My Fiancé Abandoned Me For Don’s Adopted Daughter But I’m Don’s Real Daughter Chapter 04
“Poppa, you came in person! Did you want to see your little girl get married?”
Pearl ran over in her heels and latched onto my father’s arm, unable to contain her glee.
“Poppa, when a daughter of the family gets married, she brings her husband to headquarters to pay respects. Since when does Don Galluzzo come to her? You really do spoil me!”
“Poppa, it’s too noisy out here. Come inside.”
The moment my father arrived, everyone surged toward him, heads bowed in deference. I was shoved to the back of the crowd, unable to move another inch forward.
Pearl’s face was glowing with triumph.
She was only an adopted daughter, but Don Galluzzo attending her wedding in person was proof enough of her standing in the family.
My father’s brow furrowed deeply. He pushed Pearl off his arm.
“Not you!”
“Just now. Who else called me Poppa?”
Pearl looked confused. “Poppa, what are you talking about? You only have one daughter. Of course no one else in the world would dare call you that…”
My father’s expression turned to grief.
“I must really miss her. I’m probably just seeing things.”
“You don’t know yet. My real daughter isn’t dead. She sent me a letter in her own handwriting, with the family chain I gave her as a child. She said she’s forgiven me. She said she’s in this house, waiting for me to come get her.”
Pearl’s gaze drifted past my father’s shoulder to the convoy behind him. Her words started to stutter.
“Po… Poppa, that’s wonderful that she’s alive. But today is my wedding. Why did you bring so many… coffins?”
On the roofs of the armored SUVs sat black lacquered coffins, row after row, grotesquely stark against the flowers and white draping of the wedding venue.
My father let out a cold grunt. “That woman at headquarters, Lizz. She used my trust to intercept my daughter’s letter. I’ve already sealed her and her eighteen family members inside those coffins. If my daughter had to wait one extra second because of her, every last one of them gets buried alive!”
The entire room drew a sharp breath.
Don Galluzzo had been a vicious, bloodthirsty man. It was his own daughter’s “death” that finally leashed his violence.
The family had barely enjoyed a few years of peace, and they’d already forgotten that Don Galluzzo once killed without blinking.
Lizz may have been trusted by the Don, but touching the one nerve he’d kill the world for meant her future was finished, dead or alive.
Pearl’s face soured, but she forced a smile for my father.
My father glanced at Pearl’s crystal-studded white wedding gown and frowned. “What is that you’re wearing? Too flashy. My daughter doesn’t like that style. Go change into something simple. My daughter always liked to keep things plain. Dressed like that, you look nothing like her.”
Another collective gasp from the room.
Today was Pearl’s wedding day. Don Galluzzo had not only brought coffins to the celebration, he was criticizing Pearl’s gown for not matching his real daughter’s taste?
Someone in the crowd muttered just loud enough to be heard. “Looks like Don Galluzzo only ever treated Pearl as a stand-in for his real daughter. Can’t even let her dress the way she wants on her own wedding day.”
“So the real daughter isn’t dead after all? Then what does the family need a substitute for?”
Pearl’s face was dark with rage, but she didn’t dare disobey. She stripped off the gown and changed into a plain dress.
In the corner, I thrashed desperately, trying to make a sound. The ring box in my mouth blocked most of my breath. I twisted my head to the side and used every last ounce of strength to spit the box out.
“Po…”
Before I could finish, a mouthful of blood surged up my throat.
My father’s gaze finally turned in my direction.
Vincent moved fast. He scooped up the fallen ring box, jammed it back into my mouth, and clamped his hand over it.
“Forgive me, Don Galluzzo! This is my ex-girlfriend. She offended Miss Pearl earlier and received a small punishment. I had no idea she’d dare make a scene in front of you. I’ll have her locked up immediately.”
Pearl, already seething, couldn’t hold back when she saw me.
“Poppa, this trash disrespected me. Her whole family’s probably just as cheap. I bet her father’s some deadbeat.”
“Poppa, you should have her whole family dragged in and buried alive too! That would make me feel better!”
My father cut Pearl off. His voice was shaking.
“You… Lift your head. Let me see your face.”
Vincent grabbed me and forced my head up toward my father.
