Seraphina POV
I woke the next morning to the acrid taste of bile rising in my throat.
I barely made it to the bathroom before I emptied my stomach, heaving until there was nothing left but dry, painful spasms.
I sat on the cold tile floor, trembling as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
It wasn't the stress. Deep down, I recognized this sensation. My mother had described this specific misery to me often enough.
Dread settled in my chest, heavier than the nausea.
I got dressed and drove myself to a clinic three towns over. I didn't take the main car; I took the old sedan. I paid in cash. I used a fake name.
The doctor was a kind, older woman with gentle hands who didn't ask why I kept my sunglasses on indoors. She ran the tests efficiently.
Ten minutes later, she came back with a warm smile.
"Congratulations," she said, beaming as if she were delivering a gift. "You're six weeks along."
The room spun. The white walls seemed to close in on me.
I was pregnant.
I was carrying the Vitiello-Moretti heir. The Crown Prince. The living treaty that would cement the alliance between our warring families in blood forever.
A month ago, this would have been the happiest news of my life. I would have rushed home to tell Dante. He would have spun me around, kissed my stomach, and treated me like a goddess bearing his legacy.
Now, the thought of his blood mixing with mine made the bile rise again.
I couldn't bring a child into this darkness. I couldn't raise a son to be a monster like his father, or a daughter to be a pawn like her mother.
I walked out of the clinic in a daze. I sat in my car for an hour, my hands gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.
My phone jarred me from the trance. Dante.
"Where are you?" he asked. No hello. No apology for last night.
"Running errands," I managed to say, my voice sounding hollow to my own ears.
"Be ready in an hour," he commanded. "We are going to the Lake Estate. I have business to attend to there, and I want you with me. It looks better if we are seen together after last night's... incident."
The Lake Estate. It was isolated. Private. Miles away from the city, surrounded by deep woods and dark water. A perfect place to hide a secret. Or a body.
"Okay," I whispered.
I drove back to the city, my mind racing. I stopped at a pharmacy, but I didn't buy vitamins. I bought a burner phone and a prepaid card.
When I got back to the penthouse, silence greeted me-until I heard voices drifting from the study. The door was cracked open.
"I'm telling you, Dante, I can't keep doing this," Valeria's voice whined, high and grating. "She's going to ruin everything."
"She is nothing, Valeria," Dante replied, his tone dismissive. "Stop worrying about her. Focus on what matters."
"What matters? Us? Or the brat she's eventually going to pop out?"
"There is no brat yet," Dante said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "And even if there is, it's just an heir. You, Valeria, are my pleasure."
I stood frozen in the hallway, the air leaving my lungs.
He didn't know I was pregnant. He was already dismissing our child-our flesh and blood-as "just an heir." A tool. A thing.
I touched my flat stomach, my protective instinct flaring hot and fierce.
I made a promise to the tiny cluster of cells inside me.
I will not let him have you.
I went to our bedroom and pulled out a travel bag. I didn't pack for a weekend trip.
I packed my jewelry-the pieces that were mine, not gifts from him. I packed the cash I had sewn into the lining of my winter coats. I packed the burner phone.
I wasn't going to the Lake Estate to play the happy, obedient wife.
I was going there to end this.
