Chapter 2

Seraphina POV:

The memory of Dante's cold voice echoed in my head as I unlocked the door to my apartment, my dress dripping onto the hardwood floor. He thought my leaving the club was a game. A strategy. He had no idea he had just shattered the very foundation of my world.

A few hours later, a frantic pounding on my door startled me. It was my brother, Leo. His face was pale, his eyes filled with a helpless fury.

"Sera, I am so sorry," he said, pulling me into a hug. "I just found out. What he's doing... it's heartless."

"It's strategic, Leo," I said, my voice flat. I pulled away, wrapping my arms around myself. "Isabella is useful to him. I'm not."

Leo ran a hand through his hair. "He's... captivated by her. Her ambition, her ruthlessness. He thinks she's his equal."

"Is she?" I asked, needing to hear it. "Is this a real alliance?"

He hesitated, then nodded slowly. "Yes. It solidifies his power with certain factions."

As if on cue, a phone buzzed from the hallway. It must have fallen from Leo's pocket. The screen lit up with an incoming call from Isabella to him. My brother ignored it, but I could hear her voice, tinny and demanding, from the voicemail she left. Then, another call, this one from Dante. His tone was clipped, all business. The call was about logistics, about control. It confirmed everything. I was a loose end to be tied up and discarded.

The next morning, I walked into the international student office at Pratt. The air smelled of old paper and coffee. I asked for the application forms for a scholarship to the Florence Academy of Art. Italy. An ocean away. It felt like the only escape route from the shadow of the Mancinis.

A week later, I was forced to attend Leo's twenty-fifth birthday party. It was held in a sprawling SoHo penthouse owned by the Mancini family, a glittering showcase of their power. The air was thick with expensive perfume and the low murmur of dangerous men making deals. I felt like a ghost, moving through a life that was no longer mine.

Then I saw them. Dante and Isabella, moving through the crowd like royalty. They stopped directly in front of me. Dante's eyes were cold, unreadable. Isabella clung to his arm, a triumphant smirk on her face.

"Seraphina," Dante said, his voice holding that familiar tone of an order, a Don's command. "I'd like you to meet my future wife, Isabella."

Isabella's smile widened. "It's such a shame your little crush had to end this way," she purred, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "But Dante needs a queen, not a naive girl playing with crayons. Our union will strengthen the family's... operations."

She then did something so calculated, so cruel, that it stole the breath from my lungs. She gently patted her perfectly flat stomach, her eyes locking with mine in a look of pure, venomous victory.

The room tilted. This was a public execution. A blood debt paid in humiliation, and I was the offering.