Goodbye, Serrano

I am the true Mafia princess of the Serrano family. Three years ago, I took a bullet for my father. Shrapnel remains lodged in my chest, and an infection could spread to my heart at any moment. But everything fell apart the second our adopted daughter Clara walked through our door. My father, mother, brother, and my fiancé Luca all took her side. They dismissed my agonizing illness as a petty bid for attention, brushed off every one of my explanations as lies. Even when I had only three days left until my life-saving surgery, they forced me to step aside so Clara's gala could take priority.​ After my ninety-ninth desperate plea for help ended with the line going dead, I marched straight to my lawyer's office and signed three documents: renunciation of all Serrano inheritance, dissolution of my betrothal to the Berletti heir, and written authorization for immediate cremation upon my death—no notification to the Serrano family whatsoever. When they rushed over, not a single soul believed I was genuinely dying. My father struck me in front of everyone and froze all my medical funds. My fiancé even revoked the money he'd given me for hotel lodging.​ What they never knew was that Clara had been swapping out my medication and framing me for over a decade. Before I left, I recorded her full confession on hidden cameras and sent the footage to every core member of the family. By the time the Serranos finally uncovered the truth and tracked me down to a frigid port motel, all they found were a white body sheet, bloodstains, a shattered cellphone, and a slip of paper scrawled with one word: Goodbye.​ They thought I was dead, collapsing to their knees beside the stretcher, consumed by grief. But I survived. My maternal grandmother Isabella Carlo spirited me away, and I endured a seventeen-hour operation to be reborn under the name Elena Carlo. From that day forward, the Serrano family ceased to be my home. My parents, brother, and former fiancé begged on their knees for forgiveness. Clara was disowned by the family, left with nothing. Meanwhile, I took full control of the Carlo port shipping lines—rising to become a power they could never hope to reach, no matter how hard they crawled.