I Was The Mafia’s Maid Now I’m Their Regret Chapter 28
Three years later, I graduated from Aurelia Academy.
The lab had grown into a full research team.
The encryption system I designed had received formal approval for application, and the first long-term contract bore only the lab’s name.
I had finally become the cryptographic engineer I wanted to be.
On the morning of graduation, Chloe burst into my room.
“Hurry up! Emma and Maya already went to save seats.”
“What about Luca?”
“He’s downstairs. And he’s holding this huge bouquet like he wants the whole world to know who it’s for.”
I changed into my gown and looked down to straighten the cuffs.
The silver bracelet was still on my wrist.
The classmate who had given it to me three years earlier had received an invitation, too.
She couldn’t come, but she had sent a special message to congratulate me.
I replied with a sincere thank you.
Someone had noticed my efforts before I had any fame at all.
That gift had never been about the price.
That was why, even now, it was still my favorite bracelet.
Outside the auditorium, Mom was waiting for me with that album in her hands.
The last page now held the photo from the lab’s opening ceremony, and many new pages had been added after it.
Every time she came, she asked for my schedule first, and she never again brought a single message from my father on his behalf.
Francesca’s newer performance photos were kept in her own album.
Later, she won a lead dance position through open selection.
I went to that performance.
Not because the Family wanted me there. Simply because I wanted to go that day.
Nico still hadn’t passed his heir assessment.
He no longer took that future for granted, and he had learned how to make his own breakfast, check supplies, and manage schedules himself.
We still weren’t close.
But now, every message from him began with my name.
My grandmother never came looking for me again.
She remained convinced she had done nothing wrong.
And I stopped waiting for her to admit otherwise.
Some relationships don’t need reconciliation. Leaving is the ending.
My father sat in the last row of the auditorium.
He had not contacted the school in advance, and he had not taken a seat in the reserved family section.
When it was my turn to walk on stage, he stood and applauded with everyone else.
Nothing more.
I accepted my diploma and heard someone shout my name from below.
Chloe was the loudest.
Emma and Maya were waving, too.
Luca stood beside them with his bouquet, smiling up at me.
Mom lifted her camera.
In the frame, there was only me.
After the ceremony, she showed me the photo.
“Can this one go in the album?”
“Yes.”
I opened my own phone.
Over the years, I had finished my album, too.
Inside were the Christmas gifts my friends gave me, every trophy, the hamburgers we ate during late nights in the project group, and the row of names posted clearly outside the lab.
The last photo was of me, just now, holding my diploma.
My life no longer needed to be captured by accident in someone else’s background.
Whether my name was in the service ledger had long since stopped mattering.
Because from the moment I walked out of the estate before dawn, every choice I made after that was one I confirmed for myself.
I closed the album and walked toward the people waiting for me.
From now on, my life would bear only my signature.
The End