Seraphina Vitiello POV

Pain and silence defined the next forty-eight hours.

I remained in the basement, subsisting on stale bread and tepid water because I refused to crawl to the kitchen and beg.

On the morning of my departure, my mother descended the stairs.

"We're going to dinner," she said, her voice void of warmth. "A show of unity before the wedding. You're coming."

"I can barely walk," I rasped.

"I don't care if you have to drag yourself across the pavement," she snapped. "Dante insists. He wants to make sure you understand your place before you go."

They forced me into a dress with a high back to conceal the bandages.

We took the convoy. Three black SUVs.

Dante and Isabella were in the lead car. My parents were in the second. I was relegated to the third, flanked by two bodyguards who looked at me like I was contagious.

The convoy cut a path toward a steakhouse downtown.

I stared out the window. The city passed by in streaks of grey and neon.

I closed my eyes and allowed myself a dangerous luxury: hope.

In the dream, the car stopped. Dante opened my door. He saw the blood seeping through my dress. He picked me up. He apologized. He said he knew.

*BOOM.*

The world disintegrated.

Metal screamed. Glass exploded inward like shrapnel.

My head slammed against the window.

Our SUV spun out of control, slamming into the median with bone-jarring force.

I was thrown against the seatbelt, the strap digging into my fresh wounds. I screamed, but the sound was lost in the chaos.

Gunfire.

We were being ambushed.

I looked through the shattered windshield, vision swimming.

The lead car—Dante's car—had been rammed by a heavy truck. It was crumpled on the passenger side.

Dante kicked his door open.

He stumbled out, blood trickling down his forehead.

He ran around the car.

He ripped the passenger door open with his bare hands, muscles straining against the steel.

He pulled Isabella out.

She was screaming, thrashing, perfectly alive.

"I've got you!" he roared. "Cover me!"

He carried her toward the safety of the arriving backup vehicles.

He ran past my car.

My window was gone. I was hanging sideways, trapped by the crushed metal of the door.

I reached out a hand, fingers trembling.

"Dante," I choked out.

He looked at me.

For a second, our eyes met.

He saw me trapped. He saw the smoke rising from the engine block of my car.

He looked down at Isabella in his arms. She had a mere scratch on her cheek.

He set his jaw, turned his head forward, and kept running.

He left me.

Again.

The heat from the engine was becoming unbearable.

"Get the girl!" a bodyguard shouted from outside.

Not Dante. Just a paid employee.

The guard dragged me out seconds before the fuel tank ignited.

The blast threw us to the ground.

I lay on the asphalt, watching the flames lick the sky.

Ambulances screamed in the distance.

Paramedics swarmed the scene.

"This one is critical!" a medic shouted, kneeling beside me. "BP is dropping fast. Internal bleeding."

"Wait!" my father's voice cut through the noise.

He was standing over Isabella, who was sitting on a gurney, hysterically crying about a broken nail.

"Check my daughter first," he ordered the medics. "She's the bride. She needs to be perfect."

"Sir, this woman is dying," the medic argued.

"I said check Isabella!" Dante barked. "Do as he says."

The medic hesitated, then stood up and walked away from me.

I watched them fuss over Isabella.

I watched Dante stroke her hair.

The darkness crept in at the edges of my vision.

It was peaceful this time.

I welcomed the void.

Seraphina Vitiello POV

I didn't die.

Apparently, the universe wasn't done with its joke yet.

I woke up in the same hospital room, anchored to the same bed.

My body was a patchwork of agony. Burns, cuts, lash marks, bruises—a living map of violence.

A doctor was checking my chart at the foot of the bed. He looked hollowed out by exhaustion.

"Your spleen ruptured," he said without looking up, his voice flat. "We fixed it. You're lucky."

"Am I?" I asked, my voice raspy.

He paused, his gaze drifting to the empty chairs in the room.

"No one is coming," he said softly. "They called. They said you are to be discharged tomorrow morning. They have a flight booked for you to London at noon."

"Okay," I said.

"They also said..." He hesitated, shifting uncomfortably. "They said if you miss the flight, they will cut off your medical insurance."

I laughed. It hurt, sending a spike of fire through my ribs, but I laughed.

"Thank you, Doctor."

He left, unable to meet my eyes.

I waited until nightfall.

I got out of bed. Every movement was a scream trapped inside my skin, but I swallowed it.

I found my bag. It had been recovered from the wreck. Singed, but intact.

I took out the envelope with the ticket to London.

I shredded it into confetti.

I pulled out my phone. I had a secret account. Money I had earned doing online translation work under a fake name. It wasn't a fortune, but it was enough.

I booked a ticket.

Not to London.

To Sydney, Australia.

The farthest place on the map I could find.

Then I pulled out the legal documents.

I had prepared them months ago, in my previous life, but never had the courage to sign them.

*Emancipation of a Minor.*

I wasn't a minor anymore, but the addendum was a legal termination of familial rights. A formal disownment.

I signed it. My signature was shaky, but the ink was permanent.

I found a small gift box in the bedside drawer—a complimentary chocolate box from the hospital. I dumped the chocolates onto the sterile counter.

I put the papers inside.

Then I reached into the hidden lining of my bag and pulled out a cassette tape.

It was old. Analog.

I had recorded it in the safe house. Just me and Dante talking in the dark. No names. Just voices.

*"Tell me a story, Seven,"* his voice on the tape whispered.

*"Once upon a time, there was a beast who was blind,"* my voice answered.

Isabella couldn't fake this. She didn't know the stories.

I put the tape in the box.

I closed the lid.

This was it.

The truth. And the goodbye.