Chapter 4

Seraphina POV:

Alessandro didn't come home for a week.

He sent messages through Mark, his voice a disembodied echo over the phone, alluding to "important Family business." He never once asked about my arm, never acknowledged the public humiliation he had subjected me to. I ceased to exist.

My wound healed, a thin red line on my forearm, but the wound inside me festered.

I sought solace in the one place that had felt like ours: the private art gallery we had curated together. A long, quiet room filled with priceless art that was supposed to symbolize our partnership, our shared taste, our future.

I found them there.

He was laughing, a deep, rumbling sound I hadn't heard in years. Aria was perched on the edge of a marble pedestal, her laughter high and shrill, echoing off the cold walls. She was wearing his shirt.

"My Underboss," she purred, wrapping her arms around his neck. The title, coming from her lips, was a profanity.

He saw me standing in the doorway. His smile didn't falter. If anything, it widened into a cruel smirk. He looked directly at me, his hand stroking Aria's hair.

"Being with you is a release, tesoro," he said to her, but his words were meant for me. "No expectations. Just... ease."

A direct insult. A public declaration that I, his wife, was a burden.

I turned to leave, my heart a block of ice. As I did, Aria let out a small shriek. She "accidentally" knocked over a priceless family crest, a ceramic piece that had been in the De Luca family for a century. It shattered on the floor.

Before I could even react, Alessandro's face contorted with rage. He pointed a finger at me, his voice a whip crack in the silent room.

"What did you do?" he snarled, his eyes blazing. "Are you trying to harm her? To harm my child?"

He scooped a suddenly hysterical Aria into his arms, cradling her as if she were made of spun glass, and rushed her out of the gallery, leaving me standing amidst the ruins of his family's history and our own. He cast me as the villain, the jealous wife, the monster.

I followed them to the clinic, a spectator at my own execution.

The doctor, a man on the De Luca payroll, announced that Aria was in shock and needed a blood transfusion. A rare blood type. The same as Alessandro's.

One of his Capos, an older, wiser man, advised against it. "Alex, it's too much. You'll weaken yourself."

Alessandro ignored him. He insisted on giving his blood, far too much of it. I watched as the life drained from his face, his obsession laid bare for all his men to see. He collapsed, his body slumping in the chair.

As he passed out, he murmured one word.

"Aria."

I watched him, my heart calm, my mind a predator's. He was lost. Utterly and completely lost. My survival plan was no longer a choice.

My phone buzzed with an encrypted message from Donato's man. It was one sentence.

Kat Jensen is ready. The jet is waiting. Paris awaits.

The time had come.