Chapter 1

When I was eight, Dante Moretti pulled me from the fire that killed my family. For ten years, the powerful crime boss was my protector and my god.

Then, he announced his engagement to another woman to unite two criminal empires.

He brought her home and named her the future mistress of the Moretti family.

In front of everyone, his fiancée forced a cheap metal collar around my neck, calling me their pet.

Dante knew I was allergic. He just watched, his eyes cold, and ordered me to take it.

That night, I listened through the walls as he took her to his bed.

I finally understood the promise he'd made me as a child was a lie. I wasn't his family. I was his property.

After a decade of devotion, my love for him finally turned to ash.

So on his birthday, the day he celebrated his new future, I walked out of his gilded cage for good.

A private jet was waiting to take me to my real father-his greatest enemy.

Chapter 1

Seraphina POV:

I learned my life was over the day Dante Moretti announced his engagement to another woman.

It wasn't a whisper in the grand, empty halls of the Moretti estate. It wasn't a quiet confession in the dead of night. It was a headline, stark and black on the screen of my phone, a news alert that buzzed on the marble countertop like a dying insect.

*Dante Moretti, Don of New York's Most Powerful Family, to Wed Isabella Vescovi, Uniting Two Criminal Empires.*

The words blurred. My world narrowed to the phone in my hand, the cold weight of it a sudden, shocking anchor in a sea of disbelief. This had to be a mistake. A power play. A lie designed to smoke out an enemy. It couldn't be real.

Because Dante was mine.

He had been mine since I was eight years old. I remember the fire, the acrid smell of smoke and fear that filled my lungs. The Rossi family, my family, was being torn apart, and I was just a piece of collateral damage left behind. Then he appeared through the flames, a boy of sixteen with eyes as dark and unforgiving as the world he commanded. He threw his own body over mine, shielding me from the heat and the blood that splattered the walls.

He had whispered against my hair, his voice rough but steady. "You're safe. You're a Moretti now."

For ten years, that promise had been my religion. In this gilded cage of marble floors and silent, watchful bodyguards, Dante was my god. He was the one who bought me a nightlight when I was ten because the nightmares wouldn't stop, a small ceramic cat that cast a soft, unwavering glow. "It will keep the monsters away," he'd said, his large hand gentle as he plugged it in.

He was the monster, of course. I knew that. The world knew that. But he was my monster, and he kept all the others at bay.

Then, on my seventeenth birthday, I did the stupidest thing a girl in my position could do. I wrote him a letter. A confession, poured out in clumsy, heartfelt sentences, stained with a drop of my own blood for dramatic, teenage effect. I told him I loved him.

I found the letter ripped into a thousand tiny pieces in the trash can outside his study. He cornered me in the library that night, his body caging me against a shelf of leather-bound books. His eyes were blazing with a fury I had never seen directed at me.

"Don't ever love me, Fina," he'd snarled, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "You love me, and you will die. Do you understand?"

I understood. But I didn't believe him. It felt like a test. Another twisted way of protecting me.

Now, staring at the face of Isabella Vescovi smiling beside him, her hand possessively on his arm, I knew. It wasn't a test. It was a prophecy.

He brought her to the estate that evening. I was standing on the grand staircase when they walked in. Isabella was everything I wasn't-tall, poised, with the kind of sharp, beautiful edges that promised a fight. She moved like she already owned the place.

Dante's eyes found mine. There was no warmth, no apology. Just a flat, cold command.

"Seraphina," he said, his voice echoing in the cavernous foyer. "This is Isabella. You will refer to her as the future mistress of the Moretti family."

The words were a physical blow. Mistress. The title that should have been...

Isabella's smile was a weapon. "It's a pleasure to finally meet the little canary Dante keeps so safely in his cage."

My hands went cold. I could feel the eyes of every guard, every servant, on me. I was a Rossi by blood, a Moretti by charity. A stray dog he'd picked up from the wreckage of his enemies. And now, the true queen had arrived to claim her throne.

That night, locked in my bedroom, I stared at my reflection. My hair, a sheet of pale gold, fell to my waist. Dante had always loved my hair. He'd once told me it was the only pure thing in his world.

I walked into my bathroom, found the shears we used for cutting flower stems in the garden, and held a thick lock of that pure, golden hair in my hand.

Snip.

It fell to the cold tile floor, a dead thing.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

I didn't stop until it was all gone, hacked off in uneven, jagged chunks around my ears. I looked feral. Ruined.

I walked out onto my balcony, the cold night air biting at my newly exposed neck. From a hidden pocket in my jacket, I pulled out a cigarette, stolen from one of the guards. My hands trembled as I lit it, the unfamiliar sting of smoke hitting the back of my throat. I coughed, my eyes watering.

I was no longer pure. I was no longer his. I was nothing. And when you have nothing, you have nothing left to lose.

I took another drag, letting the smoke fill me, and made a promise to the unforgiving New York skyline. I would get out. Or I would die trying.