Ginevra expected tears, but I didn't even look at her.

I walked straight to bed, lay down, and turned my back to her.

She started screaming. "Say something! Cry! Scream like you used to!" But I didn't move.

I just slipped on my headset, closed my eyes, and let her yell into silence. Eventually, the door slammed shut behind her.

And the quiet felt like victory.

That night, the invitation came.

Hand-delivered in a velvet-black envelope sealed with an insignia only a few circles would recognize.

The crest of the Del Rossi Vault. Underground auction house, syndicate-owned, legacy-driven. The kind of event where fortunes were exchanged for blood rights, artifacts, or reputation.

Dominic got one too.

Of course he did.

I knew he'd show. And I knew he'd drag Ginevra in beside him, painted like a porcelain doll, dressed to steal the spotlight.

Good. Let her think it's her night.

Let them both walk in thinking they've won.

I wasn't going to buy.

I came to sell.

The auction hall was carved into the belly of the old Velbrunnia opera ruins. Dark. Grand. Ruthless.

And when I stepped onto the marbled floor, the chatter stopped for a full five seconds.

My dress was black. Simple in cut, but made to strangle the breath out of the room. It hugged my curves like it knew the war I was carrying underneath.

My hair was slicked back. My makeup sharp. My perfume matched the night I lost everything.

On my arm was a man no one recognized.

Not Cristiano. Not anyone from my past.

Just a private broker with obsidian eyes and hands that could probably kill three men before breakfast.

He didn't speak. He didn't need to.

I nodded once, and he stepped forward and opened the black leather case for the crowd.

Inside sat every piece Dominic had ever given me.

The Santoro family heirloom bracelet, passed down for four generations.

The three-hundred-million-dollar emerald choker from our second anniversary, the one he kissed me through when we danced barefoot in Tuscany.

And lastly…

My engagement ring.

The room gasped.

Even the auctioneer faltered.

I heard whispers float up from the front row.

"Is that…?"

"That's the Santoro heirloom…"

"She's auctioning the ring?"

I didn't look at anyone.

Not yet.

Bidding started, and the room turned wild.

Men shouted numbers like war drums. Women raised cards not for diamonds but for power. Some wanted the pieces for history. Others, just to spit in the Santoro name.

I stood still. I let them fight.

And halfway through the chaos… they arrived.

Dominic and Ginevra.

He wore his classic black tux, the one I tailored myself when he wanted to look untouchable. Two soldiers flanked him at three paces, hands clasped in front of them, scanning the room with the unhurried precision of men who'd already identified every exit.

And she… she wore white.

Of course she did.

She looked around like she expected applause. Expected flashbulbs. Expected envy.

But the second her eyes landed on the stage, and on me, her whole face twisted.

Because I wasn't in the audience.

I wasn't grieving in a corner. I was standing center-stage, auctioning off the life she tried to erase.

And the room? The room was eating from my hand.

Dominic froze when he saw me.

He stopped mid-step. Eyes locked. Mouth parted like he forgot how to breathe. Ginevra turned to him, whispered something sharp in his ear, but he didn't even blink.

Didn't move.

Didn't speak.

His father's signet ring was between his thumb and forefinger, turning once, then going completely still.

"All proceeds tonight will go to the Velbrunnia Orphan Recovery Program," I said calmly.

The room went quiet. No one clapped. The soldiers behind Dominic exchanged a glance but held their positions.

He just stared at me like a ghost he never wanted to see again. And then he moved. Pushed past a few guests, walked up to the edge of the stage just as my broker stepped away.

"Seraphina," he called, voice low but urgent. "What the hell are you doing?"

I didn't answer.

The bidding for the engagement ring was just finishing. One point two million to a buyer from the eastern syndicate. And when the gavel hit, Dominic's voice rose again.

"You're selling your engagement ring?" he snapped, stepping closer. "The heirloom bracelet? The emerald choker my brother gave you in Tuscany?"

He shook his head, like he couldn't process what he was seeing.

"I clearly remember you once told me those were the most precious things you owned. That they meant everything to you. And now you're just selling them? Like they're garbage?"

The room went quiet. Even the auctioneer stopped breathing. I finally turned to look at him.

Our eyes met.

For one small, razor-sharp second, I let him see it. I stared at him for a long moment.

And then I smiled. Just a little.

