Bullied Cinderella - Hollie Hutchins Page 0,15

of that now. You don’t need any money. I just wish we had known how to find you sooner. We have so much to tell you.”

5

Leonardo

I hadn’t returned to the shed to check on Lucia since I took her out there. I suspected one of my cousins or some of the staff were sneaking out there to provide her with food and drink, but if they weren’t I didn’t care. It would serve her right to starve out there after what she did to my grandfather.

I was more concerned with keeping my eye on the remaining staff to ensure this wasn’t the start of some organized mutiny on a larger scale, though it was doubtful. No one liked Lucia enough to join in on a revolt with her. The women were jealous of her and the men were angry they couldn’t have her. I had noticed it from her first day here. I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t like her either, and now I hated her.

Donña Angela was still out of town, and we hadn’t breathed a word of any of this to her. Then there was the issue of Don German. The hospital had said he could come home, but we had to pay for an extended stay. With my mother gone and Lucia locked up, not to be trusted, we had no one around to give him the proper care he needed. We would have to find some way to sort it all out before Donña Angela returned.

I was mulling over that very thing when Dario came barging into the room, dragging Jorge along behind him. “I need to talk to both of you,” he ordered urgently, before holding something up in his hand. “I searched Greta’s room and found this stashed away behind a loose board.”

I stormed over and snatched it from his hand to read the package. Powdered Peanuts.

“In Greta’s room?” I asked. He nodded.

I was immediately flooded with an urgent need to go after Greta. I had punished the wrong person and all this while she had been left to think she got away with it free and clear. I could practically hear her laughing about it, even though I knew it was just in my head. Dario could see the rage on my face.

“I’ve taken care of everything,” he assured me. “Greta has been let go and turned over to the authorities.”

“Why the hell did you do that!?” I thundered. “They’ll never give her the punishment she deserves!”

“Maybe so, but she’s older and in bad shape. You can’t throw her around the way you did Lucia, and I really don’t feel like helping you dispose of a body when it’s easier to just let the policia handle it.”

Lucia. A strange feeling crept over me...something I suspected I hadn’t felt since I was a child, or maybe never. I felt a sick uneasiness in the pit of my stomach and my throat tightened. There was a strong urge to do something, and I got the sense that I wouldn’t feel better until I figured out what it was and did it. Was this...guilt?

I didn’t want to sit with it long enough to find out. Without really giving it another thought, I stormed out the room. Jorge and Dario chased after me.

“Where are you going!?”

“To the shed.”

“She isn’t there,” Dario informed me.

I spun on my heels and got very close, towering above him as I clutched his shirt collar. “Where is she!? Take me to her now!”

He threw my hands off of him and straightened his shirt. “She’s gone.”

I didn’t have time to keep asking questions and playing guessing games. I kept marching on to the shed. I don’t know why. I knew Dario wasn’t lying to me, but I didn’t know else to do. Maybe I wouldn’t accept that she was really gone until I saw it for myself.

Then a terrifying thought crept over me. What did he mean gone? What if he and the other staff weren’t sneaking her food this whole time and she had died out there? Only now I knew it was for no reason. She had never tried to poison Don German.

“Gone?” I asked again, turning back around to face him.

“I sent her away. I let her go,” he explained.

My shoulders dropped with relief. I knew now that I was definitely feeling guilt, even if I would never admit that to Dario and Jorge. If she was dead, there would be no hope of making myself feel any better. But