I’d been dead a month before my family even noticed.

It wasn’t concern that brought them to that realization. It was my silence after the so-called “dinner” with Adam Rossi, the infamous mafia boss.

My father scoffed like always,“She probably shacked up with that bastard. Too busy spreading her legs to pick up the damn phone.”

My sister texted me a photo of them smiling under the Christmas tree, ornaments twinkling like nothing was wrong. Bitch, she wrote. You better talk Mr. Rossi into working with Dad, or you might as well be dead already.

And my mother—once the softer one—was now colder than the frost on their windows. “I told you, we should’ve sent Gia to charm Mr. Rossi. Serena always screws things up.”

They didn’t think I would die.

Not until they found my body—broken, rotten, and forgotten—in Adam Rossi’s basement.

1

It had been a month since I died.

My father had sent me—gift-wrapped in a slinky black dress and a forced smile—to charm the most dangerous man in the city. Not for love or family. For business, his god damn business.

For years, he’d been clawing his way up from small-time drug deals, desperate to expand beyond the East Coast. Adam Rossi, with one foot in New York and the other in Mexico, was his golden ticket.

And me? I was the bait.

Not because I was prettier than Gia—my younger sister had that whole wide-eyed, pouty-lipped thing down to an art.

No, it was because Gia was his favorite. Daddy’s precious doll. He’d never risk her with a man like Rossi. Too wild and unpredictable and lethal.

So he sent me. The forgettable daughter. The one they never talked about at dinner.

I’d tried to escape once. Got into NYU. Moved out. Cut ties.

And my reward? Dad cut me off. Said if I wouldn’t sell my soul for the family name, I wouldn’t see another cent of it either. I lived in a cramped, roach-infested shoebox on the edge of Brooklyn, scraping by on student loans and part-time work.

It was a shit life—but it was mine.

And then Dad came knocking again. Just a dinner, he said.

I thought it was dinner with the family. Except they never showed up.

A dinner turned into silence. Days passed. Then weeks.

My family only started to worry when my aunt—the one who actually cared about me—began pressing them to check in.

And now, here we were. Or rather, they were. I was dead. A ghost. Tethered to their shadows like some cruel joke. Forced to watch as they finally—finally—decided to visit the daughter they’d forgotten.

Gia wrinkled her perfect little nose as she stood outside my building. “How can anyone live here? Daddy, I just saw a mouse. A mouse.”

My father smiled indulgently, brushing a hand over her shoulder. The man could order executions without blinking, but heaven forbid Gia see a dirty apartment.

“Why don’t you wait outside with your mother, sweetheart,” he said smoothly. “I’ll go in.”

Of course. Wouldn’t want to soil his princess’s shoes.

But me? I could rot in this dump, no problem.

“I mean, seriously,” Gia said with a dramatic shudder, “How could Serena not return our calls? Making us come down to this hellhole. Ugh. There’s another mouse! Daddy, please, let’s just go.”

My father’s eyes iced over. “She better have sealed that deal. Otherwise, she can kiss the family goodbye.”

He marched up to my old door and pounded once, twice. “Serena! Are you in there? I swear to God, if you’re just ignoring us again—”

The door creaked open before he could finish.

A woman stood in the frame. No makeup or smile. A cigarette dangling from her lips. “Why the hell are you banging on my door?”

My father blinked. “Serena lives here?”

“Serena who?” she scoffed. “I just moved in. Whoever the fuck that is—she’s long gone. Try somewhere else.”

“I’m Enzo Barone,” my father said through clenched teeth. “Serena is my daughter. She said she lives here. And now she had gone missing over a month.”

The woman at the door raised a brow, then waved her hand casually. A man covered in tattoos appeared from the shadows of the hallway, his arms crossed like he was used to bad news.

“I met her once. She doesn’t live here anymore,” he said flatly. “Got kicked out over a month ago. Didn’t pay rent. Her stuff’s been tossed.”

He glanced over my father’s tailored suit and polished shoes. “Why’d you let your daughter live in a place like this?”

Of course, he didn’t know the truth.

As the conversation continued, the landlord himself shuffled downstairs, a thick set of keys jingling from his belt. “Serena Barone?” he asked, eyeing them. “She your kid? She owes me three months’ rent.”

The second he said rent, my father’s entire expression changed. He didn’t look concerned. He looked pissed and annoyed.

“Ungrateful little brat,” he muttered. “She probably stopped answering our calls so we’d come here and clean up her mess. Just like her.”

He pulled out his wallet with a theatrical sigh and paid the man.

