Just before they wheeled me into pre-op, my phone vibrated. A new message. A video. No caption. No words. Just a single file sent by Ginevra.
I should've deleted it, but I didn't.
I tapped it open with shaking hands, and the screen lit up with them. Dominic and Ginevra.
She was in his lap, his mouth buried in her neck, murmuring something against her skin, and her nails dragged down his chest like she'd done it a thousand times. Like she knew exactly how to make him lose control.
Then he kissed her.
Slow, possessive, familiar. The kind of kiss that once made my entire world go quiet.
But what broke me wasn't the way he touched her. It was what I saw next. As he leaned back, his shirt slid off, and there it was.
The small, red spade-shaped birthmark just below his collarbone.
Dominic.
I smiled bitterly, like someone who just found their own tombstone. That was it. The final proof. And yet, somehow, my heart still clung to one last hope.
One last chance.
So I did something pathetic. Something human.
I called him.
If he picked up. If he heard my voice and chose me. If he came to me right now, I swore I'd forget everything. I'd forgive the lies, the faked death, the mistress, the pain. I'd erase it all for our child. For the love I still carried like a curse.
The line rang.
Then clicked.
His voice came through, low, strained, tired.
"Seraphina. I've got some things to handle here. Let the driver take you home. We'll talk when I'm back."
And then I heard it.
A moan. High, loud, shameless. A woman's voice, wet and unfiltered.
Ginevra.
She didn't even try to hide it. She didn't care.
Another moan followed, louder, and then her voice gasped his name, "Dominic," like she was singing it from her bones.
Click.
Silence.
Just the dead beep, beep, of the disconnected line. I didn't cry. Not this time.
I just stared at the nurse, eyes hollow, voice flat.
"It's fine," I whispered. "Let's proceed with the abortion."
And as they wheeled me away, I swore.
The next time he hears my voice will be the last time he breathes easy again.
By the time I got home, it was already dark.
I stepped into the estate. The foyer was marble and shadow, a single lamp burning low beneath the portrait of Dominic's father. Two soldiers stood at the far end of the hall, hands folded, eyes averted. The house carried a silence that had nothing to do with peace and everything to do with surveillance.
And there he was.
Dominic. Waiting.
Still pretending to be Alessio, the noble older brother, the mourning man, the fake.
"The driver said you went shopping after your check-up," he said with a smile. "Came home empty-handed though. Didn't find anything you liked?"
His tone was light. As if everything was normal. As if I hadn't just erased the one part of him he didn't even know existed. Halfway through his sentence, he paused, his eyes catching mine.
He noticed.
The red in my eyes. The puffiness. The dried salt on my skin.
"Seraphina, what happened? Why are your eyes like that?"
"Did you miss Dominic again at the hospital?"
He moved closer, pretending like he cared. His hand almost reached for me, the way a Don reaches for something he considers his property.
"It's alright. That baby in your belly, that's Dominic's legacy. That's something real. Something to hold on to."
I stared into his eyes. Still the same. Still beautiful.
Same smoky gray with that slight flicker of mischief that used to melt me.
The same eyes I once trusted with my soul.
And now the same ones I saw staring up in that video while Ginevra rode him like I never existed.
I looked away, quiet, and walked away, straight to my room. Past the soldiers who tracked my movement without turning their heads. Up the staircase that smelled of old wood and cold stone.
I collapsed onto the mattress and, for the first time since Dominic's death, I slept. No nightmares. No ghosts.
In my dream, I saw him again. Dominic, age eighteen.
Nervous. Sweaty palms. Blushing as he confessed his feelings like a kid who had nothing to offer except honesty. Not the heir to a bloody empire. Not the future Don. Just a boy standing in the garden behind the Santoro estate where the old fig tree still grew, its branches heavy with late-summer fruit.
"Seraphina, I like you. Would you be my girl?"
"I swear, I'll treat you right."
And back then, I believed him.
Maybe because the sky was painted gold. Maybe because his eyes had that kind of light I never saw again after the lie.
I said yes. And that moment? It ruined me forever.
Morning light poured into the room like it wanted to mock me. I was still sitting in bed, numb, staring at nothing, when the door creaked open.
And there she was.
Ginevra.
The other woman. The one he destroyed me for.
Except she didn't look like someone with four months to live.
She wasn't pale. She wasn't weak.
She walked in with a full face of makeup, lashes curled, cheeks glowing. And she was wearing my silk robe. The ivory one trimmed with lace.
The same one Dominic used to say made me look like heaven wrapped in sin.
Worse?
I caught it immediately. My perfume. The one I wore the night he asked for my hand, the night the two Families sealed their blood pact over wine and the promise of an heir.
Ginevra stopped at the foot of my bed and crossed her arms, that familiar smug smile curving across her face like poison ready to pour.
"You know why I sent you that video, right?" she asked sweetly. She tilted her head, eyes gleaming with cruelty. "You really thought he was Dominic's brother? You actually believed I was your sweet little sister-in-law?"
She took a step closer, voice dripping venom.
"Darling, wake up. I've been sleeping next to your husband this entire time."
She laughed. Loud. Unapologetic. Insulting. The sound filled the bedroom and bounced off the walls like it owned the space. Somewhere below, I heard a soldier's footsteps pause on the landing, then move on. No one intervened in this house. No one intervened in anything that happened under the Don's roof.
Then she spun, letting the robe flutter as she walked toward the window.
"Poor Seraphina," she sighed dramatically. "You thought I was dying? God, no. I just needed time. Space. And a little pity so no one would question why he was always with me."
She turned back around, grinning wider.
"I had Dominic wrapped around my little finger the second I came back. It wasn't even hard. Do you really think a man like him would choose a soft little thing like you over me?"
Her voice dropped lower. Cruel now. Ruthless. Her fingers drifted to her collarbone, touching it with two fingertips as though confirming something only she could feel.
"Oh, and before I forget. I'm the legal wife."
"Signed. Stamped. Certified. You were just the pretty placeholder. The blood-bound bride they dressed up for the ceremony while the real arrangement was already made."
She laughed again, a slow, triumphant cackle that rattled the bones in my chest.
"Dominic Santoro will always be mine, Seraphina. He loved you, sure. But he belongs to me."
