Seraphina POV
The July rain in New York was merciless, but it was nothing compared to the coldness of the cobblestones beneath me.
I was tossed out of a burlap sack like rotting garbage into a dark alley in Little Italy. For three days, I had been chained in a lightless basement. They had drugged me, beaten me, and stripped away my dignity. But the true agony was the hollow ache in my womb. The child I had carried—Angelo’s child—was gone, flushed out of me in a tide of blood and terror.
I shivered, pulling the oversized, unfamiliar men’s shirt tighter around my bruised shoulders. At the mouth of the alley, a few Valenti Associates smoked under the streetlamps. They pointed at me, their eyes filled with disgust and dirty assumptions.
"Damien Falcone ruined her," one of them muttered, spitting on the ground. "The Devil of Chicago left his mark."
An hour later, the filthy rain was replaced by the sterile chill of the Valenti penthouse. I lay bleeding on the pristine silk sheets of a guest bedroom. Through the heavy oak door, the voices from the grand salon drifted in, sharp and clear.
"She is unclean. A stain on our Onore," Victoria Valenti, the matriarch of the family, hissed. Earlier, I had begged her for a doctor. She had looked at me as if I were a diseased rat.
"I will take my men to Chicago tonight! I will have my Vendetta against Falcone!" Angelo’s voice roared.
Smack.
The sound of Victoria’s palm striking her grandson’s face echoed through the penthouse. "You fool," she spat. "You want to parade our scandal to the Five Families? You will bury this. You will marry Carissa Marino instead. She is pure, and her father’s connections will secure your seat as Don. Seraphina is dead to us."
I held my breath, my nails digging into my palms until they bled. I waited for Angelo, the man who had promised me the world, to tear the room apart for me.
"Fine."
The single word was barely a whisper, but it struck with the force of a bullet. My heart stopped. The darkness rushed in, and I fainted.
When I opened my eyes again, the scent of vanilla perfume filled the room. Carissa, my sweet, innocent cousin, stood over the bed.
"Your baby is gone, Sera," she whispered, her voice dripping with venomous delight. She leaned in close, her eyes gleaming. "My father arranged the kidnapping. Framing Damien Falcone was just... good business. It paves the way for Angelo to attack Chicago later. And now, Angelo and I can finally be together."
A strangled sob tore from my throat. I lunged at her with what little strength I had left, but Carissa was faster. She snatched a silver letter opener from the nightstand, forced the cold metal handle into my trembling hand, and then deliberately drove the blade into her own left shoulder.
She threw her head back and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
The door flew open. Angelo stormed in, his eyes wide with panic. He didn't look at my pale, tear-stained face. He didn't see the agony in my eyes. He crossed the room in two strides and struck me—a brutal backhand that split my lip and sent me crashing back against the headboard.
"You brought this on yourself, Sera," he spat, gathering a sobbing Carissa into his arms. He looked at me with absolute revulsion.
Victoria appeared at the threshold, leaning heavily on her serpent-head cane. Her cold eyes swept over the scene. "Clean this up," she ordered her guards.
Two massive maids stepped into the room. Their faces were blank, devoid of any humanity. They pinned my shoulders to the mattress.
Angelo covered Carissa’s eyes, shielding her from the violence. He looked down at me one last time. "This is for the best, Sera. It's a mercy."
He turned his back.
The maids grabbed my right hand, still wrapped around the bloody silver handle of the letter opener. With brutal, mechanical force, they drove the blade directly into my chest.
The pain was a blinding white explosion. I choked on my own blood, my vision fading to black. But beneath the agony, a fire ignited in the deepest, darkest corner of my soul. As my heart beat its final, agonizing rhythm, I made a silent vow to the shadows.
If there is a next life, I will make you all bleed. I will have my Vendetta.
Seraphina POV
I gasped, my hands flying to my chest.
There was no blood. No silver letter opener protruding from my ribs. Just the soft silk of my nightgown and the steady, unbroken rhythm of my heart. I was standing in my suite at the Marino Estate on Long Island. The calendar on my vanity confirmed the impossible: it was the day before my eighteenth birthday.
I had returned from the dead.
The crunch of tires on gravel drew me to the Juliet balcony. Below, a line of sleek black cars bearing the Valenti crest parked in the courtyard. Angelo Valenti stepped out, looking exactly as he had before the blood and the betrayal.
I didn't run down to greet him like the naive, lovesick girl I used to be. Instead, I slipped out of my room and stood in the shadows of the second-floor landing, looking down into the Grand Salon.
"My affections for Seraphina are purely fraternal," Angelo’s voice echoed off the cold marble walls, dripping with false nobility. "It is Carissa who holds my heart, Sophia. The original contract between our families never specified which Marino daughter I was to wed. I will not ruin Seraphina's honor by marrying her when I love another."
"Oh, Angelo," my aunt Sophia sighed, her voice laced with feigned distress. "This is highly irregular. But... if it is true love, how can I stand in the way?"
I smiled in the dark. A cold, dead thing. Angelo thought he was correcting a mistake, perhaps driven by his own selfish desires or some twisted foresight, completely unaware that I knew every filthy secret he harbored. He thought he was the master of this chessboard. He was merely the first pawn in my Vendetta.
I descended the sweeping staircase, my footsteps silent. "Then you shouldn't stand in the way, Aunt Sophia."