The landlord brought out what little of my life remained: a laptop, some silver jewelry, a few books. Everything else had already hit the dumpster.

“This is her computer,” Gia chimed in, inspecting the dust on the screen.

My mother, Lucia—always poised, always soft-spoken—wrinkled her nose as if the air itself offended her.

The disappointment in her eyes was louder than any slap.

She pulled out her phone and recorded a voicemail, cold and clipped. “Serena, your father and I came by. We have your things. Call us back, or we’ll throw them out.”

That was it.

No are you safe or are you okay. Just we have your crap, now come fetch it.

I used to wonder when mother stopped loving me. Was it the moment she saw me as nothing but a burden to forbid she had actual happiness? Or was it when Marco was born—the son she always wanted?

Either way, the moment passed, and I vanished from her heart.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Gia said with a dramatic shiver. She clung to dad’s arm like a spoiled child in a horror movie. “This place is disgusting. I can’t believe people actually live here.”

The landlord, bless his heart, didn’t take that quietly.

“Well, aren’t you just a walking ball of class,” he said dryly.

“You—!” Gia sputtered, insulted.

He shrugged. “I heard y’all came here to find a girl who’s been missing for over a month, and I haven’t heard a single one of you ask if she might be hurt, or scared, or—God forbid—dead. So why bother coming at all?”

My father’s jaw ticked. “That’s none of your damn business. Call me if she comes back. You’ve been paid. That’s enough.”

And then they left.

I floated behind them, a silent echo of the daughter they buried long before they found my body.

Before they got into the car, I turned to look at the building one last time. Peeling paint. Flickering lights. The scent of smoke and old regret lingering in the stairwell.

It wasn’t much. But it had been mine.

And I had the sickening feeling… I’d never see it again.

2

When they got home, my father made the call he’d been dreading.

Aunt Eva.

He dialed her number and filled her in, voice low and clipped, as if admitting I was missing would somehow chip away at his pride.

“We still haven’t heard from Serena,” he said.

The response came fast—and loud. Even I could hear her voice, crackling through the phone from beyond the grave.

“You call yourself a father?” Eva’s voice practically shook the walls. “You sent your own daughter to that man—and now she’s missing? And you’re still pretending it’s not a big deal?”

“She’s done this before,” he said, already defensive. “When she went off to college, she disappeared for a year. Didn’t call, didn’t visit. I just wished she could make Adam happy, so I can expand my business.”

And there it was.

He didn’t care I was gone. Not really.

He cared about the deal. About Rossi. About his little expansion dreams to Mexico.

I wanted to scream. To punch through the air and shove my voice into his ears.

I was your daughter, the only one who was truly yours. Would you still think it was worth it—sending me to that monster—if you knew what happened to me?

But the dead don’t get to ask questions. We just watch.

Aunt Eva had always been the exception in my life. And now she was furious. Because she worried about me.

“I haven’t heard from her in over a month, Enzo,” she snapped. “You’d better pray she’s fine. Because if anything’s happened to her, I swear to God, I’ll make you regret it. You son of a bitch.”

She meant it. Eva didn’t throw threats unless she planned to cash them in.

My father just laughed, a hollow, grating sound. “You always were dramatic.”

But he didn’t dare challenge her. He never had.

Eva was the one who inherited everything—while Enzo got the scraps.

His little drug ring was nothing without her backing. He needed her to bankroll his empire, and he knew it.

Eva had offered to help me once. Really help me. A new city. Tuition. A life outside the Barone.

I said no. I didn’t want to owe anyone. Not even her.

“Enzo,” she said, “You’ve gone too far this time. I want to hear from Serena. And I want it soon. Or you can forget your little expansion fantasy in Mexico. I’ll pull the money. And the protection.”

Click.

The line went dead.

My father stared at the phone for half a second—then swore and hurled it at the wall.

The screen shattered. So did his temper.

“That ungrateful little bitch,” he hissed. “Always screwing things up. Can’t do one goddamn thing right.”

Funny. That’s exactly what I used to whisper to myself at night.

…

You might wonder why things were so broken between me and my family—so bitter, so twisted—that I still said yes to dinner with Adam Rossi.

Truth? I didn’t know the dinner was with Adam Rossi.

I thought it was with my family.

“Serena,” my father had said, voice unusually soft over the phone, “we’d love to have dinner with you. It’s been so long. Your mother misses you.”

I blinked at my screen for a long moment after that call, then replied to my friend, letting them know I’d miss class the party on the weekend.

I was coming home.

I even bought a new blouse. Simple. Navy blue. Something my mother might call "respectable."

