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The Silent Heiress Betrayed by the One She Trusted Most
Novelix
Completed
Mia hasn’t spoken since age five, when her foster mother locked her in a warehouse for saying she was hungry. At eighteen, she is dragged back into the Moretti crime family as Don Vincent’s lost daughter, but her silence makes her an easy target. Ava, the adored adopted girl, turns the family against her with fake evidence, bought witnesses, and one brutal trap: a locked storage room filled with paint fumes. As Mia fights to breathe, the Morettis must choose between the daughter they raised and the daughter they refused to hear. The door is locked. The truth isn’t.
Chapters (2)
第1章
When I was five, all I said was "I'm hungry," and my foster mother locked me in an abandoned warehouse.
She said I could come out when I learned to keep my mouth shut.
I never made a sound again.
When I was eighteen, the Moretti family on the East Coast found me.
They said I was Don Vincent Moretti's long-lost biological daughter.
The night I was brought back to the Moretti estate, Ava was packing her bags with red-rimmed eyes.
"Mia won't call me her sister. She doesn't want me staying in this family."
"You don't have to choose. I'll leave on my own."
I froze for a moment, then raised my hands to sign:
"That's not it. I just can't speak."
But no one understood sign language.
Ava bit her lip, and tears spilled down her cheeks.
"Mia, I know you hate me for taking your life for eighteen years."
"You can yell at me, hit me even—why won't you say a single word to me?"
My brother Luca stepped in front of her and turned a cold look on me.
"Ava's already backed down. How far are you going to push her?"
"Open your mouth right now and tell her she's welcome in this family."
Everyone in the living room was waiting for me to speak.
I stood silent for a moment, then pulled out my phone and slowly typed a line of text.
"I'm sorry. I haven't spoken since I was five."
The living room went dead quiet.
My mother Elena was the first to recover. She crossed the room in a few quick strides, her lips trembling.
"What do you mean? What do you mean you haven't spoken since you were five?"
I raised my hands, wanting to tell her that every time I tried to make a sound, all I could see was that lightless warehouse.
But she couldn't understand.
All I could do was lower my head and keep typing.
"I can't get the words out."
Luca frowned.
"When our people went to pick you up, your foster parents never mentioned this."
My fingers paused.
The day the Moretti family found me, my foster mother Linda Hayes had gripped my hand tight and sobbed in front of everyone until she could barely breathe.
She said she'd raised me and didn't expect anything from the Morettis—she only hoped I wouldn't forget her after I went home.
From start to finish, she never asked me a single question.
Because she knew perfectly well I couldn't answer.
Ava suddenly set down her suitcase and approached me carefully.
"Mia, I'm sorry. I didn't know you couldn't speak."
"I must have misunderstood you earlier. I'm sorry if I upset you."
She reached out to take my hand.
The instant her fingers touched my wrist, I flinched back a step.
Her eyes went red immediately.
"You don't even want me to touch you?"
Luca's expression, which had just begun to soften, turned cold again.
"Mia, Ava already apologized to you."
I looked at him and didn't move.
Elena placed a hand on his arm.
"Enough. It's Mia's first day home. Don't push her."
She wanted to touch my face, lifted her hand halfway, then seemed afraid of startling me. In the end, she only straightened my crooked collar.
"Tomorrow, Mom will take you to see a doctor. Whatever the reason, we'll take it slow."
I nodded.
That night, I slept on the softest bed I'd ever known, but I didn't dare turn off the light.
In the middle of the night, hushed voices drifted in from outside the door.
"Luca, do you think Mia might be pretending she can't talk because she doesn't want to acknowledge us?"
Ava's voice was soft, threaded with tears.
Luca was quiet for a while.
"We'll know after the doctor examines her."
"What if it's real?"
"Then we'll get her the help she needs."
"What if it's not?"
Silence outside the door.
After a moment, Luca answered flatly:
"The Moretti family has room for a sick daughter. Not for a liar."
The next day, the family doctor, Carter, finished his examination and removed his stethoscope.
"Her vocal organs show no significant abnormalities. This isn't organic aphonia."
