VIOLA

                         0 | PROLOGUE

A FEMINIST is a person, mostly the female(s), who advocates the doctrine of equal rights for women. She is always ready to stand up for what she believes in, and to fight for it. To fight for them.

Well, that's what I am.

You don't need to be a boxer or fighter to prove your point. As long as your head is always high and your dignity as a woman is also intact, your rights and beliefs can never be tampered with, not even by your so-called boss.

People can call you stubborn, boring, hidebound, greedy or even feisty. But you know what? They're right. You're being feisty and stubborn, that's one time bomb passed down to all those chickened men out there. Men who believe that women are only a waste of time, space and nature. Men who thinks that women are so weak and feebleminded that they can easily make them crawl to their feet with just a snap of a finger. And of course they always start with promising you 'heaven and earth'. But then, we all know how it's all going to turn out later. We're being surprised with 'phase two of hell on earth'. If that isn't frustrating, I don't know what is.

These kind of men needs to be dealt with, don't you think?

To be given a taste of their own medicine.

And from what I've seen, the only way to do this is to become one of them in the shadows. To pretend. To hide until the time's right. To play along.

Nothing amounts to the pains and hatred I got from my dad. My very own biological father. Crazy right?

Do you want to know the reason?

Because I refused to be like him. To join his illegal ways, and to quiver each time he speaks. Who does he think he is to tamper with my fate? If there's anything that I hate so much right now is him.

He's the reason I'd never forgive men.

God, I feel like punching something right now.

Anything!

The son of a bitch tried everything in his power to make me look weak when I was strong... because he knew that I knew. But again, the inner feminine beast kept on burning brightly—even when my body was burning, literally. I had to keep chasing one of my biggest dreams—being a sommelier—during this mission to blend in smartly. I guess I've always admired waitresses and sommeliers from childhood, especially their style of dressing and manners. Call me weird but what I love the most is the satisfied grin plastered on the women's faces when they spill hot drinks on a well-deserved customer, and when the men secretly sets a foot for an unaware grumpy old man.

And mind you, I'm not a sadist. In no way did I enjoy seeing pleasure from pains.

But that was then. Not until Mr Alessandro killed my mother in cold blood and shamelessly dumped her massacred body in the public—like it was never something of value. Now tell me what kind of a person won't turn into a sadist after watching lives die before your very innocent eyes. And again, I was still a little child.

Yes, I'm filthy rich and filthy famous, and so what? I could've exposed them all, or at least tried to, but I was just a child. A frightened, little child. What could I do other than dwell among whining, wild animals. Even when I was given my own portion of their shares, I still refused to mingle with the mob rats and gang toads. He told me I was worthless, weak, helpless and easy in the eyes of men. He wasn't wrong at that time. But now, I'm no longer that same weak girl he used to know me as. What's even better is that he doesn't know his daughter is the masked mistress everyone's been talking about. I can't wait to see the shock and helplessness on his face when I have him wrapped around my little fingers and expose him right in the very act.

The least I can do for this to work is to avoid keeping my reputation at stake and change few things about my history.

Change of personality, and also become the...

MASKED CINDERELLA.