It’d been almost a year since I last saw them. I missed them—God help me, I missed them.

A simple dinner, I told myself. Just one.

We’d eat and talk. Maybe even laugh.

Turns out I was just stupid.

I walked into that restaurant expecting a family reunion. What I got was Adam Rossi.

Alone.

My family never came.

That night, everything snapped into focus.

Adam Rossi broke me. Degraded me. Used me.

And when he was done, he handed me off to his men like trash. They took me to the basement, and they ended me.

No one came looking.

Not then. Not even now.

…

“Did Eva call again?” my mother asked casually, walking into the room.

“Yeah, that bitch,” my father muttered. “Said if we don’t get Serena to call her back, she’ll cut off the money. Typical. Always acting like she’s better than us. No wonder she liked Serena more. They were both the same—stuck-up little cunts.”

Hearing him speak like that… about Eva… I felt something twist inside me. Something that hadn’t even stirred when I died.

Sadness. Real, choking sadness.

The only one person that cared about me was a bitch in my father’s eye.

Then, my mother added, “I told you, we should’ve sent Gia. She would not mess things up.”

My father snapped instantly. “Gia? Are you listening to yourself, Lucia? Gia can’t go. She’s my daughter. I’m not sending her to do something so degrading.”

I stood in the corner of the room, invisible. Cold. Dead.

And still, I bled.

So that was it. Gia was your daughter.

And I never was.

…

I had lived with Aunt Eva since I turned five.

My father always said it was for the best. “Eva’s rich,” he told me. “She can give you the kind of life I can’t. Wouldn’t it be nice to let your aunt take care of you for a while?”

He made it sound like a gift. A privilege.

But even as a little girl, I should’ve recognized what it really was.

A rejection.

He never sent my siblings away. Just me.

Aunt Eva took me in with open arms. She had more money than she could ever spend—her own island, her own castle. Literally. My grandparents had left the entire Barone empire to her: arms trafficking, laundering routes, offshore accounts.

He liked to pretend it was his idea. That he wanted me to “live carefree.” What he really wanted was distance.

When I turned twelve, father called, asking me to come home.

I was so stupidly hopeful. I thought—maybe they missed me.

I left Eva’s estate with my heart wide open, expecting warmth. A reunion. Maybe even love.

What I got was ice.

My family looked at me like I was a stranger. My mother barely acknowledged me. And the father who once kissed my forehead goodnight? He was silent. Distant. Like I’d imagined every good moment between us.

Home wasn’t a home. It was purgatory.

3

The house itself was no castle. It barely passed for a mansion. My father was scraping by with his drug business—money came fast, but danger came faster.

Still, I told myself we were a family. That it would be enough.

When Gia needed new clothes, he spent every cent dressing her like royalty.

When I needed a coat, I got hand-me-downs from charity bins. They even throw away the clothes Aunt Eva had given me—clean, elegant, too nice for me to wear.

When Marco was born, he had his own room. His own little phone. A laptop before he could spell.

I was in high school without a phone, without a computer, writing essays by hand and pretending I didn’t care.

That’s when I realized: this wasn’t my family.

This was a battlefield where I was the expendable one.

So I planned my escape.

I fought tooth and nail for a scholarship and left.

I’d spent my entire life trying to prove I was worth loving. Worth keeping. I bent myself backward for scraps of affection—for the sound of my name said with pride instead of shame.

And now? Now I was dead. Turns out I was right. My family doesn’t love me, even after I’d given them these many chances.

For the first time in my life, I was dead and I felt free.

No more chasing approval. No more begging to be seen.

They didn’t matter anymore. None of them did.

…

Dad hadn’t been having the time of his life since Eva’s call.

Without her threat, he began worrying about his so-called empire was nothing more than a pile of bricks barely standing.

“I should’ve just let Eva keep her,” he muttered for what had to be the hundredth time that day. “Nothing but a burden. Useless.”

And there it was again—his version of fatherhood. Tossing the blame on the child he offered up like currency and acting like the loss was a nuisance, not a tragedy.

My mother, ever the perfect wife, soothed him with a hand on his shoulder and a voice sweet enough to coat poison. “Have you tried calling Mr. Rossi directly? Maybe he knows where Serena went?”

“Tried,” Dad said, jaw tight. “Didn’t go through. Feels like both of them are ghosting me.”

Of course the line went dead. Adam Rossi was never planning to work with my father.

Gia wandered into the room, eyes glued to her phone screen, “Isn’t Auntie Eva’s birthday coming up?” she said casually. “She and Serena were close. If Serena’s going to show up anywhere, it’ll be there. We can just… wait and catch her.”