A smile that held no warmth.

Only ruin.

I pulled my wrist free and said quietly:

"Not anymore."

He blinked. I took a slow step back, voice even colder now.

"I'm no longer grieving."

Another step.

"I'm done." And with that, I turned my back to the man who once promised me forever.

And left him standing in a room full of wolves, holding nothing but the ashes of what he destroyed.

The air outside the auction floor was quieter, but not peaceful. I slipped into the corridor behind the main ballroom, heading toward the powder room, needing just a second to breathe.

My heels echoed against marble… And then I heard her.

Click. Click. Click.

Ginevra's heels. Sharp. Fast. A fuse on its last second. I didn't need to turn around to know she was coming.

I kept walking until I hit the intersection of the hall. And that's when she grabbed my arm.

Hard.

She yanked me back and slammed me against the wall like a woman who'd been waiting too long to explode.

Her eyes were wild and her lipstick was cracked from gritting her teeth.

"You really thought you could humiliate me and just fucking walk away?" she hissed, voice shaking.

I didn't answer.

Didn't blink.

She took that silence like gasoline and threw a match on it.

"You sold my spotlight. That was my night! I was supposed to be the face they remembered. Not you, not your little poor orphan girl charity act, not your dead engagement ring!"

And just like that, she shoved me hard toward a side door I hadn't even noticed. It slammed open, and before I could stop her, she pushed me inside.

I stumbled, heels skidding, and hit the freezing tile floor. The old cold-storage room. Stone walls, no windows, and the faint copper smell of something that had been kept down here longer than wine.

By the time I scrambled to my feet and turned around, I heard it. The click of the lock snapping shut.

"Ginevra," I said again, louder this time, slamming my palm against the door. "Open it, you bitch!"

"Oh, baby girl… I'm not done watching you suffer."

Then she laughed. A soft, cold sound that didn't belong to a human woman.

"Let's see how powerful you feel when the air runs out."

And then nothing.

I reached for my phone.

Zero bars.

They found me twenty minutes later.

Two auction house guards, both young and twitchy, probably more used to breaking up rich men's fistfights than rescuing frozen women from storage rooms.

I heard the door creak open like it was underwater. I couldn't lift my head anymore, couldn't move my lips. My body was stiff, my skin cold and damp, and my fingers wouldn't uncurl.

"Miss — miss, we need medics down here now!"

Voices blurred. Arms lifted me. Heat touched my skin, and I whimpered without meaning to.

Everything after that came in pieces.

Flashing lights. Tubes. Machines. Warm blankets. And then the beeping slowed, and the shouting faded, and someone said the word trauma like it was just another item on a chart.

Not a single word from Dominic.

Not a call.

Not even a fucking text. I waited, just once, to hear his voice.

But nothing.

Later I learned that Ginevra told him I'd checked into a hotel to be alone and "cool off."

And he believed her. Of course he did.

Because whatever she fed him, he swallowed without question. Always had. Always would.

By the time I came home, my bones ached.

I looked like a ghost and I moved like one too.

The compound was too clean. Too still. The guards at the gate had waved me through without a word, but I'd felt their eyes track me all the way up the gravel drive, the way soldiers watch something they've already been briefed about.

And there he was. Waiting.

Dominic.

Or Alessio.

Or whoever the hell he was pretending to be today.

He stood in the middle of the living room, back straight, face unreadable, jaw set like he'd been practicing this confrontation in his head all damn day. Two of his men lingered near the doorway to the hall, close enough to hear everything, professional enough to pretend they couldn't.

I barely made it three steps in when he stepped forward and shoved a piece of paper into my face.

A medical form.

My fingers didn't even need to unfold it.

I knew exactly what it was.

Abortion paperwork.

I'd left it in my drawer. Tucked away. Hidden.

Ginevra must've gone through my things while I was gone and handed it to him like a trophy.

"You wanna tell me what the fuck this is?" he snapped.

His voice wasn't calm. It wasn't cold. It was furious. The signet ring on his right hand caught the lamplight as his fist tightened around the paper.

I said nothing. I just stared at him while he held that form like it personally bled.

"You killed my brother's child?" he barked. "You just — what? Got rid of it like it was trash? Like it meant nothing?!"

I blinked slowly.

