everyone would have realized that I never appeared anywhere after all!

She leaned next to Mamma and said, "There's no need to check the surveillance. It's just a dress. We'll just pretend that it wasn't Carlotta's fault."

"But…"

"Mamma, I had a terrible nightmare last night about the kidnapping, and my head really hurts now," she suddenly said, avoiding Diego's eyes and hugging Mamma next to her instead.

Mamma held her in her arms, her expression heartbroken, and began chiding Diego.

"Arianna just experienced a kidnapping. Stop making her upset because of Carlotta! It doesn't matter whether this was really Carlotta's fault, since she's not home anyway. The important thing now is to cheer Arianna up and keep her that way."

Although Mamma had already put it that way, Diego's suspicions still made Arianna uneasy.

I saw the cogs turning in her head for a while before she suddenly got to her feet and said, "Mamma, maybe we've all wrongly blamed Carlotta for everything after all.

"I suddenly remember seeing a gift box next to my bed when I woke up in the morning. Maybe it's a gift she left me to celebrate my safe return last night. Let me go and retrieve it to see what she got me."

She turned and made her way upstairs.

Diego was the only one who still looked suspicious about everything.

Suddenly, there was a loud scream from her upstairs.

She grabbed a gift box as she stumbled down the stairs, her arms now covered in angry red rashes.

"Mamma! It itches so bad! There's nettle powder on the gift box!"

I looked at the gift box containing a brooch in her hands. It was my favorite brooch, and everyone had seen me wearing it before.

Papa didn't say another word as he glared at the brooch. Meanwhile, Mamma pulled Arianna into her arms again with comforting words while Giusto's face turned darker than thunder.

"I knew it! I knew Carlotta was nothing but an evil witch! She still hasn't shown up at home because she's been meaning to escape after harming Arianna!"

"Stop it with the yakking and get the antidote for Arianna now!" Papa said, grabbing the gift box Arianna stole from my room from her hands and tossing it straight into the trash.

"The antidote is in the basement. Let me go and get it," Giusto said.

Arianna immediately stopped him. "I'm just allergic, Giusto. You just need to get the Famiglia doctor for me. I don't need the antidote."

I watched as Giusto stopped in his tracks. If only he'd gone down into the basement, he would have immediately noticed my rotting body.

However, he listened to Arianna's words instead and ran off to fetch the doctor.

All it took was just Arianna twisting the truth, and all of a sudden, I was this evil, ungrateful, and unreasonable person— someone who had run away from home, ruined Arianna's dress, and poisoned her with stinging nettle because I was ostensibly jealous of her.

And yet, I hadn't even lifted a finger toward her.

Diego stood next to the window, watching everything unfold in silence.

A short while later, he said, "I'm going to look for her."

"And where do you think you're going to find her if she's set on hiding from us? It's going to take a miracle for you to find her," Mamma said impatiently.

"I'm going to the few places she often goes to," Diego said, hurrying toward the door. "The church, the library, and the cafe in the east of the city… I'm going to find her somehow."

I suddenly felt like laughing while I floated behind him.

As it turned out, Diego still remembered the places I liked going to. Many times over the past two years, I had tried to get him to go with me to the library and the cafe on dates, but he would always leave me for Arianna's lies instead.

As for the church… He had a point. I was supposed to be at the church with everyone witnessing me becoming his bride, but I'd already died at home before I even had the chance to go there.

Diego spent a long time patrolling the streets, but he couldn't find me anywhere.

Ultimately, he stopped his car in the abandoned alley near a warehouse in Queenton District, where they'd all rescued Arianna from just the day before. It was also the place where he'd hung up on me.

He walked in, retrieved his phone, and began recording a voice message for me.

"Carlotta Capuano! Where on earth are you? Arianna had an allergic reaction thanks to the brooch you gifted to her… I always thought that you were a kind soul, but I never thought that you'd ever stoop so low.

"You'd better have a proper explanation for this. Otherwise, I'm going to call off—"

He hesitated for a moment before deleting the message and recording another.

"Whatever. Stay hidden forever if that's what you want. You'll be back once you've thought things through anyway."

His phone screen then lit up for a moment, showing that the voice message had been successfully sent to me.

I stood behind him and said softly, "I'm never coming back, Diego."

But he couldn't hear me after all.

