Seraphina Vitiello POV

The hospital room was blindingly white.

Everything was always white.

I had lost my spleen to internal bleeding.

Three cracked ribs had been added to the collection.

My previously fractured shinbone was now severely re-injured, threatening to set back my recovery by months.

The doctor told me I was lucky.

Lucky.

That word had lost all meaning.

My father loomed at the foot of the bed.

He looked annoyed that I had survived. My breathing complicated things.

"The flight to London has been rescheduled," he said, his voice devoid of warmth. "You leave in three weeks. No more delays."

He didn't ask how I was.

He didn't apologize for leaving me to die in a burning car.

"Dante is handling the retaliation against the Russians," he added, checking his watch. "He is very busy. Do not expect a visit."

I didn't expect anything.

I just nodded.

When he left, I waited for the nurse to change my IV and leave the room.

Then, I moved.

My body screamed in protest, but my mind was clear. Cold and sharp as a scalpel.

I retrieved the go-bag I had hidden in the ventilation shaft of the hospital bathroom during my last visit.

I had been planning this for months. Long before the gala.

I pulled out the burner phone.

I logged into the offshore account.

The money I had siphoned off from the family's charity fund over the last three years sat there, waiting.

It wasn't a fortune, but it was enough.

I booked a ticket.

Not to London.

To Sydney.

One way.

I printed the boarding pass in the business center down the hall, using a stolen hospital ID, ignoring the agony in my ribs with every step. My leg, though still weak, could bear my weight with careful effort, thanks to weeks of secret, painful exercises in my room.

Then I went back to the room.

I took out the legal documents I had prepared.

Emancipation papers.

Name change forms.

I signed them. The ink looked black and final.

*Seraphina Vitiello* ceased to exist on that paper.

Then I took out the flash drive.

The recordings.

The hours of audio from the safe house.

Me reading to Dante.

Me singing to him.

Him whispering his secrets. Him telling me he loved *Sette*.

I put the papers and the drive into a small gift box.

I tied it with a pristine white ribbon.

It looked like a wedding gift.

In a way, it was.

It was the gift of truth.

And truth was the most destructive weapon I possessed.

I dressed in the clothes from my bag. Jeans. A hoodie.

I looked like a nobody.

I looked like a ghost.

I walked out of the hospital.

No one stopped me.

The guards were posted at the main entrance, watching for Russians.

They weren't watching for the girl who didn't matter.

I slid into a taxi.

"Take me to the Vitiello estate," I said.

The driver looked at me in the mirror.

"You sure, miss? That's a rough neighborhood."

"I'm just dropping off a package," I said.

"And then I'm gone."

Seraphina Vitiello POV

The Uber idled before the massive iron gates.

It was the morning of the wedding, and the air hummed with frantic energy.

Delivery trucks were lining up to gain entry. Flowers. Catering. The architects of a fairy tale I was about to ruin.

I got out of the car.

I walked to the guard booth, my spine stiff against the lingering pain in my body.

"Call Dante," I said.

The guard hesitated, his gaze flickering over me, then picked up the phone.

A minute later, Dante walked down the driveway.

He looked wrecked. There were dark, bruised circles under his eyes, like he hadn't slept in days.

He saw me and scowled.

"You're supposed to be on a plane to London," he said.

His voice was rough, a scrape of gravel.

"I missed my flight," I lied.

He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of pure exhaustion.

"Jesus, Seraphina. Do you ever stop being a burden? I don't have time for this. I have to get married in four hours."

"I know," I said.

I held out the white box.

"I just wanted to give you this."

He looked at it suspiciously, making no move to touch it.

"What is it?"

"A wedding gift," I said, forcing the title past my lips. "For my brother-in-law."

He didn't take it.

Marco, his underboss, stepped forward and took the box from my hand.

"Check it for bombs," Dante muttered.

I almost smiled.

It *is* a bomb, Dante, I thought. Just not the kind that explodes. It’s the kind that leaves nothing behind.

"I'm not going to London," I said softly.

He looked at me then. Really looked at me, his eyes searching mine for the game I was playing.

"What?"

"I'm going away," I said. "Somewhere you will never find me."

"Good," he said.

The word hung in the air between us.

Cold. Absolving. Final.

He turned his back on me.

He walked back up the driveway, moving towards the house where my sister was waiting to marry him.

He walked towards the lie he had chosen.

I watched him go until he was just a blur against the manicured landscape.

"Goodbye, Dante," I whispered.

I got back into the Uber.

"Airport," I told the driver.

As we merged onto the highway, I rolled down the window.

