Seraphina Vitiello POV

The family chapel was a masterpiece of hypocritical beauty. Sunlight bled through stained-glass windows, illuminating saints who had died for their beliefs in glorious, technicolor martyrdom. The irony was sharp enough to draw blood as the guards zip-tied my wrists to the heavy oak railing of the altar.

I was on my knees.

It was the posture of a penitent. It was the posture of the condemned.

My father gripped the cane. It was a length of bamboo, flexible and cruel, a tool he typically reserved for breaking stubborn horses. Now, it was for daughters who had forgotten the weight of Omerta.

"This is for the family," he stated, his voice devoid of warmth.

The first strike hit my back like a branding iron.

Pain exploded across my skin, but I bit down on my tongue until the taste of copper flooded my mouth. I would not scream. I would not give them the satisfaction of my sound.

Dante stood in the shadows near the holy water font. He was watching.

His arms were crossed over his broad chest, his expression carved from stone. He didn't flinch as the bamboo whistled through the air.

There was a time he would have stood between me and the belt. He used to take the hits so I wouldn't have to. Now, he was the reason the cane was falling.

*Crack.*

"Apologize," my father grunted, the exertion audible in his breath.

"No," I wheezed, the air trapped in my burning lungs.

*Crack.*

"Admit you lied."

"No."

*Crack.*

The pain turned white and blinding. It tore through the delicate silk of my blouse and flayed the skin beneath. It was a fire that consumed everything—my love, my loyalty, my very name.

Ten lashes. A biblical number. A nice, round tally for a sinner.

When they finally cut the zip-ties, my legs refused to hold me. I couldn't stand. I crawled.

I dragged myself past the pews, past the judging eyes of the saints, and past the husband who watched me bleed without blinking.

"Take her to her room," Dante ordered the guards. His voice was a flat, dead thing. "Clean her up."

They hauled me upstairs and dumped me onto the floor of the guest room. The master bedroom was locked to me now. That was Lucia's territory.

I managed to pull my broken body into the bathroom. I needed water. I needed to wash the blood away before it dried and fused the shredded silk to my wounds.

I turned on the tap, and the tub began to fill.

The door creaked open.

Lucia stood in the doorway. She was far from the bed rest she was supposedly on; she looked vibrant, her cheeks flushed with health, wearing a silk robe that shimmered in the light.

In her hand, she held a pitcher. Before she even moved, the smell hit me—pungent, acrid, and spicy.

"Poor Sera," she cooed, her voice dripping with poison sugar. "Daddy was rough."

"Get out," I whispered, my knuckles white as I gripped the edge of the porcelain sink to stay upright.

"I brought you something for the pain," she said, stepping closer.

She walked to the tub and upended the pitcher. The liquid poured into the bathwater, turning it a murky, violent red. "Chili oil and salt. An old family recipe. It helps... purify."

Before I could react, she lunged.

She grabbed a fistful of my hair. She was stronger than she looked—or perhaps I was simply too hollowed out to fight back. She shoved me toward the steaming, tainted water.

"Let's wash those wounds," she hissed.

I screamed as the spicy steam seared my face. I wasn't going into that water. Instinct took over, overriding the agony in my back.

I twisted, ignoring the tearing sensation of my skin, and locked my hand around her wrist.

I pulled.

She lost her balance. With a shriek, she tumbled into the tub with me. The chili water splashed in a chaotic wave. It burned my eyes, my open cuts, my throat.

Lucia started wailing immediately. "My baby! My eyes! Help!"

Dante was there in seconds.

He didn't see me struggling to keep my head above the burning water. He only saw Lucia screaming.

He reached in, his fingers closing around my throat, and hauled me out with terrifying force. He threw me backward.

I hit the doorframe. My head snapped back, stars exploding in my vision.

"You crazy bitch!" he roared.

He turned back to help Lucia out of the tub, wrapping her in a towel with frantic gentleness, checking her face, her stomach. "Are you okay? Did she hurt him?"

"She tried to drown me!" Lucia sobbed, burying her face in his chest, playing the victim to perfection. "Just like she drowned!"

Dante turned to me. His eyes were murderous.