Arianna quickly recovered from her allergy.

The doctor applied the salve all over her arms. He even joked, "Signora Capuano is too weak. I didn't expect her arm to swell up so badly after just touching the stinging nettle. It's almost as if she scattered the nettle powder all over her arms on purpose."

A flicker of panic appeared in Arianna's eyes.

Fortunately for her, Papa, Mamma, and Giusto were all too worried about her arm that they didn't even hear what the doctor just said.

Arianna hurriedly got rid of the doctor after he was done treating her. Then, she hugged her arms with red-rimmed eyes.

Giusto roared, "Carlotta had better not come back! Otherwise, I'm going to teach her a proper lesson!"

I floated in the air, listening to Arianna's accusations and everyone's condemnation against me, feeling a wave of helplessness washing over me.

Meanwhile, Diego had come back to check Arianna's condition. His expression was visibly agitated. "I'm going down to the basement to take a look."

Arianna panicked for a second, but she recovered pretty quickly. "The basement? What for?"

"I keep having this feeling that Carlotta never left the house. And the only place in the mansion we haven't searched is the basement. I'm just going down to have a look."

"No way!" Arianna immediately stood up, her voice louder than usual. "The basement is so dingy and dirty. How could she possibly have gone there herself?"

Diego didn't stop.

Arianna immediately ran after him and said, "If you're still worried about her, I'll accompany you as we continue looking for her elsewhere. I'm sure that there's nobody downstairs in the basement…"

Still, Diego continued making his way down.

I followed right after him.

The farther down we went, the more damp and musty it became. The air was thick with the stench of dust and mold, and maybe even a hint of something else.

It was so faint in the air that it was also indiscernible.

However, my soul could sense it very well. It was the smell of blood—the smell of my own blood mixed with the stench of my rotting corpse.

Arianna grabbed Diego's arm again.

"Something stinks down here. It must be dead rats. Don't go down there, Diego. Dead rats carry all sorts of dangerous diseases. We'll just have to wait until the butler cleans it out.

"You know Carlotta. She'd never bear to stay with dead rats at all."

Diego finally stopped in his tracks. "Then where else could she be?"

Arianna comforted him gently and said, "Maybe Carlotta just needs some time to herself to think things through. She'll be back as soon as she's finally gotten over herself."

In the end, Diego listened to her and went back up with Arianna behind him.

As they turned the corner of the stairs, she stopped suddenly, turning around to look in the direction of the door at the end of the hallway leading into the basement, and smirked.

I was floating right behind her when I saw her smirk.

She knew where I was the whole time after all.

…

That night, after Arianna had gone to sleep, Papa, Mamma, and Giusto chatted in the living room for hours before finally retiring to bed in exhaustion sometime past midnight.

I floated in a corner of the living room and heard Mamma sighing. She said, "Diego is a good person. It's a pity that his family background isn't powerful enough to be a good match for Arianna. Otherwise, they would be a better fit together.

"Did you know that he was at the forefront while we rescued Arianna yesterday?"

I froze at once.

Papa then replied casually, "Yeah. Diego can assist Giusto with the Famiglia's affairs, and Arianna has feelings for him, too. It's just such a pity—"

Mamma interrupted him and said, "It's fine. It doesn't matter if he married Carlotta after all, since it doesn't affect his ability to take care of Arianna afterward. Arianna simply deserves someone else from a more powerful family."

As it turned out, Mamma never objected to my relationship with Diego because she felt that he wasn't good enough for Arianna but good enough for me.

Suddenly, the overhead light flickered twice before plunging the entire mansion into complete darkness.

"Why's the power out?" Mamma asked with a frown. "Giusto, go down into the basement and check the main power switch. Go see what could be the matter."

Giusto nodded and headed down to the basement.

The more he neared the basement door, the thicker the decaying stench was in the air.

"What's that smell?" he muttered.

Papa and Mamma also followed him down to the basement.

Giusto then pushed the door open, flashing his torchlight into the space.

A nauseating stench immediately assaulted his nostrils.

In the darkness, a half-decomposed body lay in the center of the basement, the white wedding dress on its body soaked in blood. Meanwhile, the corpse's eyes were staring resentfully at the basement doorway.

Giusto nearly lost his mind at the sight.

"Carlotta?" he called out.

I grinned.