My father’s face lit up, like she’d just handed him a blueprint to salvation.

“That’s my smart girl,” he said proudly.

Of course.

My mother didn’t look convinced. She tapped her screen again, then frowned. “There’s a report on the news,” she said slowly. “Someone named Rossi got arrested by the FBI—something about drug trafficking. Is that the same man Serena went to dinner with?”

She held up her phone. The image of Adam Rossi flashed across the screen, grainy but unmistakable.

My father’s face turned ghostly pale.

Rossi had been running for years, untouchable. I wonder if it was the karma that after killing me, he finally got arrested.

For my father, this news was the end of a dream. He’d been counting on Rossi—counting on that connection to crack open a new level in his drug game. Bigger clients. More money.

“So Rossi’s arrested,” Gia said, brow furrowed. “But Serena’s still missing?”

There was no worry in her voice. Not even the barest flicker.

“She was probably upset about the dinner or got arrested too along with that man,” my mother said with a soft, dismissive wave. “She’ll show up.”

My father didn’t speak. He stood slowly, pacing.

A moment later, I saw the glow of his phone screen. He was texting me.

“Serena, you’d better keep your mouth shut when the cops question you about Rossi. Don’t you dare mention your family. If you do, I won’t see you as my daughter anymore. This is the least you can do for your father. I can’t afford to lose everything.”

It felt like a blow straight to my chest— though I wasn’t made of skin and blood anymore.

Even now, with me gone, he was still threatening me, trying to control the narrative and pretending I owed him something.

If I’d read that message when I was alive, I would’ve crumbled or cried.

But not anymore.

I’m dead now, Daddy.

And for the first time in my life… I’m not afraid of you.

…

They still hadn’t heard from me.

And Aunt Eva’s birthday had arrived.

To my surprise, this year, there was no birthday party.

I knew she was worried. I had never—not once—missed calling her on her birthday.

“You still haven’t heard from Serena?” I heard Eva’s voice echo crisply through the speakerphone. “I’m parking. Talk when I get inside.”

She was coming here. To them.

Even in death, I felt a burst of warmth. I wanted to greet her at the door, wrap my arms around her the way I used to. But I couldn’t. I was tethered—like a shadow—to my parents. I had no control. Only the ache of wanting.

So I waited in the foyer, floating beside my father as Eva stepped through the door.

God, she was still stunning—dressed in black like a queen in mourning. Her presence lit the room like a slap of perfume and thunder.

“Auntie Eva!” Marco called, rushing into her arms. She gave him a stiff smile, her body barely bending for the hug.

“Hey,” she said. “You’ve grown.”

Then came Gia.

High heels clicking, voice sweet as poison. “Auntie Eva,” she sang, stretching the words with fake warmth.

Eva’s face darkened. She didn’t like Gia.

I once told Eva—accidentally—about a bruise Gia gave me. I hadn’t meant to. She asked, and I answered. The truth spilled out before I could shove it back.

Father punished me that night.

“I didn’t think you were that evil,” he’d whispered coldly. “Trying to turn Eva against Gia? Gia had already suffered a lot. And you knew it was hard for her to live at this family. Don’t stir more troubles.”

Eva had always seen through Gia. She’d once said, I don’t like that girl’s eyes. Too much malice for someone so young.

And now, that same girl was playing nice again.

“Eva,” my father said, voice falsely cheerful, “don’t be so distant. Gia was just greeting you.”

“Distant?” Eva snapped, turning toward him with steel in her voice. “She’s a bully. And I’ve never liked bullies—even when they come with your last name.”

Silence sliced through the room.

My father’s expression soured. My mother stiffened beside him.

They never liked when Eva spoke the truth.

4

The truth was that ever since I moved back from Eva’s estate, Gia had made it her mission to make my life hell. She didn’t like being the second daughter. She didn’t like that I’d once lived in castles while she stayed in a crumbling mansion with drug money wallpapering the cracks.

So she lied.

She pushed me when no one was watching, smashed my books and said I did it, cut my clothes and blamed me again. She twisted everything until my parents looked at me and saw not a daughter—but a problem.

She made me the bad seed. The spoiled one. The liar.

And my parents believed her.

They always did.

I tried to explain. But who was I to them, really? A daughter in name, but one who didn’t grow up under their roof. One they didn’t raise or didn’t really love.

And as we grew older, the lies only got louder. In high school, Gia turned the entire class against me. Whispered that I was a bully. That I stole the family spotlight. I didn’t even realize what she’d done until graduation.

