Seraphina POV:

I woke to a world of blinding white and a pain so sharp it seared through me.

A voice was shouting, distant. "Massive internal bleeding! Get her to an OR, now!"

I was on a gurney, being rushed down a hallway. The ceiling lights blurred into a single, painful streak.

"Hang on, ma'am," a kind voice said near my ear. "We're going to take care of you."

A different voice, more distant, barked out orders. "Page Dr. Evans. And check her vitals again. She's eight weeks pregnant."

Pregnant.

The word sliced through the fog of my pain. A tiny, impossible flicker of joy ignited in the center of my terror. A baby. Our baby.

"Blood pressure is dropping! We need O-negative, now!" a nurse yelled.

"The bank is nearly empty!" another replied, her voice tight with panic. "Dr. Santos just used the last six units for a VIP patient in plastics."

Dr. Santos. The name snagged on something in my mind. Dante.

The nurse with the kind voice was on the phone. "Dante, it's Chloe. I've got a Jane Doe here, a car crash victim, and she's critical. She's pregnant. We're losing them both. I need you to authorize a diversion from the private reserve. It's the only way."

I could hear his voice, tinny and impatient over the speakerphone. "I can't. Those reserves are for Isabella. She might have post-op complications."

"Dante, she's stable! This woman, and your... this baby will die!" Chloe pleaded.

"Isabella is my priority," he said, his voice a blade of ice. "Do not contact me on this line again."

The line went dead.

I understood. For a potential minor complication for Isabella, Dante had just signed my death warrant. And our child's.

A faint, fluttering sensation deep inside me, like a tiny bird's wing brushing against my soul. A hello and a goodbye, all in one.

Then, darkness.

I woke up. The searing agony had faded to a dull, heavy ache. The surgery was over. Chloe, the kind nurse, was sitting by my bed.

"You're stable," she said softly, her eyes full of a pity I couldn't bear. "The surgery was a success."

She took a breath. "I'm so sorry. The baby... the baby didn't make it."

The words hung in the sterile air. I felt them, but they didn't land. I was already hollow.

"Isabella?" I asked, my voice a dry rasp. "Is she safe?"

Chloe's face tightened. "Her... minor cosmetic procedure was a success, yes. Dr. Santos ensured she had the very best of everything."

A bitter smile touched my lips. Of course he did.

I reached for the nightstand. For my purse. For the black leather ledger inside. With a hand that felt disconnected from my own body, I wrote the final entry.

-5 points: He let our child die to save her.

The score was zero.

Every bond, every memory, every last, foolish hope I had for Dante Santos was severed. It was all gone.

That night, I signed my own discharge papers against medical advice. I went back to the empty house.

On his pillow, where his head would lie, I left two things.

The signed divorce agreement.

And the black ledger, opened to the very last page.

I picked up the one small suitcase I had already packed, walked through the silent, cavernous rooms one last time, and pulled the front door shut behind me.

I didn't look back.

Seraphina POV:

The airplane shattered the thick layer of clouds, and the cabin was flooded with a brilliant, almost violent, sunlight.

I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window and felt a sensation I hadn't known in three years.

Release.

My new life was beginning.

Dante POV:

I jolted awake in Isabella's bed, a sharp, inexplicable pain seizing my chest.

It felt like my ribs were cracking, my heart being squeezed by an invisible fist.

"Seraphina," I whispered, the name escaping my lips before I was even fully conscious.

A sudden, cold panic washed over me-primal and overwhelming.

I needed to go home.

I needed to see her.

Now.

"Dante? What's wrong?" Isabella murmured, stirring beside me.

I ignored her. I threw on my clothes, my hands shaking, and grabbed my keys.

"Where are you going?" she called after me, her voice laced with irritation. "I thought we were having breakfast."

I didn't answer. I drove home at a reckless speed, my mind a chaotic storm of unease. The feeling that something was terribly, fundamentally wrong grew with every mile.

I burst through the front door, the sound echoing in the unnatural silence of the house.

"Seraphina!" I called out.

Nothing.

