Lazaro answered on the first ring. His tone was calm, almost polished, yet there was something underneath it, something dense and suffocating, like pressure building before a storm.
"Seraphina," he said slowly, each syllable measured. "I don't usually answer calls from the dead. Tell me why you're calling."
Just hearing him sent a chill down my spine. Lazaro Falcone wasn't merely Dante's older half-brother. He was the man who ran Circolo Nero, the ancient smuggling syndicate that operated behind the façade of a luxury wine and spirits empire. In Lazaro's world, death wasn't loud or messy. People simply vanished, erased so thoroughly it was as if they had never existed.
"I want Dante destroyed," I said, forcing the words out. "Not hurt. Not scared. Ruined. I can't do it by myself."
Silence followed. Not the awkward kind. The dangerous kind. Long enough for me to picture him weighing my usefulness against my mortality. Then came a low laugh, quiet and dark, not mocking. Approving.
"So you finally called," he murmured. "Go on."
I told him everything. The affair with Valentina. Bringing her into my home the very day I buried my parents. The way he threatened to burn down the vineyard my family had tended vine by vine, generation by generation, the land Don Castellano had loved more than anything outside of blood. Every cruel remark. Every calculated humiliation.
Lazaro didn't interrupt once. When he finally spoke, his voice dropped to something almost intimate. "How soon do you want him erased?"
"Four days," I answered.
"Plenty of time," he replied coolly. "I can put a man underground faster than that."
For the first time in weeks, something warm flickered in my chest. Relief. Maybe even hope.
"I'll take care of it," Lazaro added. "But nothing comes free."
My fingers tightened around the phone. "What's the cost?"
"Marry me."
I sucked in a sharp breath. "Excuse me?"
"Say yes," he said calmly, "and you become untouchable. No one harms what belongs to me. Not the Falcones. Least of all Dante."
Then the line went dead. No farewell. No hesitation.
That night, sleep refused to come. Lazaro's voice echoed in my head, steady, merciless, absolute. Becoming his wife meant stepping into a blood alliance with the most feared Don on the eastern seaboard, a realm where executions were silent, smiles concealed knives, and the wine cellars beneath his compound hid more than vintage barrels. Power, in his world, was traded in blood.
But if I stood beside him, Dante would never come near me again.
By morning, fate struck again.
I sat alone in the clinic's waiting area, staring at the slip of paper the nurse had handed me. The Family's private doctor ran a discreet practice three blocks from the waterfront, the kind of place that kept no paper trail the Feds could follow.
Positive.
Not one heartbeat.
Two.
I was pregnant, with twins.
A bitter laugh escaped me as tears blurred the words. Six years earlier, doctors had told me pregnancy was impossible. After the crash. After the night Dante drove drunk and furious, raging about a shipment deal gone wrong with one of the other Families. The car had slammed into a roadside barrier, the impact crushing my lower abdomen. I remembered drifting in and out of consciousness in the hospital while he whispered, I didn't mean it, before disappearing for days.
The doctors said the damage was irreversible. I believed them. I endured the whispers. The labels. Barren. Defective. Worthless. In a world where a woman's value to a Family was measured first by the sons she could produce, those words were a death sentence spoken slowly.
And now, this.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Lazaro.
Three days. Make your choice.
Three days. Three days until freedom, but what about the lives growing inside me? Could I bring them into a world built on betrayal? On men like Dante? Or worse, men like Lazaro?
I left the clinic numb and drove home on autopilot.
The door shut behind me.
"Well, well," a voice drawled. "You look like death warmed over."
I sank onto the couch without responding. Then I heard a car pull into the driveway. My chest tightened. Dante. I stood up, intending to leave before he saw me, but Valentina stepped directly into my path.
"Don't rush off," she sneered. "Stay. Watch your husband kiss me hello."
I shoved past her and locked myself in the guest room, hands trembling so badly I nearly dropped the key.
It didn't matter.
The door flew open with a violent bang. I spun around just in time to see Dante's hand swing.
Pain exploded across my face. The slap knocked me off balance, ears ringing as I hit the floor. My vision went dark for a second, blood flooding my mouth with a metallic taste.
I didn't move. I couldn't.
He had never hit me before.
"W-what was that?" I gasped, my voice breaking. "Why would you do that?"
Dante's expression was stone cold. "How dare you touch Valentina," he snapped. "She's carrying my blood, damn it. Is this who you are now, Seraphina?"
My stomach twisted violently. "I didn't touch her. I swear."
Valentina stepped forward smoothly, as if she'd been rehearsing. Her posture mirrored Dante's rigid stance, shoulders squared, chin lifted, a perfect echo of his outrage reflected back at him. "I went to check on her," she said softly. "I brought her tea, Dante. I just wanted to help. But she." Her breath hitched. "She slapped me. Told me I should've died instead of our parents. Said the world would be better without me." She glanced at me, tears shimmering. "She said she hated me… and that she wanted me dead."
My heart pounded. "That's not true."
"She grabbed a knife," Valentina continued, ignoring me. "Pointed it at me. Said she wanted to see the light leave my eyes. I thought she was going to stab me right there."
And in that moment, as Dante's fury burned into me and Valentina's lie settled perfectly into place, I realized something terrifying.
This house was no longer my home.
It was a cage.
