Sera's POV
Julian's eyes burned with a barely contained violence, the red mark of my handprint standing out like a brand against his pale skin.
He raised his hand, his fist clenching as he pulled his arm back to strike me.
Before the blow could land, a heavy hand clamped down on Julian's wrist.
Dante, my personal enforcer, had materialized from the shadows of the doorway. His grip on Julian's arm was like a band of solid steel.
"Calm down, Consigliere," Dante growled, his voice a low, threatening vibration in the air.
A few other loyal soldiers had gathered in the hall, murmuring among themselves. Their eyes darted from Julian's raised fist to the tiny, bruised body on the metal table.
"The little girl's bones were shattered by the cartel," one of the older soldiers muttered, his voice pitched just loud enough for Julian to hear. "It is unnatural for a father to feel no sorrow while attacking a grieving mother."
Julian yanked his arm out of Dante's grip, glaring at me, his chest rising and falling in ragged breaths.
A sharp, generic ringtone cut through the tension. It was Julian's burner phone.
He pulled it from his pocket, and the moment he looked at the screen, the murderous fury on his face vanished. His features softened into something nauseatingly tender.
He answered the call and turned his back to me.
Chloe's panicked, high-pitched voice echoed from the tiny speaker, stark in the dead quiet of the room.
"Julian, please, you have to come back to the bunker. I tried to handle the decrypted file like you taught me, but it's a mess. The system is locking me out. I'm so scared I ruined it."
"Don't panic, sweetheart," Julian murmured, his voice a soothing caress. "I'm on my way. I'll fix it. Just step away from the terminal."
He hung up the phone and slipped it back into his pocket. He turned to leave, his movements abrupt and urgent.
"Stop causing trouble for the family, Sera," he warned, refusing to meet my eyes. "We will talk about your behavior later."
He walked out through the heavy metal doors. He did not look back at the steel bier holding his child, and he did not look back at me.
I remained perfectly still. I pressed my nails so deeply into my palms that the skin broke, allowing warm blood to well in the creases. The sharp, physical sting was the only thing that kept my thoughts from splintering.
The passage of time became a hollow ache. When I walked out of the mortuary an hour later, the attendant had promised to handle the cremation with the utmost care.
I sat in the back of my armored SUV, pulled out my backup phone, and opened the secure network.
Chloe had deleted the photo of their hands.
In its place was a new post—a picture of a greasy burger and a cheap beer on a sticky wooden table.
The caption read: "He drove me all the way out of the city limits to this dive bar just to calm my nerves. He says cheap food tastes better when the company is right." There was a red heart emoji at the end.
A wave of pure, physical revulsion rose in the back of my throat. I leaned over and dry-heaved into the leather footwell.
Julian was a man of impeccably refined tastes; he wore custom suits, drank aged scotch, and detested anything unpolished. Now, he was lowering his standards, sitting in a filthy roadside bar, just to play the hero for an incompetent girl.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. The last thread of illusion I held for my marriage snapped in that moment.
I picked up my phone and dialed the head of my financial division.
As the heiress to the Moretti empire, I controlled the massive laundering fronts and the illicit funding pipelines. Julian's entire intelligence network ran on my money.
"Initiate an immediate withdrawal of all Moretti funds from Julian's intelligence division," I ordered. My voice was steady, as if it belonged to someone else. "Suspend the God's Ear surveillance project. Freeze every account linked to his operations."
"Consider it done, Boss," the manager replied respectfully.
I sat in the crematorium's waiting room for three hours, the silence broken only by the hum of the ventilation system. My eyes were fixed on the sterile white walls until the attendant finally handed a heavy marble urn into my arms. When I arrived at the penthouse, the marble urn felt like a block of ice in my arms.
I walked into the massive living room and placed the urn on top of her favorite grand piano. I surrounded the cold, white stone with her plush toys—the little stuffed rabbit with the missing button eye, and the velvet bear Julian had bought her for her third birthday.
I walked down the hall and entered her bedroom, where the air still smelled like baby shampoo and lavender.
I crawled into her small bed and curled into a ball, pressing my face into her pink sheets. The phantom sensation of her soft cheek brushing against mine haunted the empty room.
Exhaustion and overwhelming grief dragged me down into a dark, airless sleep.
I dreamed of her. She was wearing her favorite princess dress, the one with the ridiculous amount of tulle, and she was running toward me across the estate gardens, laughing.
"Mommy, I missed you!" she called out.
I dropped to my knees and caught her in my arms. I held her tightly, weeping into her hair, so relieved that my baby was safe.
Suddenly, the warmth in her body vanished. Her small hands gripped my clothes with terrifying strength, and her sweet smile twisted into a mask of stark terror.