"Based on her responses, it's more consistent with selective mutism caused by severe psychological trauma."
Elena's face went white.
"What kind of psychological trauma makes a child unable to speak for thirteen years?"
Dr. Carter glanced at the faint old scars on my wrist.
"That's a question for the people who raised her."
Standing by the door, Ava's expression stiffened for just a moment.
第2章
My foster parents came that afternoon.
Linda Hayes rushed to my side the moment she walked in, grabbing my shoulders and looking me up and down.
"Mia, why are you still playing mute?"
"You're back with your real parents now—why are you pulling the same act you used on us?"
Elena was stunned.
"Playing mute?"
Linda wiped at her tears, the words tumbling out fast and frantic.
"She's been like this since she was little. The second she's unhappy, she stops talking and makes the adults guess what's wrong."
"When she was five, she stole money from us. We barely said a word to her, and she went silent out of spite."
"Every time there were other people around, she'd put on this pitiful act. But at home, the minute we told her to drop it, she could talk just fine."
My whole body went rigid.
That's not what happened.
When I was five, I didn't steal any money.
That day, Frank got drunk and knocked over the last bag of oatmeal and flour in the house. I was so hungry I went to the kitchen to ask Linda when we could eat.
She was annoyed by my crying, so she dragged me into the abandoned warehouse and locked me in for two full days.
I signed frantically.
"She's lying. She locked me in for two days. It was dark. There was no water, no food."
Linda couldn't understand, but she seemed prepared for this. She spread her hands toward everyone, crying.
"You see? This is what she does."
"Every time she doesn't want to admit she's wrong, she waves her hands around with these gestures nobody can read, making herself look like the victim."
Ava asked softly, "Mrs. Hayes, does Mia really speak when she's with you?"
"Of course she does!"
"Has anyone else besides you ever heard her?"
Linda's expression faltered for a second, then she raised her voice.
"We live under the same roof every day—do we need outsiders to prove it?"
"We raised her for eighteen years. Why would we deliberately hurt her?"
The ache in Elena's eyes slowly shifted into doubt.
My father, Vincent Moretti, was silent for a long time before he asked me quietly, "Mia, will you try to call me Dad?"
He was the Don of the Moretti family, the Boss that many people on the East Coast didn't dare look in the eye.
But in that moment, he was just standing in front of me, waiting for me to call him Father.
I opened my mouth.
My throat felt stuffed with a wad of dust-caked cotton. I couldn't push out even a whisper of sound.
Luca watched me for a long time.
"Can't, or won't?"
I took out my phone.
"I really can't."
Linda sighed.
"You'd better just go along with whatever she wants. She's very good at keeping adults on edge. The more attention you give her, the more she'll test you."
Elena suddenly asked, "Then what about the scars on her wrists?"
Linda's face changed.
"Kids get hurt growing up. What's strange about that?"
I quickly rolled up my sleeve.
Beyond the wrists, the inside of my arm bore round scars from cigarette burns and marks left by coarse rope rubbed back and forth.
Linda grabbed at my sleeve.
"What are you doing? There are people here!"
Elena's gaze fell on those scars. Her eyes went red instantly.
The tension in the room had turned unbearable when Ava suddenly clutched her chest and collapsed onto the sofa, gasping for air.
"Ava!"
Everyone rushed to her side.
The family doctor checked her and said it was just nervous overstimulation—nothing serious.
Ava leaned against Elena, still not forgetting to explain on my behalf.
"It's my fault for not being more understanding."
"Mia must have been hurt so many times in the past that she mistakes normal discipline for abuse."
One sentence. It explained away the scars for my foster parents, and turned my memories into exaggeration and revenge.
Before she left, Linda walked over to me and lowered her voice.
"Don't think that just because you're in the Moretti family now, you can dig up everything from the past. If you dare run your mouth, they took you in today and they can throw you out tomorrow as a fraud."
That evening, Elena told me she'd hired a professional sign language teacher.
"It's okay if you don't want to talk. You don't have to change. We'll learn to understand you."
In that moment, for the first time, I thought maybe coming here wasn't such a bad thing after all.
But outside the door, Ava watched me for a long time in silence.
