Seraphina Vitiello POV

Dante crashed into the water, shattering the surface.

He gathered Isabella into his arms as if she were made of spun glass, shielding her from a threat that didn't exist.

She was sobbing hysterically, her fingers clawing at his soaked shirt.

"She tried to drown me!" she wailed, her voice echoing off the stone walls. "She tried to kill me, Dante!"

I lay sprawled on the cold stones, my breath hitching as agony tore through me.

My fractured leg was twisted at a sickening angle beneath me. Pain radiated up my thigh, white-hot and blinding, stealing the air from my lungs.

I tried to push myself up, my arms trembling.

Dante turned.

His face was no longer the face of the man I knew. It was a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.

"You are sick," he spat, the words landing like physical blows.

"I didn't touch her," I gasped, fighting the black spots dancing in my vision.

"Liar!" Isabella screamed, burying her face in the crook of his neck to hide her dry eyes. "She said she hated me! She said she wished the sign had killed me!"

Dante stepped out of the fountain, water streaming from his clothes. He set Isabella down gently on a stone bench, treating her with a tenderness that shattered my heart.

Then, he turned his attention to me.

He stalked forward, water dripping from his clothes like blood.

He looked like an executioner.

"Attempted murder on a made man's fiancée," he said. His voice was terrifyingly calm, a deadly contrast to the rage in his eyes. "Do you know the punishment for that, Seraphina?"

"You're blind," I whispered, my voice cracking.

He stopped dead.

"What did you say?"

"You were blind when I found you, and you are blind now," I rasped, looking up at him through a haze of pain. "You see nothing."

Before he could respond, my father burst into the courtyard, flanked by two soldiers.

"What is happening?" the Don roared, his presence sucking the oxygen from the air.

"She attacked Isabella!" Dante shouted, never taking his eyes off me.

My father didn't hesitate. He didn't ask for my side. He didn't look at my broken leg.

He crossed the distance in two strides and backhanded me across the face.

The force of the blow snapped my head back. Metallic tang filled my mouth. I tasted blood.

"Disgrace," my father hissed, looking down at me as if I were something he had scraped off his shoe.

"Take her to the Cooler," Dante ordered the soldiers, his voice devoid of mercy.

My eyes went wide with terror.

The Cooler. The hospital morgue. The place where they kept the bodies before disposal.

"Dante, no," I pleaded, panic overriding the pain in my leg. "It's freezing down there. You can't..."

"You need to cool off," he said coldly, turning his back on me. "Maybe a night with the dead will teach you to respect the living."

The soldiers seized my arms.

They didn't help me stand. They dragged me.

My cast scraped loudly against the concrete, vibrating the shattered bone beneath.

I screamed, a raw, guttural sound, but no one listened. No one cared.

They shoved me into the service elevator.

They took me down, past the basement, into the bowels of the building.

The air grew sharp and biting. The chemical sting of formaldehyde assaulted my nose.

They hauled me to the heavy steel door of the morgue and threw it open.

Inside, rows of stainless steel drawers lined the walls, gleaming under the harsh fluorescent lights.

It was freezing. A tomb of ice.

They threw me onto the tiled floor. My hip slammed against the hard surface, sending fresh waves of nausea through me.

"Think about what you did," one of the soldiers sneered.

Then they slammed the door.

The lock clicked with a sound of finality.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

It was absolute. Heavy. Suffocating.

The cold began to seep into my bones immediately, bypassing my skin and settling deep in my marrow.

I curled into a ball, tucking my knees to my chest, trying desperately to preserve heat.

My teeth began to chatter violently.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to imagine the safe house.

I tried to remember the crackle and heat of the fireplace.

I tried to remember Dante's body heat, the way I had lain next to him to stop his shivering when the fever took him.

*I am cold, Sette,* he had whispered then, vulnerable and broken.

*I am here,* I had answered, holding him tight.* I will keep you warm.*

I had given him my warmth.

I had given him my blanket.

And now, he had locked me in a freezer.

The irony felt like a serrated knife twisting in my gut.

As the hypothermia set in, I started to hallucinate.

I saw shadows detach themselves from the corners.

I heard whispers echoing off the tiles.

I realized they were the voices of the girls who had died on the operating table before me. The other spares. The ones who hadn't made it.

I was going to die here.

And the man I loved was the one who had turned the key.

Seraphina Vitiello POV

The door groaned open, the sound of grinding metal echoing against the concrete walls.

Light flooded in, harsh and sudden, blinding me.

I was huddled in the corner, my lips blue and my body shaking uncontrollably.

Dante stood in the doorway.

He was dry now, immaculate in a fresh suit.

He looked at me with undisguised disgust.

"Get up," he said.

I tried. But my legs wouldn't work; they were numb, dead weight beneath me.

He sighed, impatient.

He walked over and hauled me up by my arm with zero gentleness.

My frozen limbs screamed in protest as the blood rushed back too quickly.

"Have you repented?" he asked.

I looked at him.

His eyes were hard as flint.

"Yes," I whispered. My voice was a broken croak.

"Good. Because tonight is the engagement gala. You will be there. You will smile. And you will apologize to your sister."

He dragged me out of the morgue.

He didn't offer me a jacket.

We went back to the estate in silence.

Once inside, I went straight to my room.

I took a scalding shower, trying to scrub the smell of death off my skin.

My skin turned raw and red, but I still felt cold inside.

After drying off, I walked to my closet.

I pulled out a shoebox from the back shelf.

It held everything.

A dried flower from the safe house garden.

A bloody piece of gauze I had saved from when I tended his wounds.

A photo I had taken of him sleeping, his eyes bandaged.

I looked at them.

Trash.