Blood poured from her mouth. She screamed in agonizing despair, the sound tearing through my eardrums.
I woke up screaming, my lungs burning for air.
And found Julian standing over me in the darkness.
Sera's POV
My vision slowly focused on the dark shadows of the bedroom, my chest heaving as I gasped for breath.
Julian was standing by the edge of the bed, holding a thin, woven blanket in his hands.
"You looked restless," he said softly. "I just wanted to cover you."
He lowered himself onto the edge of the mattress, the springs dipping under his weight. I recoiled, pulling my knees to my chest.
"Sera, the dead cannot return," he said, using that measured, rational tone he reserved for syndicate negotiations. "You cannot drown in this grief. Things aren't what they seem. We need to have a pragmatic discussion about the future of the family."
My throat was raw from screaming in my sleep, so I refused to speak to him. I only wanted this traitor as far away from me as possible.
I pushed the covers off and stumbled forward barefoot, shoving my hands against his chest to force him out of my child's sanctuary.
He stepped back, raising his hands in a placating gesture.
As I pushed him toward the doorway, I froze.
Chloe Rossi was standing in the middle of my hallway.
She was wearing Julian's custom black silk sleepwear. The shirt was far too large for her, the top three buttons undone to expose her collarbone, and she held a crystal glass filled with my most expensive bourbon.
She met my eyes over the rim of the glass, swirling the amber liquid as a mocking smile touched her lips.
"Does the Don's wife need a drink?" Chloe asked, her voice dripping with a feigned, saccharine sweetness. "You look terrible."
Julian stepped out of the bedroom, standing right behind me, and a brief flash of unease crossed his face when he saw Chloe.
"Sera, let me explain," Julian said quickly. "Chloe's safehouse was compromised by a rival faction tonight. It wasn't safe for her to stay there. I brought her to the penthouse temporarily because of our security detail."
I stared at the girl in my husband's clothes, knowing the truth. She did not intend to be a temporary guest—she was here to usurp my place.
Chloe let out a long, exaggerated sigh. She sauntered past me and glanced into the living room, her eyes landing on the grand piano and the marble urn.
"It really is so tragic," Chloe murmured, her tone laced with poorly hidden amusement. "The little heir's fate. The underworld is just too dangerous for children."
The rage inside me broke through every wall of restraint I had left, a hot, sickening current through my veins.
"Get the hell out!" I roared, the sound a raw, ragged tear from my throat.
Chloe instantly dropped her mocking smile. She forced tears into her wide eyes and looked up at Julian, shrinking back like a frightened rabbit.
Julian scowled and grabbed my shoulder.
"Stop screaming, Sera," he scolded. "Chloe is only showing respect for your loss. There is no need for this hostility."
I threw his hand off my shoulder and turned my wrath on him, my voice echoing off the high ceilings.
"You get out too!" I screamed. "Get out of my house!"
Chloe whimpered, taking a hesitant step toward the living room.
"No, no, it's my fault," she stammered, playing the perfect victim. "I shouldn't have intruded. Let me earn my keep. I'll clean the penthouse. I'll help tidy up."
She stepped forward and reached out her hand toward the grand piano, dragging her fingers across the polished wood as she moved directly toward the marble urn.
"Don't touch her!" I shrieked, lunging forward.
Chloe feigned a dramatic startle, and her hand jerked forward.
The bourbon in her glass arced through the air, splashing across the pristine wood of the piano, while her empty palm slammed into the heavy marble urn.
It tipped over the edge of the piano and crashed onto the hardwood floor with a sickening crack.
A cloud of pale gray dust exploded into the air, the ashes settling across the dark wood, mixing with the sharp shards of broken marble.
I froze. My mind went blank, and the sound of my own heartbeat disappeared.
"Oh my god!" Chloe covered her mouth with both hands, sobbing out fake, breathy apologies. "I'm so sorry! It was an accident! I was just trying to help!"
I snapped my head up and looked at her. My eyes were bloodshot, burning with a murderous clarity so intense it tasted like copper on my tongue.
"Who gave you the right to touch her?!" I roared. "I'll kill you!"
I lunged at Chloe with the ferocity of a wild animal. I did not care about dignity, nor did I care about the syndicate rules. My only thought was to wrap my hands around her throat and tear her apart.
Chloe screamed in genuine terror, scrambling backward to hide behind Julian's tall frame.
Julian stepped into my path to shield his mistress, grabbing my wrists in an iron grip.
"Sera, have you lost your damn mind?" he shouted, shaking me. "Stop it!"
I thrashed against him, a cornered beast. My nails gouged deep, bloody tracks into his forearms as I fought to reach the girl behind him. I screamed for my daughter's vendetta, the sound tearing my vocal cords apart.
And then his hands left my wrists, and the world tilted violently backward.