They both snapped their heads toward me. Sophia quickly masked her shock with a pitying smile, stepping forward for a fake embrace. "Sera, darling... you weren't supposed to hear that. I know how much you dreamed of being a Valenti Lady—"
I sidestepped her touch, my expression entirely blank. "A dream I am happy to wake up from. If Angelo and Carissa are meant to be, they have my blessing."
Angelo’s jaw tightened. He studied me, searching for the hysterical tears he clearly expected. "Don't play games, Sera. I know this hurts your pride, but I won't be manipulated by your jealousy."
Right on cue, Carissa rushed into the salon, her eyes already brimming with practiced tears. "Sera! Please, I would never fight you for him. I can sacrifice my happiness for our sisterhood—"
I let out a dry, humorless laugh that cut through her pathetic performance. "Stop."
I looked between the three of them, my gaze settling on Angelo's arrogant face. "If you want her, take her. Why must you brand me with a sin just to make me the villain in your little love story?"
The absolute silence that followed was deafening. Carissa’s fake tears froze. Angelo’s smug superiority faltered, replaced by a flicker of genuine uncertainty. I had refused to play the desperate victim, and it shattered their entire script.
Before Sophia could recover and launch another venomous attack, the sharp, rhythmic clack of an ivory-headed cane echoed from the hallway.
Seraphina POV
The rhythmic clack of the ivory-headed cane ceased as my grandmother, Francesca Marino, stepped into the Grand Salon. Her cold, calculating eyes swept over the room, the black rosary beads slipping rapidly through her withered fingers. The temperature in the room seemed to plummet.
Sophia immediately rushed to her side, her voice trembling with manufactured grief. "Mamma, you must speak to her. Seraphina is throwing a tantrum over the betrothal, shaming our family in front of Angelo!"
Francesca’s gaze locked onto me, heavy with absolute authority. "Apologize to Angelo and your sister at once. Since the Valenti match is broken, you will accept a new arrangement immediately for our Onore (Honor)."
Carissa stepped forward, reaching for my hand with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Sera, please, just listen to Grandmother—"
I slapped her hand away. "Don't touch me." I looked straight at Francesca. "Angelo wants Carissa, and Carissa wants to be the Underboss's wife. I will not be the sacrificial lamb for their dirty little transaction."
Sophia gasped, clutching her pearls. "Such insolence! To speak of your sister this way... Who knows what you've been doing behind closed doors to act so brazenly? Perhaps you are no longer pure. A puttana (whore) who knows she cannot secure a decent match!"
I tilted my head, offering Sophia a chilling smile. "Are you questioning Grandmother's strict upbringing, Aunt Sophia? Because I have been under her roof my entire life."
Sophia’s mouth snapped shut, her face flushing ugly red.
Before Francesca could unleash her wrath, I delivered my ultimatum. "At my eighteenth birthday gala tomorrow, I will choose my own husband. Any single man with a clean name who dares to ask for my hand, I will accept."
Francesca struck the marble floor with her cane. "Madness! I will not allow you to turn this family into a circus!"
"Then let her marry my nephew, Marco Conti," Sophia interjected smoothly, her eyes gleaming with greed. "He has a few bad habits, but his bloodline is clean. It will keep her inheritance safe within the family."
Marco Conti. A degenerate gambling addict. They wanted to lock me in a new cage and drain my wealth.
I took a slow step toward the matriarch. "My adoptive mother was Isabella Gallo Marino. The original betrothal was brokered by her family. If you force me to marry a useless addict, you spit directly in the face of my uncle, Christian Gallo, and the entire Moretti family." I let the silence stretch, watching the color drain from Francesca's face. "Let me choose publicly. It proves this is my own doing, and the Morettis cannot claim you abused their blood."
The name Moretti was a curse in this house. Francesca feared the true rulers of New York far more than she hated me. Her jaw clenched so hard I thought her teeth might shatter.
"Fine," Francesca hissed, her eyes burning with venom. "Have your circus. Angelo, you will formally court Carissa."
I didn't wait for their celebrations. I turned my back on them and walked up the sweeping staircase to my suite.
The air in my room felt stagnant, like a gilded tomb. In the corner, a thin girl named Ruby was scrubbing the floorboards. Near my vanity stood Jasmine, the first maid Sophia had planted to spy on me.
"Ruby," I said, my voice cutting through the silence. "Wash up and change into something presentable. You are coming out with me."
Jasmine scoffed, crossing her arms. "Excuse me, Miss Seraphina? You're taking a third-rate scrubber out instead of your first maid? That is highly inappropriate."
I closed the distance between us in three strides. The smirk vanished from Jasmine's face as she met my dead, empty stare.
"In this room, I decide who is worthy to walk beside me," I said, my voice a low, dangerous whisper. "Your only job is to shut your mouth and obey. Kneel on the floor and reflect on your place until I return."
Jasmine opened her mouth to argue, but the sheer violence in my eyes made her tremble. Slowly, reluctantly, she sank to her knees.
I turned to Ruby, who was staring at me with wide, terrified eyes. A sudden, violent memory flashed in my mind—Ruby’s pale, lifeless face sinking beneath the ice of a frozen lake, murdered because of her loyalty to me in my past life.
Not this time.
"Hurry up, Ruby," I said softly, the gears of my Vendetta already turning. "We have an invitation to deliver."
