Chapter 2

Seraphina POV:

The decision settled in my soul not with heat, but with the chilling finality of a tombstone. I was no longer a wife fighting for her marriage; I was a strategist planning a war. My vendetta would not be fought with bullets, but with the silent, calculated precision of a ghost.

I activated the protocol.

Don Donato, a true Don, saw his son's weakness long before Alessandro himself did. The "Purification" plan was his contingency, a way to protect a valuable asset-me-from the fallout of his son's folly. A new identity, untraceable offshore accounts, a private jet on standby. An escape.

My first move was to sever the physical tie. The De Luca diamond necklace, a collar of brilliant, suffocating stones that Alessandro had clasped around my neck on our wedding day, was a symbol of my position. It was heavy with the weight of expectation and failure. I donated it anonymously to a church auction, the release of its weight from my jewelry box a small, sharp breath of freedom.

In the cavernous fireplace of our penthouse, I built a pyre. Old photos of Alessandro and me, letters he'd written in the early days, a lock of his hair I'd kept like a fool. I watched the flames consume the memories, turning them to ash. The life I'd lived was a lie, and I was erasing the evidence.

Alessandro came home late, smelling of Aria's cheap perfume and expensive champagne. He noticed the empty silver frame on the mantelpiece where our wedding photo used to be.

"Where's our picture?" he asked, his brow furrowed not with concern, but with irritation at the disruption of his perfect world.

"It's being reframed," I lied, my voice as smooth and cool as glass. "The corner was chipped."

He accepted it without a second thought, blinded by his own agenda. He didn't see the coldness in my eyes, the absence of the woman he thought he owned.

He announced he was throwing a birthday party for me. It wasn't a celebration; it was a performance. A political maneuver to parade his perfect wife before his Capos, to project an image of stability and control while he was systematically dismantling our lives.

The night of the party, the penthouse buzzed with the low murmur of powerful men and their wives. I was a ghost at my own feast, moving through the crowd with a practiced smile that didn't reach my eyes.

Then Aria arrived.

She was on the arm of one of Alessandro's youngest, most ambitious Capos, a clear signal of her new status. She wore a red dress, a vulgar imitation of a couture gown I owned. Her presence was a calculated insult, a declaration of war in a room full of soldiers.

"A distant cousin," Alessandro announced to a group of his most powerful men, but the way his hand rested on the small of her back, possessive and proprietary, betrayed the lie. Everyone who mattered saw it.

I drifted away, my champagne flute cold in my hand, and overheard two of the older, more respected Capos murmuring by the window.

"He's reckless," one said, his voice low. "To disrespect his wife, a Vitali, in her own home... it's a sign of weakness. The Don will not be pleased."

I watched them then, Alessandro and Aria, their heads bent together, their whispered words and intimate touches a public spectacle. In that moment, I saw the truth with blinding clarity. My marriage, my entire position, had never been about love or partnership. It was a contract. And I had breached it.

My silence was no longer submission. It was a vow. A promise I made to the reflection in the dark glass of the window.

I will end this. I will end him. And I will be free.