Mud covered most of my face. My head was shaved bare. There was no way to make out my features.
Poppa, it’s me. It’s your daughter.
I couldn’t speak. I could only scream inside.
My father rubbed the bridge of his nose and asked, “You said she’s your ex-girlfriend?”
Vincent nodded.
My father exhaled. The tension left his shoulders.
“Then she’s not my daughter. My daughter would never end up like this. The build is wrong too. My daughter is fair-skinned and healthy, not this skinny. Take her away.”
Vincent had his men drag me out of the crowd and dump me in a corner to die.
As the hours dragged on, Pearl approached my father. “Poppa, maybe my sister wanted to come to my wedding too? It’s getting late. Maybe once we finish the ceremony, she’ll come out on her own?”
My father was frantic. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
“No! Stop the wedding!”
“The only thing that matters right now is finding my daughter! Her letter said she’s in this house waiting for me! If I don’t find her soon, she’ll think I don’t want her anymore!”
On Don Galluzzo’s command, Pearl’s wedding was halted. Every woman in Vincent’s house was brought out and lined up for Don Galluzzo to inspect.
Even the female guests who had come to watch the ceremony were not spared.
My father went down the line, one face at a time, and could not find his daughter. Sweat poured down his temples. He ordered a full lockdown and search of every building within a several-kilometer radius.
Pearl stood in her plain dress in the middle of the flower-draped, white-veiled venue, a living punchline.
The guests couldn’t help themselves.
“Adopted daughter can’t compete with the real thing. One letter from the real daughter, and Pearl’s wedding gets shut down.”
“Obviously. Don Galluzzo set up a villa and a trust fund worth hundreds of millions for his real daughter. Never let anyone touch it. Pearl never got that treatment. She’s getting married on the groom’s turf.”
“Still, for an adopted daughter to marry the family’s newest underboss, the future shouldn’t have been bad. Too bad all of that only held up as long as the real daughter was gone.”
Pearl’s expression grew uglier by the second. She stormed toward the gossiping guests.
They shut up instantly.
But the moment Pearl was out of earshot, they started again.
“Can’t really blame Don Galluzzo for favoring his own flesh and blood. His real daughter was born kind. She tried again and again to make him stop the killing. She secretly saved countless innocent people. But look at Pearl. She rides Don Galluzzo’s name to bully everyone in sight, squeezing every neighborhood she touches.”
“Pearl’s got nothing but that face. No class, no name, nothing. If she didn’t look like the real daughter, she’d have been dead years ago.”
Pearl heard every word. Her fingers were clenched so tight they’d gone white.
The powerful guests she couldn’t touch. So she turned her eyes on me.
Pearl marched over and slapped me across both cheeks, one after another, open palm cracking against my already ruined face.
“Trash! All of you are trash!”
“Are you laughing at me too? Laughing because I’m not as good as her?”
“Damn you! Damn all of you! She shouldn’t have come back to steal Poppa from me, and you shouldn’t exist to steal my man! I’m going to kill you!”
I broke free with the last strength I had and dragged myself toward my father, crawling across the floor.
The dog collar dragged along the ground. The chain clinked and rattled.
“Po… Poppa…”
“Poppa… I’m your daughter…”
Pearl’s stiletto heel stabbed into my thigh. The searing pain somehow pushed one more spark of life into my body.
People heard the commotion and turned.
I collapsed on the ground, facing my father’s direction, and began to hum softly. The lullaby he made up to put me to sleep when I was little.
“Hush little baby, don’t you cry, Poppa’s gonna keep you safe tonight…”
This was a song my father wrote himself. The melody was rough. The words were simple. No third person had ever heard it.
My mother died in childbirth. My father was about to have every doctor and nurse in the room killed. Then he heard me cry, and he stopped.
He said I was heaven’s redemption, sent to save him. He held me in my swaddling cloth, and all that murderous fury dissolved into the tenderness of a first-time father.
He raised me himself. Every wet nurse was handpicked by him personally. Even my baby blanket was cut from the silk lining of his most expensive coat.
Without a mother, I startled awake every night as a baby. My father held me in his arms each time, softly singing this lullaby.
My father’s body jolted.