All that time, I thought people just… didn’t like me.

But really, Gia had made sure they didn’t.

…

Mother brought Eva into the living room, her smile plastered on like she was hosting royalty. “Here, have some tea. What’s the plan for your birthday this year?”

Eva took the cup without drinking. Her eyes narrowed.

“Nothing,” she said coolly. “Serena’s missing. How could I possibly celebrate?”

Then she cut her gaze to my mother, sharp and unforgiving. “Not all of us can pretend nothing’s wrong. Some of us aren’t dressing up like we’re headed to the damn runway when our child hasn’t been heard from in weeks.”

The air snapped. My mother’s smile faltered.

“No party?” Gia said, confused. “Then why’d you come? I thought… I thought you were picking us up for your celebration.”

Eva rolled her eyes—twice in one conversation. A record.

“I came,” she said, “to see if the two of you were hiding my girl. Because I don’t believe for a second that Serena would go this long without calling me.”

She was right.

I wouldn’t have.

Not unless I was— Dead.

…

My parents never had a fairytale marriage. Not even close.

My mother hated my father’s poor financial back then. So she left him. Stormed off one night, full of spite and pride—and promptly had a one-night stand with a stranger.

Then came me.

At first, she thought I was that stranger’s child. So she didn’t love me.

To her, I wasn’t a daughter—I was a mistake. Proof that she’d ruined her chances of reconciling with the man she claimed to hate. I was the wall between her and my father. The reason she couldn’t go back.

When I was four, she saw my father’s feature appearing on my face. So she got hold of a lock of his hair. A paternity test later, and everything changed.

I wasn’t the stranger’s kid after all.

I was his.

Just like that, she showed up on my father’s doorstep, holding me in her arms like a prop from a soap opera. “I’ve come back,” she said. “With your child.”

Of course, life wasn’t a romance novel. It wasn’t some dramatic reunion with kisses and a happy family photo at the end.

My father was already married.

His wife had a daughter—Gia. Though it was not my father’s, he’d practically raised her as his own.

And Marco?

Marco was a secret. A child my mother had later…with someone else. A secret my father still didn’t know.

So the only child in this family who belonged to both of them—by blood—and still, I was loved by neither.

Maybe they’d just grown out of loving me.

…

“We still haven’t—” my mother started, hesitant.

“You still haven’t heard from Serena?” Eva’s voice cut like a blade, rising in fury as she stood. “Exactly how spectacularly have you two failed as parents? You sent your twenty-year-old daughter to a criminal, and now she’s vanished—and you still haven’t called the police?”

“Calm down,” my father said with a sigh, waving her off. “She’s probably been arrested with Rossi. She’ll call us once she’s out.”

Eva’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re a goddamn moron.”

She sat down with a thud, rage curling around every word. “Have you even tried tracking her phone? Or did it not occur to you that maybe she’s in danger?”

“And what do you expect us to do?” my father snapped. “Call the cops and say what? ‘Hey, we handed our daughter off to one of your top ten most wanted drug lords, just wondering if she’s locked up in the back somewhere’?”

He sneered. “You’ve lost your mind. I’m her father. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

Eva stared at him, then said coolly, “You better hope so. That girl’s been through hell already. Especially after she gave you her bone marrow.”

Silence. Thick. Instant.

My father blinked. “What the fuck are you talking about? It was Gia who donated. We all saw the odds. One in a million.”

Eva let out a humorless laugh. “Jesus Christ. You really are delusional. Serena was your match. It was her marrow that saved your worthless life.”

Eva was right—I’d donated anonymously and only told her about it.

I didn’t want dad to feel obligated to love me. I just wanted him to be okay.

And somehow… Gia got the credit? She lied?

“Just check the record, moron,” Eva seethed, “I can’t believe you brought someone else’s daughter in your house and let her abuse your own daughter.”

“That’s enough!” my father roared, standing up so fast the chair scraped the floor. “I’ve always respected you, Eva—but Gia is the child I bottle-fed and raised in diapers. She is my daughter. She isn’t someone else’s.”

Eva’s voice was ice. “So you’ll just keep pamper the one you raised—and let the one who saved your life to suck up for that monster?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Eva stormed off, heels sharp against the marble floor. My mother shrank into her silence.

And then my father’s phone rang. His brows furrowed.

He looked down.

The screen read: Serena Barone calling.

Father pressed Answer—and barked into the phone before it even fully connected.

“You dare to call us now?” he snapped. “After disappearing for this long? Where the hell are you? Are you with the police?”

Silence.