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.

Seraphina Vitiello POV

The music upstairs had finally died away.

The guests had been ushered into the gardens for the grand finale, their eyes turned toward the sky for the fireworks.

I was not in the garden.

I was buried beneath them, in the basement of the estate.

The room smelled of old rust and sharp, chemical bleach.

There was a drain in the center of the concrete floor, waiting.

Dante stood by the heavy steel door.

He had already removed his tuxedo jacket. Now, he was methodically rolling up his sleeves, exposing the tattoos on his forearms.

My father sat on a wooden stool in the corner, calmly smoking a cigar.

"Fifty lashes," my father said, the smoke curling around his words. "For theft. For disrespect. And for ruining the toast."

I was on my knees.

My hands were zip-tied to a cold water pipe running along the ceiling above my head.

My back was exposed to the damp air. The expensive black dress had been sliced open from neckline to waist.

Dante picked up a leather strap from the table.

Isabella stood behind him, peeking out from the hallway.

She looked excited, her eyes bright with a cruel curiosity.

"Make sure she learns, Dante," she said, her voice high and demanding. "She needs to learn her place."

Dante paused and looked back at her.

"Wait outside, Isabella," he ordered, his voice flat. "This is ugly. You shouldn't see it."

"No, I want to stay," she pouted, crossing her arms.

"Turn around then," he commanded. "Cover your ears."

He was trying to protect her innocence.

But he was about to flay the skin off my back.

He walked behind me.

I didn't beg.

I didn't cry.

I just rested my forehead against the condensation on the cold pipe and closed my eyes.

One.

The leather cracked against my skin with a sickening snap.

Pain exploded across my shoulders, white-hot and blinding.

Two.

Three.

He fell into a rhythm.

Methodical. Precise.

He was a professional.

I could tell by the swing that he wasn't doing this out of anger. He was doing it out of duty.

That made it worse.

By the twentieth lash, I couldn't distinguish the individual strikes anymore.

It was just a continuous wall of fire searing into my flesh.

Blood began to trickle down my sides. I heard the soft *drip-drip* as it hit the concrete floor.

I bit my lip until I tasted copper to keep from screaming.

I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

I forced my mind away. I thought about the London ticket hidden in my room.

I thought about the plane taking off, the engines roaring.

I thought about the clouds looking like cotton beneath me.

Forty-nine.

Fifty.

Dante stopped.

He was breathing hard behind me.

He dropped the strap.

It landed on the floor with a wet, heavy thud.

"Cut her down," my father said, standing up and brushing ash from his trousers. "Leave her here to think about it until the flight."

Dante took a knife from his belt and sliced through the zip ties.

I collapsed immediately.

My legs wouldn't hold me.

I hit the wet floor hard.

The pain was blinding, radiating from my spine to my fingertips.

Dante stood over me for a second.

For a brief, delirious moment, I thought I saw hesitation in his eyes.

He reached out, his hand hovering as if to touch my shoulder.

Then Isabella called his name from the doorway, her voice impatient.

"Dante, are we done? The fireworks are starting!"

He pulled his hand back instantly.

"We are done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion.

He turned and walked away without looking back.

The heavy metal door slammed shut.

The lock engaged with a final, echoing click.

I was alone in the dark.

Again.

I lay there for a long time, shivering against the concrete.

I was waiting for the darkness to take me.

But it didn't.

My survival instinct—the one thing they couldn't beat out of me—kicked in with a vengeance.

I dragged myself across the floor to the corner where the janitorial supplies were kept.

I found a bottle of cheap vodka my father's guards kept hidden behind a bucket.

I found a sewing kit in the emergency box.

I uncapped the bottle and poured the vodka over my raw back.

The scream tore from my throat then. A raw, animal sound that bounced off the basement walls.

I threaded the needle with trembling fingers.

I couldn't reach everything.

But I stitched what I could.

I stitched my own skin back together in the semi-darkness, with shaking hands and a heart that had finally turned to stone.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I pulled it out, the screen illuminating the blood on my hands.

A text from Isabella.

It was a photo.

She and Dante, standing under the explosion of fireworks.

She was kissing him.

*He is finally mine,* the caption read.

I stared at the screen.

I didn't feel jealousy.

I didn't feel sadness.

I felt nothing.

The love I had for him died on that concrete floor, washed away with the blood and the cheap vodka.

I deleted the photo.

I put the phone away.

I curled up on the cold floor, the needle still clutched in my hand.

I wasn't waiting for London anymore.

I was waiting for my chance.

Seraphina Vitiello POV

Several weeks later.

The convoy was finally moving.

I was seated in the third SUV. The "suicide seat."

It was the car they put the decoys in. Or the expendable assets.

Dante and Isabella were in the lead armored vehicle. My parents secured the second.

We were heading to the airport.

My exile was finally happening.

I stared out the window at the unforgiving grey Chicago sky.

My back was still healing, a constant ache beneath my clothes. My leg, though no longer in a cast, throbbed with every bump in the road, a dull reminder of the fracture. I walked with a slight limp, a physical manifestation of the scars they had given me.

I hadn't spoken a word since the basement.

The driver, a low-level soldier named Rocco, looked at me in the rearview mirror.

"You okay back there?" he asked, his brow furrowed. "You look pale."

I didn't answer.

I just watched the overpass approaching.

I saw the flash an instant before I heard the sound.

An RPG.

It hit the lead car.

The explosion shook the ground beneath us.

Our driver slammed on the brakes.

The SUV swerved, tires screaming against the pavement.

Another explosion hit the asphalt directly in front of us.

The car flipped.

Glass shattered into a million diamonds. Metal groaned like a dying beast.

The world spun.

We rolled once. Twice.

We landed upside down.

I was hanging by my seatbelt, gravity dragging at my injured body.

My head was pounding. Blood dripped warm and thick into my eyes.

I looked to the front. Rocco was dead. His neck was broken at an unnatural angle.

I tried to unbuckle, but the mechanism was jammed.

Gunfire erupted outside.

A chaotic symphony of bullets.

I saw boots on the pavement through the haze.

Then I saw Dante.

He had dragged Isabella out of the burning lead car.

His face was covered in soot.

He was carrying her, shielding her body with his own.

He was running towards the backup vehicle that had pulled up alongside the wreckage.

He ran past my window.

He looked in.

He saw me.

For a heartbeat, time suspended.

Our eyes met through the spiderwebbed glass.

I saw the cold calculation in his eyes.

He had Isabella. She was the asset. She was the future.

I was the spare.

He didn't stop.

He didn't even try to open my door.

He kept running.

He shoved Isabella into the backup car and jumped in after her.

The car sped away, leaving me behind.

I watched his taillights fade into the smoke.

He left me to die.

Again.

Smoke began to fill the cabin.

I smelled gas.

This is it, I thought.

This is how it ends.

It was peaceful, in a way. No more pain. No more silence.

Then the door was ripped open.

A pair of strong hands grabbed me.

It wasn't Dante.

It was a bodyguard from the rear vehicle. Marco.

He cut my seatbelt.

I fell into his arms.

He dragged me out onto the asphalt.

We were barely ten feet away when the SUV exploded.

The heat seared my skin. The shockwave knocked us down.

I hit the ground hard.

Something inside me snapped. Not a bone this time.

Something deep in my abdomen.

Marco was shouting into his radio.

"I have the girl! She's alive!"

I looked up at the sky.

It was starting to rain.

The drops felt cool on my face.

I closed my eyes.

I didn't want to be saved.

But the universe, it seemed, wasn't done torturing me yet.