I took the SIM card out of my phone.

With a sharp *snap*, I broke it in half.

I threw it out the window.

I watched it bounce on the asphalt and disappear into the rush of traffic.

The wind whipped my hair across my face.

I took a deep breath.

It hurt my bruised ribs, but the air tasted different.

It didn't taste like blood or expensive cologne or fear.

It tasted like nothing.

And nothing was exactly what I wanted to be.

The girl who loved Dante Moretti died in a basement in Chicago.

The woman who landed in Sydney would be someone else entirely.

I closed my eyes and let the distance swallow me whole.

Seraphina Vitiello POV

The plane plummeted fifty feet in a single second.

My stomach lurched into my throat, a violent upheaval that tasted of bile.

The cabin lights flickered and died for a terrifying heartbeat.

Someone in the row behind me screamed.

I didn't scream.

I gripped the armrests until my knuckles turned bone white, my fingernails digging into the leather. My breathing was shallow, ragged gasps, each one sending a fresh jolt of pain through my still-healing ribs and the ache in my re-injured leg. I had taken extra pain medication before boarding, but the turbulence ripped through the dulling fog.

I wasn't on a plane anymore.

I was back in the SUV.

I was upside down.

I smelled the acrid stench of leaking gasoline.

I saw the fire eating the metal, curling around the frame like a hungry beast.

I saw Dante sprinting past my window without a single backward glance.

The plane shook again, violently this time, rattling my teeth.

My vision blurred.

Black spots danced at the edges of my sight, threatening to pull me under.

I couldn't breathe.

My ribs, the ones that were still healing, felt like a cage shrinking around my lungs, squeezing the life out of me.

A hand touched my arm.

I flinched.

I expected a blow.

I expected Dante's rough grip or my father's heavy, punishing hand.

But the touch was gentle.

Warm.

Solid.

I looked up.

The man in the seat next to me was watching me.

He had dark hair and eyes the color of aged whiskey.

He wasn't looking at me like I was a spare part or a nuisance to be dealt with.

He was looking at me like I was a person in distress.

"Breathe," he said softly.

His voice was deep, a rumble in his chest, but it lacked the sharp edge of command I was used to.

I tried to inhale.

The air in the cabin was stale.

It smelled of recycled oxygen and collective fear.

"Here," he said.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a blanket.

It was cashmere. Charcoal grey and impossibly soft.

He draped it over my shaking shoulders.

It smelled like sandalwood and expensive soap.

It didn't smell like blood.

It didn't smell like gunpowder.

"Focus on the fabric," he said, his tone low and grounding. "Feel how soft it is. You are safe."

I buried my nose in the blanket.

I focused on the sandalwood.

I counted the threads in my mind.

One. Two. Three.

The plane stabilized.

The pilot came over the intercom, his voice crackling as he apologized for the turbulence.

My heart rate began to slow, the thunder in my ears fading to a dull thrum.

I looked at the man.

"Thank you," I whispered.

He smiled.

It was a genuine smile. It reached his eyes, crinkling the corners.

"I'm Luca," he said.

I hesitated.

Seraphina Vitiello was dead. She died in the wreckage in Chicago.

"I am... Sarah," I lied.

"Nice to meet you, Sarah," Luca said. "First time flying?"

"No," I said. "Just the first time escaping."

The words slipped out before I could stop them.

He didn't pry.

He just nodded, as if escaping was the most natural thing in the world.

We landed in Sydney fourteen hours later.

The sun was blinding.

It wasn't the grey, oppressive light of Chicago.

It was gold. It was alive.

I walked through customs with my heart in my throat. Every step was a careful calculation, my leg protesting the journey, but my resolve hardened with each unchallenged moment.

I expected a hand on my shoulder.

I expected Marco or Dante to drag me back to the basement, to the darkness.

But no one stopped me.

The stamp in my passport hit the paper with a dull, final thud.

"Welcome to Australia," the officer said.

I walked out into the arrivals hall, my legs trembling.

I found a taxi rank.

The driver was an older man with faded tattoos on his forearms.

"Where to, love?" he asked.

I looked at the skyline.

"Anywhere," I said. "Just drive."

He chuckled, a gravelly sound.

"Running from something or running to something?"

"Both," I said.

He put the car in gear.

"Well, you came to the right place," he said, glancing in the rearview mirror. "Sydney is a city of second chances. Even for old convicts like me."

I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window.

A convict and a mafia princess.

We were both criminals in our own way.

I watched the city blur past.

For the first time in my life, the road ahead wasn't paved with someone else's expectations.

It was just a road.