Crawling from the Gallo Family

"Anya, what's wrong with you?"

"Move—everyone, move!"

Marco pushed through the crowd, his eyes wide with panic as he lunged toward me.

But Julia blocked his path with a smile.

She shot me a contemptuous glance. "Anya, your next design project must be about an allergy victim, right? No wonder you're so convincing. You almost had us all fooled."

She held up her phone—it showed several of my more dramatic fashion illustrations from design school.

Marco glanced at it. His concern soured into anger.

Julia smirked down at me, triumphant. "But your act has a flaw, Anya. There's nothing in my risotto. If there were, why are you the only one on the floor?"

The others immediately agreed.

"Exactly! I ate the risotto too—if it was poisoned, how come I'm fine?"

"She's just trying to frame Julia!"

The dose was trace, I realized. Just enough to trigger my specific, long-dormant allergy, but not enough to affect anyone else.

But the burning and suffocation left me no strength to explain.

Marco looked down at me, his voice as cold as ice. "Anya, this is my celebration dinner, not your stage. Get up. Now. Or else…"

The pain was so intense I didn't even hear the rest of his threat. My face was a mask of pain.

The family members stared down at me, curled up on the floor, their disgust plain on their faces.

"She still won't give up. Marco, teach her a lesson. You just got made—how can you let her ruin the dinner, slander Julia, and humiliate herself like this?"

Marco said nothing. His eyes were like chips of ice.

Julia's friends grabbed my hair, forcing my head up.

"Listen up. Marco is the star tonight. Whether you like it or not, you're going to apologize, eat another bite of the risotto, and prove Julia's innocence."

Marco speared a piece of seafood with a fork and held it in front of me.

"Get up. Eat this. And I'll forget what you did today."

Tears streamed down my face—not from sorrow, but from sheer physical pain.

I looked at that cold, unforgiving face and forced out a single word: "No."

Julia ate the piece of seafood herself, then turned to me with a practiced look of sympathy. "See, I ate it. I'm fine. You're so petty, Anya. Poor Marco—always going out of his way to defend you."

"But since you love acting so much, let me help you with another scene."

Julia grabbed a fork.

Her friends took the cue. They pried open my jaw and pinched my nose shut.

"No—"

I struggled, but I could only watch helplessly as they forced the deadly piece of seafood down my throat.

My body could barely handle the allergic reaction. The toxin tore through me again, every nerve screaming.

I clutched my chest, my hand trembling as I reached for Marco. "Help me—please—I can't take any more—"

Marco slapped my hand away.

"Stop pretending, Anya. It's just seafood. It can't hurt you. I’ve known you for years, and you’ve never mentioned a fatal allergy. You’d need a miracle to survive something like that, and miracles don't happen."

Despair washed over me. A miracle had saved me once, when my father pulled every string to find a cure for my childhood affliction. But I had thrown that protection away. Three years ago, I’d fled my family, unwilling to take over the business, desperate to be a designer.

One day, a rival family had me cornered—and Marco appeared out of nowhere to save me.

We fell in love instantly.

To be with him, I hid my past and my identity, pretending to be an ordinary design student.

Later, I learned that Marco's mentor had been killed by poison from a rival family.

So I kept my past a secret, not wanting to cause him pain.

I never imagined that keeping this secret would one day nearly cost me my life.

Marco turned away, unwilling to look at me anymore.

Julia's smile deepened.

She leaned close to my face, her voice a venomous whisper. "Marco is young, powerful—the most promising Soldato in the family. It took me eleven years to get this close to him. What makes a stray like you think you deserve to be his fiancée?"

She pushed me to the ground.

"A girl who came from nowhere?" A bitter, cold smile touched my lips.

My father would be heartbroken if he knew what I had suffered since leaving home.

And I was afraid I would never see him again.

Then, through the fog in my mind, a single name echoed: Papa. I clung to the image of him, my powerful father, tearing the world apart to find me.

If I could just crawl to the door, my father and his men might be able to find me.

The instinct to survive overrode everything else.

Gritting my teeth, I used the last of my strength to crawl toward the door.