He marched over, grabbed my arm, and dragged me out of the bathroom. He didn't stop at the bedroom door. He dragged me to the top of the grand staircase.

"I gave you a chance," he said, his voice low and lethal. "I spared you."

"You killed me," I choked out.

He shoved me.

Gravity took over. I tumbled.

Shoulders slamming against marble. Knees cracking against the stone steps. The world dissolved into a blur of ceiling lights and agonizing impact.

I landed at the bottom in a broken heap. I couldn't feel my left arm. My ribs felt like shattered glass grinding together in my chest.

I looked up through the haze of pain.

Dante stood at the top, holding Lucia close. He stepped over the spot where I had been standing, as if I were nothing more than a stain.

He turned his back on me.

"Get her out of my sight," he said to the empty air.

I was exiled at the break of dawn.

No luggage. No money. Just the blood-crusted clothes on my back and a body that felt less like flesh and bone and more like a roadmap of violence.

The Don's men drove me to the city limits, the tires crunching on gravel as they pulled over. They kicked me out of the car like a stray dog.

"Don't come back," one of them sneered, tossing my purse onto the sidewalk. "Next time, it's a bullet."

I watched their taillights fade, then turned and limped to a bus station. I used the emergency cash I kept sewn into the lining of my purse to buy a ticket to the Upper East Side.

I had one place left to go. The old apartment Dante and I lived in before he became a Capo. My passport was there. My jewelry. My escape.

The doorman didn't recognize me. Why would he? I looked like a junkie—bruised, limping, my hair matted with dried chili water from the torture. But I had the key.

I let myself in. The apartment was quiet. Dust motes danced in the sunlight like ghosts of the life I used to have.

I went straight to the safe in the bedroom closet. I punched in the code. Our anniversary.

The red light blinked. Error.

I tried again. Error.

"Looking for this?"

I spun around. Lucia was sitting in the armchair in the corner, looking pristine in white silk. She held my passport in one hand and a stun gun in the other.

She stood up, the blue electricity crackling between the prongs of the taser with a menacing buzz.

"You just don't know when to quit," she purred.

"That's my passport," I said, backing away until my spine hit the wall. "Give it to me, and I'll disappear. You'll never see me again."

"But Dante might," she smiled, cruel and sharp. "He might get sentimental. He might remember how you looked before I ruined you."

She lunged.

I tried to dodge, but my broken ribs screamed in protest, slowing me down. The taser hit my thigh.

The pain was electric, a white-hot lightning bolt seizing my muscles. I crumpled to the floor.

Lucia stood over me. She kicked me in the stomach. I curled into a ball, retching bile onto the hardwood.

"You are nothing," she spat. "You are the past. I am the future."

The front door opened. Heavy footsteps echoed in the hall.

"Lucia?" Dante's voice.

He walked into the bedroom. He saw me on the floor, broken and gasping. He saw the taser in Lucia's hand.

He didn't rush to help me. He walked over to Lucia and gently took the weapon from her, his expression unreadable.

"What are you doing here?" he asked me, his voice tired and devoid of warmth.

"Getting my things," I gasped, clutching my side. "Leaving."

Dante looked at the passport in Lucia's hand. He took it. He looked at the photo of me, young and smiling, taken before the Bratva, before the betrayal.

He tossed it onto my chest. It landed with a soft thud.

"Go," he said.

"Dante!" Lucia protested, her voice shrill. "She broke in!"

"She is leaving, Lucia," Dante said, his voice hard as stone. He looked down at me, his eyes dark. "You are still my property on paper, Seraphina. But you are dead to this family. If you ever touch my heir, if you ever come near Lucia again..."

He let the threat hang in the air, heavy and suffocating.

I grabbed the passport. I used the bedframe to pull myself up, my legs trembling. I looked at him one last time.

"You will regret this," I whispered, my voice raspy with unshed tears. "When you realize what you've done, there will be no one left to forgive you."

I limped out of the apartment. I didn't look back.

I went straight to the airport. I didn't go to the hospital. I didn't go to the police. I bought a ticket to the first international flight leaving the terminal. New Zealand. The end of the world.

Three days later, my phone rang. It was a burner I had bought at a kiosk. Only one person had the number—Lola.

But it wasn't Lola.

