The day I laid my parents to rest, two people who should have been there were conspicuously absent. My husband, Dante, and my fraternal twin sister, Valentina. Their empty places beside me felt louder than the prayers spoken over the grave.
My parents had died together, swallowed by the sea. My father had planned a short island getaway for my mother, a rare escape from the vineyard they had devoted their lives to. It was meant to be romantic. Peaceful. But the skies turned vicious without warning. The storm tore through the water, capsizing their boat before it ever reached land. When the Coast Guard finally recovered them, they were still clutching each other's hands, as if love alone could anchor them.
I was still standing at the cemetery when my phone vibrated.
A message from Valentina.
I opened it without thinking. The image on my screen knocked the air from my lungs. Dante was on one knee in front of her, pressing his lips to her rounded stomach like it was sacred. Like it was everything. Beneath the photo were the words: Guess who's finally going to be a dad?
My fingers trembled so badly I nearly dropped the phone. No. This couldn't be real. It had to be a sick joke. A lie.
Then another image loaded.
Any last shred of denial I had left vanished.
Valentina stood in front of my bedroom mirror, my silk robe wrapped around her body, phone lifted for a selfie. Behind her, sprawled across the bed I shared with my husband, Dante slept like a man with nothing to hide.
I couldn't breathe.
My husband had impregnated my twin sister.
Valentina had always been trouble. The wild one. Self-centered, impulsive, forever chasing chaos. My parents spent years shielding her from the consequences of her choices while I stayed behind, helping manage the vineyard, carrying responsibility on my back. But after I married Dante, she changed, or pretended to. She began copying me. My clothes. My scent. Even the way I styled my hair or held a glass of wine. I used to brush it off as admiration. Now I understood the truth. She wasn't imitating me. She was replacing me.
The tears came fast and blinding. My legs gave out, and I sank to my knees before my parents' grave. The soil was still loose, still raw. My sobs soaked into the earth as I fell apart in front of them.
I had noticed things before. The lingering looks, the quiet smiles, the way conversations died the second I entered the room. But I refused to believe that the two people I trusted most could betray me so completely.
My phone buzzed again.
This time, it was Dante.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come to the funeral," the message read. "Something urgent came up. We need to talk when I get home."
I already knew what that conversation would be about.
That evening, Dante walked in with Valentina beside him, suitcases in her hands like she belonged there. Two of his soldiers stood in the hallway behind them, faces blank, hands clasped in front of their belt buckles. They didn't look at me. Nobody ever looked at me when Dante was in the room.
"She'll be staying with us," he said gently, as if kindness could disinfect the rot of his actions. "Valentina's afraid to stay alone at the estate. She's pregnant. It's not safe."
The Castellano estate. My father's forty hectares of vines, barrels, and legacy, the last thing my parents left me. Of course she wouldn't stay there. Not when she could take my place here instead.
Valentina offered me a smile so sugary it made my stomach churn. "I'm really sorry, sis. I asked Dante to wait, but the baby has to come first. You understand, right? We're twins. I know this isn't ideal timing… especially with Mom and Dad just gone."
I stared at the floor, my chest tight, my lungs burning.
Dante pressed on. "She's your sister. Your blood. You wouldn't want anything bad to happen to her."
I wanted to scream. To throw whatever was within reach. To hurt him the way he had hurt me. Instead, I sat there, hollow and silent.
"I love you," he said, trying again. "Only you. What happened with Valentina was a mistake. It won't happen again."
My voice shook when I finally spoke. "She's carrying your child. And you're calling that a mistake?"
"Yes," he said firmly. "And we've already talked it through. Once she gives birth, the baby will be yours. You've always wanted a child, Seraphina. Since you can't have one, this is fate giving us a solution."
Those words hit deeper than any slap.
Since you can't have one.
I whispered, "You slept with my sister, got her pregnant, and now you expect me to be grateful?"
He dragged a hand through his hair, irritation flashing across his face. "Stop overreacting. This way, I finally get to be a father." His father's old signet ring caught the light as his hand dropped. He turned it once around his pinky, slow, deliberate, the way he always did when he felt the conversation slipping from his grip. "A man needs an heir, Seraphina. You know how the Family works."
Valentina suddenly began to cry, her shoulders shaking dramatically. "Dante… look what I've done. I've ruined everything. My own twin hates me."
I snapped. "Enough, Valentina. Drop the act."
She gasped, crying harder. "I… I should leave."
Dante's voice turned cold. "Stop it. You're upsetting her. No wonder you can't give me a child."
That sentence shattered what little was left of me.
He softened immediately, as if that could erase it. "I didn't mean it like that. I just don't want the baby hurt."
"Fine," I said quietly. "Then I want a divorce."
His face drained of color. "What did you say?"
Behind him, Valentina's lips curved in a satisfied smile.
"I want a divorce."
"Seraphina, please," Valentina said, fake sympathy dripping from every word. "We're family."
Dante shook his head. "You don't mean that."
"I do."
"All this because of one mistake?" He stepped closer, his voice dropping into something threatening. The signet ring went still. His hand flattened against the dining table, and the room seemed to contract around the sound of his palm meeting wood. "I'm Dante Valenti. Acting Boss of this Family. If you leave, I'll find you. I'll drag you back. And I'll burn that vineyard to the ground. Every vine. Every barrel. Every acre your father bled for."
My blood ran cold.
The vineyard. Forty hectares of vines, barrels, legacy. My parents' entire life. The last thing they left me. In this world, destroying a Family's ancestral property was an act of desecration. He knew exactly what he was threatening.
"Why?" I asked, my voice breaking. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"You brought it on yourself."
Tears streamed down my face. "You humiliate me, move her into my home, threaten everything I love. What else do you want from me?!"
"That baby will be ours," he said. "Why can't you just be happy?"
Happy.
Something inside me finally broke clean. I wiped my face and forced my voice steady. "I overreacted," I said. "I'll stay… for now. Just give me time."
Dante smiled and kissed my forehead.
That night, I slept curled up on the floor of the guest room, sobbing until my chest ached. Upstairs, Dante was with Valentina in the master bedroom. My bedroom. Through the walls of this house, through the enforced silence of a marriage that was never really a marriage but an alliance between bloodlines, I could hear just enough to know I had been erased.
I mourned my parents. I mourned my marriage. I mourned the woman I used to be.
When there were no tears left to cry, I reached for my phone and made a call. My fingers found the hollow of my throat where my mother's pendant used to hang. The chain was gone, buried with the woman whose body had been recovered from the water still holding my father's hand. My fingertips touched bare skin, and something in my spine straightened.
I contacted the one man who despised Dante as much as I did. The only person he truly feared.
His older half-brother.
Lazaro Falcone.
