Vivien sat on the armchair, legs curled beneath her, the strange diary open in her lap. The air felt heavier with each page she turned, as if the ink itself carried sorrow.
The Stranger Across the Table
It was the first time I had ever seen him.
He was sitting directly across from my father, his profile sharp and refined. He had a truly gorgeous face, but his eyes were strikingly cold, like deep pools of frozen water.
As I stood there, I felt his gaze shift away from my father and landed directly on me. We made eye contact for a heartbeat, and in that silence, I felt a sudden, sharp tug in my chest. It was a sense of yearning I hadn't felt in years, a strange recognition that I couldn't quite name.
But the moment was cut short. My mother grabbed my arm, and dragged me away toward the exit. I looked back once, but i couldnt see him again.
I wanted to see him again, to understand why a single look from a stranger had unsettled me so deeply, but I never did.
"So Dante and Viella knew each other before the main event" Vivien muttered and she read started reading further.
The Price of a Bare Face
I was born with a soul of sunshine, but it's been wilting since the day I realized my mother was my harshest critic. She is a woman defined by rouge, and high fashion; I have always been a girl of simple cotton and bare skin.
I tried To buy her affection, I sold myself piece by piece. I wore the heavy makeup she demanded, dressed in the stifling styles she chose, and followed every sharp command. Yet, no matter how much I hollowed myself out, I was always met with her shouting.
Then came today. For a brief moment, I felt a flicker of life when I met his eyes—cold, beautiful, and piercing. I was standing there as my true self, without a layer of powder to hide behind. But for the sin of showing my natural face to a man, she struck me.
The slap was loud, but her words were sharper: "Unladylike." It turns out, in her world, my natural skin is a disgrace, and my mother's love is a debt I can never repay.
Vivien's eye widened, "WHAAAA???!!! so youre telling me Viella was sunshine type? that feels so weird to even say"
The End of the Softie
They all mocked me. My siblings, the people around me—everyone treated my kindness like a weakness they were entitled to trample. My sister and her maids spent years bullying me, convinced I was a "softie" who would never break.
They were wrong.
The day I pulled the trigger, my hands were shaking, but the bullet stayed true. As I watched one of them drop dead, the atmosphere shifted. For the first time, I didn't see mockery in their eyes; I saw terror. And in that moment, I didn't cry. I smiled. I smiled like a madwoman because that surge of satisfaction was more intoxicating than any love I had ever chased.
Now, they don't mock me. They fear me. They scramble to get out of my way, their breath hitching when I enter a room. I've realized that I don't need their affection or my mother's approval. I just need their fear. I love seeing it. I crave it. The girl who wanted to be loved is dead; the one who loves to be feared has finally woken up.
Vivien's fingers around the diary started trembling, "They never saw how kind you were before the world broke you Viella, thats why they say Villains aren't born,they're created by those who needed someone to blame."
Viviens whole perspective about Viella started to change.
The Seven-Year Obsession
Seven years. It took seven years until I saw him again.
Ever since the day I realized I loved the sight of terror in people's eyes, nothing mattered to me. I took what I wanted, one by one, breaking anyone who stood in my way. I thought I was empty, until that party. Then I saw him.
He was there, standing among the crowd just like before, but this time I wasn't the girl being dragged away by her mother. The moment my eyes landed on him, the old yearning returned, but it had curdled into something darker. I didn't just want him; I decided he was mine. He had to be.
I didn't ask, I demanded. I begged my father, using every ounce of my influence until the engagement was set in stone. I bound him to me with a contract and a ring. Yet, despite the power I hold over everyone else, I cannot force his eyes to stay on me. No matter how much blood is on my hands or how hard I try to catch his gaze, he never looks at me.
The Shadow of a Lowly Maid
I have thrown away my pride, my dignity, and my soul to keep him. I tried everything—drugging his wine, forcing him into my bed, and declaring to the world that he belongs to me and me alone. I didn't care if he hated me, as long as he was within my reach. I thought I could endure his coldness forever, provided no one else felt his warmth.
But then she appeared.
A lowly, filthy maid. A girl who reminds me of the "sunshine" I used to be, before the world broke me. And suddenly, the man who wouldn't glance at a goddess is defending a servant. He protects her, he looks at her, and he treats her with a tenderness I have spent seven years begging for.
Even more sickening is my family. My mother, who slapped me for being natural, now dotes on this girl's "purity." My father and siblings, who mocked my softness, now shield hers. They treat her like the daughter I was never allowed to be.