"We have her," a distorted voice said. "Bring two million to the abandoned textile factory in Queens. Or we cut the baby out."

My blood ran cold. Then, the realization hit me like a physical blow.

They didn't have me. I was in Auckland, watching the rain fall on a strange city.

They had Lucia.

Or so they thought.

Dante Moretti POV

The phone call didn’t just break the silence of my office; it detonated it.

"We have Seraphina," the voice on the other end rasped, distortion layering the words with grit. "She's alive. And we're going to finish what the Bratva started unless you bring five million to the docks."

My heart slammed against my ribs, hammering out a violent rhythm I hadn't felt in months.

Seraphina.

She had vanished three days ago. I had convinced myself it was for the best. I had told myself she was dangerous, unstable—a wildfire I couldn't control.

But the silence in the penthouse was deafening. Lucia's incessant prattle about baby names and nursery colors had begun to feel like static interfering with a radio signal.

"Let me speak to her," I demanded, my grip tightening on the mahogany desk.

"No talking. Just payment." The line went dead.

I didn't think. I moved. Instinct took the wheel. I grabbed my keys and my gun in one fluid motion.

"Dante?" Lucia called from the living room, her voice shrill against my panic. "Where are you going?"

"Business," I said, not looking at her. I couldn't. If I looked at her, I would see the woman I chose—the safe option. And right now, all I wanted was the woman I had discarded.

I drove to the hospital first. Lola. The bartender. She was the only one Sera ever really talked to.

I found her smoking outside her apartment building, leaning against the brickwork with a weary slouch. I slammed the car door, the sound echoing like a gunshot.

"Where is she?" I barked, pinning her with a look that usually made grown men beg for mercy.

Lola blew a lazy stream of smoke in my face. "Gone, asshole. And good riddance."

"Someone has her," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous growl. "A kidnapper called. They want ransom."

Lola laughed. It was a harsh, barking sound that grated on my nerves. "Kidnapped? She's on a beach in the southern hemisphere by now, Dante. I saw the flight confirmation. She's gone."

"Then who..." I trailed off, confusion warring with the adrenaline in my veins.

My phone buzzed again. A text. A photo.

It wasn't Seraphina.

It was Lucia.

She was tied to a chair in a warehouse, fear etched into her features. A gun pressed to her temple.

The text read: "Wrong wife. We have the favorite. Bring the money. Or the heir dies."

My stomach dropped as if the floor had vanished beneath me. I had left her alone in the penthouse. The guards... where the hell were the guards?

I ran back to the car. I called the head of security. No answer.

I drove like a man possessed to the coordinates sent in the text. An abandoned textile factory in Queens.

I didn't call for backup. I needed to fix this. I needed to save the mother of my child.

But as I drove, tearing through red lights, a dark thought clawed at my mind. Why did the first caller say they had Seraphina? Why the confusion?

I pulled up to the factory. It was a rotting husk of brick and broken glass, looming against the grey sky. I checked my clip. Full.

I moved into the shadows, hugging the wall. I breached the side door, silent as a ghost. I expected guards. I expected resistance.

There was nothing. Just the melancholy drip of water and the scurrying of rats.

I moved toward the main floor, weapon raised. I heard voices.

"Is he coming?" A woman's voice. Impatient. Annoyed.

"He's coming, babe. Relax. The tracker shows he's two minutes out." A man's voice. Rough. Familiar.

I froze.

I peered around a rusted pillar.

Lucia was there.

She wasn't tied up. She was sitting on a crate, casually eating an apple.

The man was standing next to her, checking his phone. It was Marco. One of my own soldiers. A man I had trusted with my life.

"You sure he'll pay?" Marco asked, glancing at the entrance.

"He paid for Seraphina, didn't he?" Lucia laughed, a cold, calculating sound. "He traded her to the Russians. He'll pay double for the 'heir'."

She rubbed her stomach possessively.

"Besides," she continued, taking a crunchy bite of the apple. "I need the cash. This baby isn't going to be cheap, especially since it's yours, Marco. We need to disappear before it comes out looking like you."

The world stopped. The factory walls seemed to close in, crushing the air from my lungs.

The baby. Marco. The kidnapping.

It was all a lie.