"You don't even look sorry," he snarled. "You look proud. Are you proud, Seraphina? Is this your big revenge? You really think this makes you strong?"

Then his hand came down hard.

Crack.

He slapped me across the face. My head jerked sideways and I tasted blood at the corner of my lip. The sound cut through the room like a gunshot, and I felt the two soldiers in the doorway go absolutely still.

I didn't fall.

But I staggered.

And before I could find balance again —

Another hand hit me.

His mother.

Patrizia stepped forward with fury in her eyes, her pearl rosary rattling against her wrist like it could feel the wrath in her.

"You murderer," she spat. "You evil little snake. That baby was our blood. You just threw it away like some street rat's mistake."

She slapped me again, sharp and loud. "How could you? How could you take an innocent child just because you wanted to hurt Dominic?"

"Ginevra told us everything," she hissed. "You're ungrateful. You were always just a pretty little project. And now look at you. Empty womb, empty soul."

Tears were falling now.

But not from pain.

They just fell because my body didn't know what else to do. I stood still while they cursed me. While they threw fire at my skin and called it justice.

Then I straightened slowly.

I wiped the corner of my mouth, smearing the blood away with the back of my hand. And I looked him dead in the eyes.

"Why are you mad if I aborted the baby?"

My voice was soft. Too soft. "You're not Dominic. You're only his brother, remember?"

His face paled. His mouth parted. But I didn't stop.

I stepped forward.

"Don't act like him."

The room had the silence of a sit-down gone wrong. Nobody breathed. One of the soldiers by the door shifted his weight, just barely, like he was recalculating the geometry of the room.

Ginevra made a sound behind him — an unhinged laugh, sharp and manic. She stepped forward with that fake sweetness dripping from her fangs.

"You hear that, baby? She finally gets it. You're not Dominic. You're mine. She's just bitter because she lost her little fantasy."

She leaned against the wall like she was relaxing into her victory. "Besides, we both know she never wanted that baby. She just needed an excuse to play the grieving little widow."

That was when I smiled.

Not with warmth.

With venom.

"Or maybe…" I said slowly, locking eyes with Dominic, "you are Dominic. And you've just been pretending to be Alessio."

The whole room went still. Even Ginevra stopped smiling. The kind of silence that falls in a room when someone says the unsayable, when Omertà itself holds its breath.

"But either way…" I took one last step, standing in the center of the mess they built, "…I don't care anymore."

My voice didn't rise.

It didn't need to.

"I am no longer tied to this Family."

I looked at the matriarch who once hugged me like her own.

I looked at the man who once held my hair while I cried from morning sickness.

I looked at the woman who crawled into his bed and wore my perfume to spit on my memory.

And I smiled.

"Whatever love I had left in me died in that cold room."

Dominic's face cracked.

The way his brows knit, the way his mouth trembled slightly — it was panic. The kind of panic you don't show in war. The kind that slips out when you realize you went too far and there's no undoing it. His right hand had gone to his signet ring without his knowing, and it was perfectly, terribly still.

"Ginevra —" he started, his voice unsteady.

But I was already walking away.

That night, I heard a knock. Soft. Hesitant.

The door creaked open, and I didn't turn.

He walked in like the floor might break under him.

He carried a tray: soup, bread, and the same tea I drank when I was pregnant. He set it down carefully on the nightstand, then spoke in that calm, calculated tone. Still playing the brother card.

"I shouldn't have hit you. I'm sorry. You just… shocked me. That baby… it was my brother's last memory… I didn't know how else to react."

I didn't speak.

I didn't blink.

I stared ahead, eyes locked on the wall, mind already a thousand miles away from this estate.

"You have to understand," he went on, voice gentler now, "I'm trying to protect Dominic's memory. He loved you. I see how broken you are, and… I just want you to feel safe. To feel seen. Even if I'm just his brother."

I turned my head just enough to look at him.

Cold. Detached.

"Don't pretend you care now. It's too late."

He flinched. Just a twitch in his jaw. I didn't move. Didn't touch the food.

I watched him watch me, like he was waiting for the old Seraphina to show up and cry into his chest and forgive him with some half-broken smile.

But that girl was gone.

Dead in a freezer room Ginevra locked.

He sat down beside me. The bed dipped, and he placed a blanket around my shoulders like that would undo the bruise on my face or the scream I never let out. Somewhere in the compound, a guard's radio crackled and went silent.

