Chapter 444 - People believe what they want to believe


The Bartolini family moved in unison. In an instant, Isabella was tied with ropes around her hands and ankles and thrown to the floor of the conference room in the first-floor grand gallery.

“Why did you push Clemente?”

Isabella cried out in a fit of rage at the stern question of Count Bartolini.

“I didn’t push her!”

She looked around her surroundings without pause as she spoke. And the words came out of her tongue before her head. It was instinct.

“It was actually my older sister who pushed me!”

"Hey!"

The voice of Ottavio, who was in a state of confusion, immediately refuted Isabella.

“Why on earth is our good older sister pushing you?”

He swung at Isabella, who was tied to the floor. It was an action that did not seem like something he would do to his own wife, the mother of his own child.

“You had no place to go, so it was our older sister who took you in. If she hated you enough to kill you, she would have kicked you out. Why would she have brought you here? Talk about something reasonable!”

Isabella was silent for a moment. No matter how much she was, it was difficult for her to answer her husband with the words, “I stole the adulterer your sister truly loved.” However, a good excuse soon began to form in her small mind. She looked at Count Bartolini and said in a pretty and cute way.

“I know about my sister’s affair.”

“Hey, make sense!”

Ottavio immediately shouted, but there was a slight twitch in Count Bartolini’s eyes. Isabella realized that her escape was here. She ignored Ottavio and looked straight at Count Bartolini.

“It’s not because she's kind that she took us in. I knew about her affair, so I considered myself a thorn in her side from the beginning!”

Count Bartolini kept his mouth shut. Isabella grew prouder at his silence. She glared at Clemente with a reproachful look.

“I promised her over and over again to keep it a secret, but she never believed me! That’s why she brought me here to keep an eye on me!”

Feeling threatened, Clemente stopped Isabella.

“...Stop talking nonsense!”

When Clemente was with her husband, she returned to her usual calm speech. She looked down at Isabella as if she were looking down on something dirty, with the typical appearance of a noble lady in the capital. But Isabella spoke back to Clemente in a distant manner.

“You’ve always wanted to clean up after me! You thought today was your chance to shut me up! You pushed me and tripped, and now you’re blaming me for it! I didn’t even tell them that you pushed me, for your sake!”

Isabella was outwardly addressing Clemente, but her intended audience was in fact Count Bartolini.

Clemente was more blunt. She spoke directly to Count Bartolini, as if she had no intention of even talking to the likes of Isabella. She was shameless and confident.

“I told her to take good care of Giovanna... She got really angry and pushed me.”

Clemente chose this instead of telling Isabella that he had found her kissing Count Andrea DiPascal. She, too, did not want the DiPascal story to surface. If she delved deeper into the DiPascal story, it would inevitably lead to her own affair. Clemente added slyly.

“...You know her personality.”

It wasn't a bad detour. With Isabella's reputation already in shambles, no one would question whether it was right to push someone down the stairs for nagging about raising their children. The Bartolinis were also used to Isabella by this point.

'That woman is a person who would do something like that.'

'Last time, she threw something, and the maids in the annex ran away, saying they weren't doing any work in the annex.'

'I only feel bad for the baby.'

But Isabella, far from hiding her temper, doubled down on it. The pitiful and pitiful look was a mask she had learned to wear under her mother. This was her natural disposition, inherited from Ariadne, the nature of a gambler who bets big when it comes to danger.

“Stop lying! Blaming me for everything!”

Then an older voice interrupted Isabella's words and asked, "It was Count Bartolini."

“...What are you talking about, framing me?”

Isabella was convinced after hearing this question. She will survive here today.

“My sister’s affair.”

She raised her head with a confident smile. But her pupils were shaking as she raised her head.

'Isn't this it?'

Count Bartolini's mouth was drawn tight to bear the pain. The old man's eyes were distorted. That was the face of one who did not want to know the truth.

But she was a no-brainer. Isabella couldn't back down now. She was pushed to this point. She had no choice but to reveal her hidden card.

“Sister...”

She took a deep breath.

“She had an affair with the Marquis of Campa five years ago...”

A firm voice interrupted her sentence.

“That’s you, you look so dirty.”

The one who cut off Isabella's words was none other than Count Bartolini himself. Isabella's face twisted in confusion.

In fact, Count Bartolini also knew that his wife was not completely innocent.

He asked Isabella what kind of affair she had, simply because he couldn't bear to turn a blind eye to the clear evidence at hand. He didn't ask because he really wanted to know.

But the Marquis of Campa? He was sure that his wife would never have slept with a scumbag like the Marquis of Campa, let alone flirt with younger men. The old Count rebuked her.

“Where is the evidence?”

