I stayed kneeling.
Blood seeping through my pants. Hands sticky, torn. My son's name still burning somewhere inside my chest.
He lifted her with both arms as if she might shatter. Gianna curled into him, whimpering, holding her stomach as if her soul was slipping out.
Before leaving, he turned back.
His eyes; those same eyes that once held me like I was his whole world were now a pair of knives.
"Don't move," he said. "You don't even deserve to breathe."
I didn't answer.
"You don't deserve a bed."
The door slammed. Silence swallowed the room whole.
I don't know how long I stayed like that. My legs felt carved from stone. My head buzzed. My throat was raw.
Then… the door creaked.
Tiny footsteps padded close.
I didn't look up until his shadow touched mine.
"Why are you sitting like that?" Nico asked.
He held a blue toy car by the roof, swinging it casually. His pajamas were spotless. Hair brushed. Eyes bright like he'd just woken from the best sleep of his life.
He crouched beside me with a little smirk, elbow on his knee, like he was studying a stain.
"My mommy's a really good actress, isn't she, puta?" he whispered with a grin.
The word sliced clean.
My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
He pushed his toy car across the tiles. The little wheels clicked against the marble that the Ferro family had shipped from Carrara three generations ago.
"Daddy always falls for it," Nico added. "Again and again."
He stood and walked away humming. Like he hadn't just stomped on my son hours earlier.
I lowered my face. My voice barely scraped out.
Soon.
Soon this would end. The dissolution papers were already with the family's outside attorney. I just had to wait.
Then I would finally be free. Then they would finally learn what it meant to lose everything.
…
Lucian came back before dawn.
He tossed a bottle onto the floor in front of me. It clattered and rolled. Painkillers. No label. The kind the family's private doctor dispensed without questions or records.
"Try not to kill anyone next time," he muttered, not even looking at me.
He grabbed his keys again. Stopped at the doorway.
"My parents' anniversary feast is this weekend. You're still my wife. People will look for you. Bring Matteo."
I felt nothing. Not even anger.
"You heard me," he repeated. "Bring him. Clean him. Smile. You know how this family works."
Then he left, back to Gianna, back to the private clinic the Ferro family kept on retainer.
…
The anniversary arrived.
Lucian didn't let me sit beside him. He pushed me to the front seat with the driver like I was hired help.
Behind us, Gianna curled against him like she was the rightful queen of the empire. Nico sat beside her, tucked under her arm.
She whispered something. Lucian laughed softly, brushing his thumb across her knuckles.
I looked down at my black dress, plain, scratchy, too short. Everyone else would wear diamonds or silk. Gianna wore white. Pearls down her back. A halo of expensive innocence.
No one spoke to me before we left.
No one even glanced.
At the estate, cameras flashed like gunfire. Reporters swarmed the gates, the kind of press the Ferro family cultivated for their legitimate face. Lucian stepped out first, adjusting his cuffs, pretending he was a faithful man.
He opened Gianna's door himself.
She stepped out like she owned the night.
Nico followed her, his hand in hers. He went perfectly still and wide-eyed as a flashbulb caught his face, the innocent child mask settling over him like a second skin.
I stepped out alone, sinking into the gravel.
"Don't speak unless spoken to," Lucian said quietly.
I nodded.
He didn't look back.
The ballroom glowed with gold and wealth. Chandeliers dripping like jewels. Music soft and arrogant. The room was filled with associates, silent partners, capos from allied families, and the politicians who owed the Ferro name favors they could never fully repay.
Lucian lifted his glass.
"Everyone," he announced, "meet Gianna. The woman who will soon carry this family into the future."
Applause thundered.
She bowed her head, shy and royal at once. Her fingertips drifted to her collarbone, lingering there as she accepted the room's adoration.
"And this," he said, bringing Nico forward, "is our future. The next heir."
Carmela and Geraldo embraced Nico like he was a crown made flesh. Carmela adjusted her left pearl earring with a single precise turn before kissing the boy's forehead, having already decided how the evening's hierarchy would arrange itself.
I stood near the coats. Out of focus. Forgettable.
Someone near the dessert table whispered, "Who's she?"
"Oh," Carmela said lightly, "that's just the old wife. She couldn't even raise her own son right. Sick little thing she kept hidden. God knows what happened to him."
Gianna placed a hand over her heart.
"Matteo's… still recovering," she said gently. "He wasn't strong enough to travel." Then she turned to me, pity etched perfectly on her face. "Poor Serafina… still grieving."
She kissed Lucian on the cheek.
My nails dug into my palms.
A waiter bumped a dessert tower. A silver tray crashed, echoing through the hall.
Laughter rose. Geraldo's loudest.
"We're here to celebrate," he boomed. Then pointed at me. "Let her clean it. She knows how."
Some guests laughed. Capos who ran entire districts. Associates who feared the Ferro name. All of them laughing at the woman kneeling to pick up broken silver.
Gianna stepped forward, voice dripping syrup.
"She used to be such a lovely hostess," she said. "Maybe she can help serve the champagne. Just until they catch up."
Lucian said nothing.
So I picked up the tray.
I followed the servers around the room, handing out flutes. One waitress gave me a sympathetic look.
Someone by the bar whispered, "Is that the first wife? I heard she poisoned the house."
Another replied, "With her dead kid's ashes. Can you imagine?"
I kept walking, quiet, steady.
They couldn't take anything from me.
I'd already lost everything worth losing.
Let them mock the ghost they thought I was.
Soon, they'd all learn my name again.
And they'd learn it screaming.