It was all just trash.

I took the box to the trash chute in the hallway.

Dante was walking by just as I approached. He stopped.

"What is that?" he asked.

"Garbage," I said.

I opened the chute.

I tipped the box.

The memories tumbled down into the darkness.

I heard them hit the compactor three floors down with a final thud.

"Better to get rid of the clutter," Dante said, adjusting his cuffs indifferently. "You're leaving for London in two days anyway."

"Yes," I said, my voice hollow. "Just clutter."

I went back to my room and dressed.

I chose a black dress.

Long sleeves to hide the bruises from where the soldiers had grabbed me.

A high collar to hide the mark from my father's ring.

I looked like a widow.

I went downstairs to the ballroom.

It was filled with the elite of the criminal underworld.

Crystal chandeliers glittered overhead. Champagne towers caught the light.

Isabella was in white. Of course.

She looked like an angel.

My father tapped his glass.

Silence fell over the room.

"We are here to celebrate the union of the Vitiello and Moretti families," he announced.

Cheers and applause erupted.

Dante stepped onto the stage. He took the microphone.

He looked at Isabella with a possessiveness that made my stomach turn.

"Isabella is the light of my life," he said, his voice smooth. "She saved me when I was in darkness."

He turned to her and pulled out a ring box.

A massive diamond sparkled inside.

"Marry me, Isabella."

"Yes!" she screamed.

She kissed him.

The crowd roared.

I stood in the back, hidden near the kitchen doors.

I watched the man I loved promise his life to the woman who wanted to harvest my organs.

I felt a strange sense of peace.

The hope was dead.

And with the death of hope, the pain finally stopped.

I was just a ghost now.

And ghosts don't cry at their own funerals.

Seraphina Vitiello POV

The ballroom was a gilded cage of crystal and light, and I was the unwanted ornament standing in the corner, my wings long since clipped.

Isabella was holding court near the ice sculpture.

She lifted her hand, ensuring the massive diamond on her finger caught the light from every angle.

It was a beautiful ring.

It had been bought with blood money, but it sparkled just the same.

I adjusted my sleeve self-consciously.

The bruise on my arm, a souvenir from where the soldier had dragged me to the morgue, was throbbing.

But that pain was nothing compared to the ache of the lava stone bracelet against my wrist.

It was a cheap thing.

Rough, porous black stones strung on a simple elastic band.

I had made it in the safe house.

I had slid it onto Dante's wrist when his fever broke.

*To ground you,* I had told him.

He had given it back to me the day he left, before his sight returned.

*Keep it for me, Sette. Until I see you.*

But he never saw me.

He only saw Isabella.

Across the room, I saw Isabella's gaze snap to me.

She wasn't looking at my face. She was fixated on my wrist.

Her eyes narrowed.

She whispered something to Dante.

He stiffened.

They began to walk towards me.

The crowd parted for them like the Red Sea.

Dante looked lethal in his tuxedo. A predator in formal wear.

Isabella wore the mask of a victim she always pretended to be.

"That bracelet," Isabella said, her voice trembling just enough to draw attention.

I covered my wrist with my other hand, a futile shield.

"It is mine," I said.

"It's the one I made for Dante," she lied. "The one that went missing from my jewelry box."

The lie was so easy for her.

It rolled off her tongue like honey.

Dante's eyes dropped to my hand.

"Show me," he commanded.

I didn't move.

He reached out and seized my wrist.

His grip was iron.

He pushed my sleeve up.

The black beads sat stark against my pale skin.

"You stole this from her?" Dante asked. His voice was low, dangerous.

I looked up at him.

I searched for a flicker of recognition.

I searched for the man who had kissed these fingertips in the dark.

"I made this," I whispered. "I gave it to you."

"Liar!" Isabella shrieked.

She turned to the gathering crowd, tears instantly springing to her eyes.

"She steals everything! My clothes, my jewelry. Now she tries to steal the memories of how I saved you, Dante!"

The murmurs started.

*The jealous sister.*

*The unstable one.*

Dante's face hardened into stone.

"Take it off," he said.

"No," I said.

It was the first time I had defied a direct order from a Capo in public.

The air was sucked out of the room.

My father appeared beside us.

His face was purple with rage.

"Give it to your sister, Seraphina. Do not embarrass this family."

"It is mine," I repeated. "I am Sette."

My father didn't let me finish.

He didn't use the back of his hand this time.

He used his fist.

He struck me squarely in the jaw.

The force of the blow lifted me off my feet.

I flew backward.

I crashed into the champagne tower.

Glass shattered.

Hundreds of crystal flutes exploded around me.

I hit the floor hard.

Shards of glass sliced into my arms, my back, my neck.

Champagne soaked my dress, stinging the fresh cuts.

I lay there, dazed.

Blood mixed with the expensive wine, pooling on the white marble floor.

I looked up through a haze of pain.

My mother was standing over me.

She held a glass of red wine.

She poured it over my face.

"Disgrace," she spat.

The wine ran into my eyes, burning like acid.

I blinked, trying to clear my vision.

I saw Dante.

He wasn't looking at me.

He was holding Isabella's hands, inspecting them.

"Did any glass hit you?" he asked urgently.

"No," she sobbed. "But she ruined the party, Dante. She ruined everything."

He pulled her into his chest.

"Don't look at her," he said.

He stepped over my legs.

He reached down and ripped the bracelet from my wrist.

The elastic snapped.

The beads scattered across the floor, rolling in the blood and wine.

He picked up the few that remained on the string and handed them to Isabella.

"I'm sorry she took this from you," he said softly.

I lay in the wreckage of the celebration.

Bleeding.

Broken.

And completely invisible.