"You used to love it when my brother tucked you in," he murmured.

I said nothing. Because every word he spoke now sounded like poison covered in silk.

That night, I woke to screams. Loud. Gut-wrenching. Over-the-top.

I already knew what it was before I even stepped into the hallway.

Ginevra.

Staging her next act.

I walked out and saw her on the floor outside my bedroom. Makeup smeared, her white slip torn at the strap, red scratches raking down her neck and arms like a scene from a slaughterhouse photograph.

Blood. Not deep enough to be dangerous. But just enough to look like she'd been attacked.

She wailed louder when she saw me.

"Why are you doing this to me?!"

Dominic came running. His eyes landed on her collapsed form, and the panic took over in seconds.

"Ginevra, what the hell? What happened?!"

She clung to his legs like some dying saint and sobbed harder.

"She… she attacked me! I… I was only trying to check on her. I know she hates me because Alessio looks like Dominic and she can't handle it. I was trying to help her move on. I just… I wanted to give her a hug and she snapped!"

She looked up at him, crocodile tears shining like diamonds. Her fingertips drifted to her collarbone. "I'm dying, Dominic. I have months left. And she wants to break me before I'm even buried. If she wants you so badly, fine. Let her have you. Just let me die in peace."

She screamed like she was being stabbed.

I didn't say a word. Dominic looked from her to me, and then his face twisted into pure rage.

He stood, his steps fast, and suddenly he was in front of me.

Chest heaving. Eyes wild. His father's signet ring catching the hallway light as his hand curled into a fist at his side.

"What the fuck did you do to her?!"

I didn't flinch.

"She has four months left to live, Seraphina! Four months! She's been nothing but kind to you. She's been trying to make peace and you what… you beat her?"

I laughed. A bitter, hollow sound.

The kind of laugh that said I'm done being quiet.

"You're both pathetic."

And I slapped him.

Hard. Not just for tonight. For every lie. For every gaslight. For every moment he let Ginevra live in my skin, wear my perfume, and erase my name like I was nothing but a prequel to her reign over this Family.

He stared at me like I just shattered his illusion.

"You used to be kind," he whispered. "You used to be human."

I stepped closer, voice cutting through the silence.

"And you used to be mine. But now you're just hers."

He opened his mouth. His face softened. Like he was about to admit something. Like he wanted to say what he'd been holding back since the day he let me cry over his faked death.

But Ginevra made a sound behind him. A weak cough and a dramatic collapse.

She hit the ground like a timed performance and let out a cry.

"Dominic… please… I can't breathe…"

That snapped him back.

"Shit. Ginevra? Stay with me, baby, stay with me."

He lifted her in his arms, shouting for Tomaso, for the driver, for a medic.

I stood still.

Watching. Letting him run toward the woman he traded me for.

His mother appeared in the hallway seconds later, her hair tied in her usual tight bun, the pearl rosary looped around her left wrist catching the dim light. Eyes flaming with hate. She didn't ask what happened.

She just marched straight to me, eyes full of judgment.

"You are evil," she spat. "I should've known. You always wore the mask well, Seraphina. But I see it now. You're cruel. Heartless. A murderer."

I tilted my head, silent.

"I should've never accepted you into this Family. You don't belong in the Santoro name."

I stepped forward and whispered, "Then take the name back. I never needed it to begin with."

Then two of Dominic's soldiers grabbed me, one by each arm. I kicked, cursed, twisted. Didn't matter.

They dragged me down the hallway, my feet scraping against the marble floor. The night staff pressed themselves against the walls as we passed.

No one stopped them. No one even looked.

At the hospital, they shoved the doors open and pushed me into the room.

Hard. Like I was trash being dumped. And Ginevra was there. Hooked to an IV. Pale as paper.

Eyes closed like some tragic angel.

Then came Dominic's voice. "Kneel."

I blinked.

"What?"

"Kneel. On the salt."

I looked down and saw it. A large square patch of ground covered in coarse, jagged sea salt.

I almost laughed.

Almost.

"You've lost your mind," I whispered.

"You assaulted my wife," he snapped. "You made her collapse, and you're going to reflect on that. You're going to stay on your knees and think about what you've become."

He stepped closer. His voice dropped.

"And when she wakes up, you will apologize."