Twisted Ties of Love (Izabella Salotti and Brett) novel Chapter 396

Izabella reached out and gently stroked the charred fur of the stuffed cat. Tears fell one by one, non-stop. Her ashen eyes were filled with tears.

She seemed on the verge of blindness. She tilted her head back, veins running down her neck. Izabella's mouth was slightly open, her eyes tightly shut and her voice hoarse from screaming.

Her choking, raspy voice was like a rusty knife grinding on a stone, grating and unbearable. It made people's hearts tingle.

Casey's eyes were red too. He silently turned his face away, unable to show weakness. He feared he wouldn't be able to stand in front of Izabella.

Izabella knelt on the ground and slowly spread the dirt over Niki, burying it until it was out of sight. Her thin body was shaking violently, her sobs growing louder and louder as her sadness reached its peak.

She’d never imagined she could be so heartbroken. It felt like she was being poked by hundreds of needles, each one more ruthless and forceful than the last, piercing her skin, going through her blood, and almost reaching her bones. It hurt so much she could barely breathe.

Izabella scattered sunflower seeds in the flowerpot.

"If there really is such a thing as 'reincarnation' in this world, can I meet Niki again after its death?" she thought.

Her grey eyes had always held a glimmer of light, but now that light was extinguished. Her eyes were like stagnant water.

Casey gently placed his hand on Izabella's head, "There will be a next life, Niki has just gone on a short vacation, it will surely return to you."

Izabella sniffed, her body covered in blood, her face dirty.

Standing next to this tall man, she seemed even thinner, as if a light breeze could knock her over.

Izabella gripped the collar in her hand, "Let's go."

"Where to?" Casey asked. He was worried about Izabella. She was crying her heart out one second and the next she was eerily calm.

She looked pale and sickly, not at all like a living person. Her eyes were lifeless and she looked like a puppet when she was expressionless.

Izabella moved her lips, "Home."

She took a few steps, then suddenly stopped. Her left hand was grabbed. She looked back stiffly at Casey's face.

Casey held her hand tightly, frightened that something might happen to her. He stared straight at her, his eyes not blinking, as if he were looking at a wisp of smoke, afraid she might vanish right before his eyes.

"Bella, come home with me."

Izabella didn’t respond, but when Casey led her by the hand, she instinctively followed his steps.

Her eyes, sore from crying, stung when they met the outdoor light. She adjusted to the sunlight with her half-closed eyes, then opened them again.

She glanced up at Casey's tall figure.

She didn’t say a word on the way. She put her phone on silent mode and put it in her bag. Countless people were calling and texting her.

Casey opened the passenger door for her. He watched her get in before he got into the driver's seat.

The car was quiet, so much so that he could clearly hear the sound of the wheels on the road.

Casey handed Izabella a bottle of water, "Have some water."

"I don't want to." Izabella fiddled with the collar in her hand, taking out a thumb-sized object.

Casey glanced at it and instantly knew what it was.

A camera.

The camera was wrapped in the collar, hard to notice if one didn't look carefully.

Casey had only installed a tracker in the collar, the camera must have been Izabella's doing.

They had taken precautions, but Niki still lost its life.

Izabella held the camera, which was also stained with blood. Her hand was trembling.

Back at Casey's house, he found some clean clothes, "You go take a shower first, I'll check if the contents of the camera are damaged."

Izabella's eyelashes trembled, and after a while, she reached out to take the clothes from Casey's hand and said, "Thank you."

Their relationship seemed to have returned to the beginning, seemingly close but actually far apart.

After watching Izabella go into the bathroom, Casey looked at the camera on the table with the collar.

He took out his laptop, took the USB from the camera, plugged it into the laptop and clicked on it.

The footage was shaky, but still watchable. Casey set the date to today and the time to an hour ago, then slowly began to search.

He saw Rachel take Niki to a small river and hand it over to a woman wearing a mask. Casey paused, cut out the next thirty minutes of footage, and saved it to his own USB drive.

He couldn't let Izabella do something rash, so he had to solve it before Izabella did.

Casey clicked back into the video and started watching again, until the woman in the video took off her mask. Casey's eyes narrowed.

It was Ariana.

A chilling intent filled Casey's eyes, his gaze sharp as an eagle's. He gripped the mouse and analyzed the whole incident.

The true mastermind behind this was Kristin, and Ariana was just her hired help.

Kristin had arranged for someone to kidnap Rachel's mother and threatened Rachel, who then had no choice but to take Niki out and hand it over to Ariana.

Ariana, unable to threaten Izabella, took out her anger on Niki, simply because she thought Izabella had deliberately ruined her reputation.

She was so reckless because her reputation was already ruined, she thought Kristin could help her cover it up, nobody would find out, and because there are no clear laws about animal abuse.

Casey thought, “Ariana probably thought that killing a cat isn't illegal.”

Seeing how much Ariana enjoyed exploiting legal loopholes, let's use that to get back at her.

However, Izabella's hatred ran deeper. When she said in the car that she wanted to kill "them", she really meant to kill with a knife.

Izabella went downstairs and opened the video on Casey's computer.

When she saw Niki injured all over, she wondered what had happened to it, but all she could think of was not even a fraction of the pain it had endured.

Niki was a beautiful, delicate ragdoll cat. It was afraid of pain, and after the fire three years ago, it was even more afraid of fire. But Ariana actually poured gasoline directly on it and set it on fire from the tail upwards.

In the video, Ariana's face was twisted, her eyes filled with malice.

"Serves you right, Izabella, it's all Izabella's fault! If it wasn't for Izabella, I wouldn't have become like this! You're an ugly cat and you deserve to die. Who told you to be Izabella's cat? If you have to hate, hate Izabella!"

Ariana's appearance clearly treated Niki as Izabella.

Niki gradually stopped struggling on the floor and lay motionless. The fire spread all over its body, and no one knew how it managed to hold on.

Ariana obviously didn't want it to die so easily, she put out the fire with her foot, her face still with a smile, a sick and cruel smile, like a madman.

The surveillance camera was on Niki, making it impossible to see its condition.

As Izabella watched the video, she couldn't help but think about the scene when she found Niki.

It was lying in the trash can, flesh and blood blurred, exposed wounds already necrotic, a sight that made anyone's heart ache.

Izabella closed her stinging eyes and imagined how desperate Niki must have been at that time, how much strength it must have used to hold on until she found it.

"Stop watching," Casey said.

"I want her to die a horrible death. Death would only be too good for this bitch.” said Izabella.

"I've already posted this video online."

Izabella looked at him.

Casey said, "Now everyone knows what happened."

"So what if they know?" Izabella scoffed, full of mockery. After taking a cold shower, she was clear-headed and felt even more disgusted with this fake world.

This world only considered it a crime to kill people, not cats.

Even if everyone knew of Ariana's crime, at most they would only verbally insult her. For someone who had no dignity left, cyber bullying had no effect.

"Bella, I know you hate her, but I don't want you to hurt yourself by using extreme methods just for revenge."

Izabella didn't say anything, just opened the video and started to watch it again, as if she wanted to blend this hatred into her bones and etch it into her soul.

Casey directly shut down the computer, crouched down, held Izabella's cold hand and looked into her eyes and again said, "Don't bear it alone. The things you hate, the things you despise, let me help you get rid of them, okay? Don't hurt yourself for these jerks, because it's not worth it."