Chapter 7

Seraphina POV:

From the adjoining room, where Alessandro had taken Aria to "recover," I heard her voice, a saccharine whisper meant only for him, but loud enough for me to hear.

"They're our children, Alex. Ours." She was sealing the lie, wrapping him tighter in her web.

I felt nothing. Just a profound, chilling emptiness.

A moment later, one of Donato's men appeared at my side. "The Don requests your presence in his study."

The study was a room of shadows and leather, smelling of old books and power. Donato sat behind a massive oak desk, the dying lion in his lair. He didn't waste time with pleasantries.

He slid a sheaf of papers across the polished wood. "He already signed them," the Don said, his voice a low gravel.

I looked at the documents. They were separation papers.

"I told him it was a dockworker's agreement for the new shipping routes," Donato explained, his eyes cold and pragmatic. "He was distracted. The news of twins..." He let the sentence hang in the air, a damning indictment of his son's foolishness.

"The family will provide a generous settlement," he continued. "A new identity. A new life. The price is your silence. Your complete and total disappearance."

It wasn't an offer. It was a transaction.

I picked up the pen. For the last time, I wrote the name that had been my cage: Seraphina De Luca. "You have my word," I said, my voice steady. "She will cease to exist."

Just as I finished, the door opened and Alessandro strode in, his face smug and triumphant. He had put his mistress to bed and was now ready to deal with business.

"Is everything handled, Father?" he asked, glancing at the papers without a flicker of interest. He assumed it was just another piece of the empire being managed.

Donato pushed the final signature page toward him. "Just your signature here, son."

Without reading a single word, blinded by lust and ambition, Alessandro signed the document that dissolved his marriage. He signed away his queen.

I looked at him, at this man I had served, this man so easily fooled, and felt a wave of contempt so pure it was almost cleansing.

"I have a headache," I said, rising from my chair. "I think I'll go home."

"I'll come with you," he said automatically, the dutiful husband.

But from the doorway, Aria's voice called out, weak and needy. "Alex? I don't feel well."

He hesitated for only a second.

"I'll be right there," he called to her, then turned to me. "I'll be home later."

I walked out of the De Luca estate and didn't look back. A feeling of absolute, chilling freedom washed over me.