I see how he looks at her, and it makes my blood boil. The satisfaction I felt when I killed that first person is nothing compared to the hunger I feel now. I don't just want her gone; I want her erased. She is a stain on the life I've built, and I will see her dead before I let her take what is mine.
The Filthy Price of Sabotage
I finally took action. I tracked down those pathetic parents of her, the ones who sold her to Dante in the first place and bribed them with enough money to make them disappear with her forever. It should have been simple. She should have been gone by dawn.
But those useless shits never showed up.
Because of their incompetence, I was forced to do the unthinkable: I had to step inside their wretched, filthy house myself. That girl is a curse; she actually made me set foot in a place that reeked of poverty and rot. I felt my skin crawl with every step I took in that slum.
To make matters worse, I've lost it. My precious bracelet, the one I had custom-engraved with my name and Dante's, the only physical proof of the bond I forced between us, is gone. It must have slipped off in that disgusting house.
The thought of my name, linked to his, lying in the dirt of such a lowly place makes me want to scream. I went there to erase her, yet I ended up leaving a piece of myself behind in the filth.
Vivien read the paragraph again.
Once.
Twice.
Then her breath caught in her throat.
A cold, crawling sensation crept down her spine.
"Wait."
She sat up, eyes wide, mind racing through the pieces of the plot she thought she'd forgotten.
"They never came back... because they're dead."
"Vielle... you didn't know. But they just didnt showed up for no reason. They were killed. Silenced.
By Dante."
Her heart thudded loudly in her chest. She squeezed the diary tighter.
"In the original story... Dante discovers someone meddled behind the scenes. Paid off Alina's parents. The death wasn't random,it was their punishment."
He had contacts. Power. A temper.
"Once he finds out someone tried to take Alina from him, he snaps. It's one of the final reveals in the book..."
And when he finds out who?
"He destroys them."
Vivien felt sick.
She looked down at the page, Vielle's innocent, desperate handwriting. She didn't know what would come next. But Vivien did.
"Vielle... you basically signed your own death sentence."
Then her own breath hitched.
"Wait."
She leaned back, panic slipping in through the cracks.
"After what happened today... after I 'hurt' Alina in front of everyone, in his party, while she was bleeding...."
"He thinks I'm doing the same thing again."
"Holy crap."
"I'm going to die."
Her laugh came out broken and bitter.
She stood up suddenly, pacing the room, holding the diary.
"Great. Just great. Thanks, Vielle. You tried to get rid of Alina and now I'm next in line for the funeral."
She stopped in front of the mirror, eyes wide, hair messy, smeared lipstick still clinging to her lips.
"I didn't even get a redemption arc."
---
Silence.
The room seemed to watch her.
Vivien slowly looked down at the diary again.
"Unless... Vielle wrote more."
"A plan. A secret. Something she never got to finish."
She turned to the next page, her hands trembling.
And at the very top, written in darker ink
"If I die, let this book be my revenge."
Vivien stared at the line etched in thick ink
And underneath that?
Absolutely nothing.
No plan. No clue.
Vivien slowly looked up at the ceiling, as if asking the gods of this cursed novel why they hated her.
"Great. That's it?"
"You want me to take revenge for you now? Girl, I just got publicly roasted in a party. GIVE ME A DAY OFF."
She slumped dramatically into the chair
"I was doing so well in my real life," she grumbled.
"Yeah, sure, I was poor. I lived off spicy ramen and depression naps, but at least I wasn't about to get murdered by a tuxedoed warlord."
She picked up the wine glass beside her bed and sniffed it.
"Can't even enjoy luxury anymore."
She sighed, flopping backwards and hugging the diary
That's when the door slammed open.
"My Lady!"
Her maid stood there, pale as death, hands trembling around her skirt.
Vivien blinked. "Girl, if you're about to tell me the mafia prince is here with a sword, please wait until I've moisturized."
But the maid wasn't joking.
"Miss... your parents. They've called."
Vivien sat up slowly.
"...My what now?"
"They're on the line. They want to meet. They said it's urgent."
Her heart skipped.
Wait. In the original novel... Vielle's parents barely showed up. Always busy, distant. They only ever contacted her when the stakes were deadly...
Vivien narrowed her eyes.
"Do they know something?"
She stood up, brushing her skirt off like a final boss preparing for battle.
"Fine. Let's go meet the people who raised a villainess."
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TO BE CONTINUED