Isabella began to feel embarrassed. If there had been evidence, she would have been punished long ago, and instead of being branded with that stigma, she would have been rejected by Cesare and thrown into a convent, only to end up here now.

As Isabella only rolled her eyes and failed to provide any evidence, Count Bartolini became increasingly angrier.

“Do you have anything else to say?”

“I, I saw it... At the royal masked ball in 1122...”

Isabella, realizing that she was ruined, picked it up carelessly. But this only made the old Count angry. A masquerade ball? Even if he gave her a hundred concessions and Countess Contarini wasn't a total liar, there was a huge chance that she had seen it wrong if it was a masquerade ball. Without even thinking about that, why did she throw shit at someone else's family like this?

“Hey, listen!”

He shouted.

“Bind that wicked woman’s limbs! I took pity on her and took her in, but now she doesn’t hesitate to resort to dirty tricks to cover up her own mistakes.”

The old Count was so angry that he forgot that Isabella was already tied up.

An order was an order. In any case, the sturdy servants of the Bartolini family who received the order rushed in, and Isabella was thrown helplessly to the floor. But even in this state, Isabella screamed in a fit of rage.

“It’s not just the Marquis of Campa! DiPascal, Count DiPascal too...!”

But Count Bartolini had no intention of listening.

“It’s noisy!”

At the old Count's shout, someone shoved a dirty rag into Isabella's mouth.

“Ugh, ugh ugh!!”

Isabella struggled, her throat boiling with phlegm. The servants quickly changed the way they bound her to the way they bound confirmed criminals. Her wrists, which had been tied together in front of her body, were now tied tightly behind her back, looking like shrimps. Isabella looked around desperately in the meantime.

'Agosto!!'

But her black-skinned slave, her only ally, was nowhere to be seen. In the meantime, Isabella's dress was being swept here and there, revealing her flesh, but no one fixed her dress or covered her with anything. Anyone could see that this was not the treatment of a noblewoman, but of a prisoner.

“...Brother-in-law.”

“Yes, yes yes!”

Ottavio answered Count Bartolini's call with great tension. Fortunately, the Count had called Ottavio for a pleasant reason.

“I want to rule by law, but that woman is not from my family.”

“Ah... Yes!”

“What will the Contarini family do?”

Isabella, a member of the Contarini family, tried to kill Clemente, who was once also a member of the Contarini family.

This was a matter that could be handled within the family, that is, according to the Contarini family's rules, without going outside, if only the head of the Bartolini family, the Count, would understand.

Ottavio stood up straight and at attention.

“In our family... anyone who commits murder or attempts to commit it will pay with their life.”

“Ugh, ugh!! Ugh!!”

Isabella struggled violently, but Ottavio didn't even look at her. He had already fallen for his wife. If he could go back in time to before he met Isabella, he would have sold his soul to the devil, and he was so sick of his current life, married to Isabella de Mare.

A new beginning...! A new life...! He recited the words, throwing away all his guilt.

“According to the Contarini family law, a murderer can be beaten to death with a club, but my ex-wife is not a murderer; she is an attempted murderer.”

Isabella had become Ottavio's ex-wife. He thought he was completely right. Isabella's situation was her own doing.

“Attempted criminals cannot be beaten to death; they are instead sentenced to death by hanging or beheading.”

“The scaffold isn’t ready.”

“Then, when the sun rises, I’ll call the bastard and cut off her head. What do you think, brother?”

Ottavio asked, rubbing his hands. Count Bartolini nodded slowly.

“Do whatever you want, brother-in-law.”

“Yes! Then I’ll rent the prison.”

At the Count's signal, the Bartolini servants rushed to drag Isabella into the cellar. In the process, the rag that had been tightly clamped in her mouth fell out. Isabella screamed.

“Let me go to open court!!!”

Clemente grimaced. The Bartolini servant rushed over and tried to stuff the dirty rag into Isabella’s mouth again, but Isabella was struggling so much that he couldn’t aim accurately.

“I have been wronged, let me stand before His Majesty the King’s court!!!”

Finally, another servant nearby took off the socks he was wearing, balled them up, and stuffed them into Isabella's mouth.

“Ouch!!!”

The smell was horrible. She screamed and writhed.

“Woo-boo-boo! Woo-boo-boo-boo!”

Count Bartolini rose from his seat, his hands shaking as he leaned on his cane. He glanced at Isabella with contempt.

“I want you to find me the fastest asshole you can at first light, you don't have to be good, just fast enough!”

Isabella's protests were completely unfounded. She was dragged into the cellar of the Bartolini mansion.

Clank!

This place, used to hold criminals, was a place with only straw spread on a cold stone floor.


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