I ran through the rooms, my heart pounding against my ribs. Her office was tidy, her drafting table clear. I threw open the doors to our walk-in closet.

Her side was empty.

The neat rows of shoes, the colorful silks, the scent of her perfume that always lingered in the air-all gone.

It was a gaping wound in the heart of our home.

My phone rang. It was the housekeeper, Maria. "Mr. Santos, is everything alright?"

"Where is she, Maria?" I demanded, my voice tight. "Where is Seraphina?"

"I... I don't know, sir," she stammered. "The movers came yesterday."

Before I could process that, my other line buzzed. Isabella. I clicked over.

"She was here," Isabella said, her voice a hysterical whisper. "She came to my apartment while you were sleeping. She told me... she told me if I didn't leave you, she would ruin me. She said I stole you from her."

The words, the lie, slotted into the confusion and panic in my head. It made a sick kind of sense. A jealous wife, pushed too far. In my fractured state, it was the easiest narrative to grasp.

"Maria," I said, switching back to the housekeeper's call, my voice cold with anger. "When you hear from my wife, you tell her she owes Isabella an apology."

I hung up and stormed out of the house, heading back to Isabella's. But as I drove, a deep, gnawing unease about Seraphina's disappearance settled in my gut. It didn't feel right.

I got to Isabella's apartment and saw the show she was putting on-the shimmering tears that never fell, the dramatic performance. For the first time, it didn't stir my protective instincts. It just felt... hollow.

I had no time for this. An overwhelming urge pulled at me, telling me to go home, to wait for Seraphina, to prove this gnawing fear in my gut wrong.

I looked at the woman I thought I loved, the woman I had just wrecked my home for, and realized I was looking at a stranger.

And the woman I had ignored, the woman I had taken for granted, was the only one I wanted to see.

Dante POV:

"Why would she threaten you?" I asked Isabella, my voice level. "That's not her style."

Isabella's face crumpled. "Because she's jealous, Dante! You chose me."

The door to her apartment swung open and Marco walked in, his expression carved from stone. He glanced from me to a crying Isabella and scoffed.

"Still playing the victim?" he said to her, contempt lacing every word. He turned his cold eyes on me. "You should have been at the hospital. With your dying, pregnant wife."

The words didn't register at first. They were just sounds, disconnected from meaning.

Dying. Pregnant. Wife.

The air was stolen from my lungs. It felt like I'd been punched in the gut, the force of it knocking me back a step. Pregnant. Seraphina was pregnant.

A wave of guilt so suffocating it made my stomach turn crashed over me. Thank God she wasn't here. Thank God she couldn't see the look on my face.

Thoughts of Seraphina consumed me for the rest of the day. My friends tried to cheer me up, dragging me out for a drink, but their voices were a dull buzz in the background, meaningless.

All I could see was her face from the day of the fire, the quiet hope shining in her eyes.

That night, back at Isabella's, she tried to seduce me. Her hands moved over my chest, her lips found my neck. It was a familiar dance, one that used to set my blood on fire.

Tonight, I felt nothing. A hollow emptiness where the heat used to be.

My mind was somewhere else entirely. I was remembering the shy way Seraphina would touch my arm, the way her cheeks would flush when I caught her looking at me. A faint, genuine smile touched my lips at the memory.

Isabella saw it. "What are you smiling about?" she asked, her voice sharp, cutting through the haze.

The smile vanished. I felt nothing for the woman in my arms but a numb, weary sense of obligation. The passion was gone, burned out, leaving only ash.

Later, after she'd fallen asleep, the landline at my house rang, forwarded to my cell. My heart slammed against my ribs. It had to be Seraphina.

I answered, my voice thick with a desperate hope.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Santos?" It was Maria, the housekeeper. Her voice was hesitant. "I'm just calling to confirm... you told me to have Mrs. Santos prepare a celebratory dinner for your return. Are you still expecting that?"

She was back.

She was home.

A wave of intense, dizzying relief slammed into me, so powerful it almost brought me to my knees. She was home.

The relief was immediately followed by a deep, gut-wrenching regret for everything I had done, everything I had said. But she was home.

I could fix this.

I had to.