Seraphina Vitiello POV
Dante stared at the dossier on the table as if it were a ticking bomb.
In every way that mattered, it was.
"Open it," I commanded softly.
He glanced around the room, sweat beading on his brow.
The heads of the Five Families were watching him like hawks.
He couldn't back down now.
With a trembling hand, he flipped the folder open.
The first photo was grainy, yet the subject was unmistakable.
It showed Camilla perched on the lap of a soldier from the Russian Bratva.
The date stamp in the corner marked it as three months ago.
The next photo was even more damning: it captured her entering a hotel room with the underboss of the Irish mob.
Dante's hands began to shake violently.
"This is fake!" Camilla shrieked, her manicured nails clawing at the glossy prints. "She photoshopped them!"
I didn't argue.
Instead, I simply pointed to the massive screen behind the auctioneer's podium.
My ten-grand bribe to the technician was about to pay off.
"Play it," I murmured into my phone.
The screen flickered.
The elegant logo of the auction house vanished, replaced by a shaky video feed.
It was Camilla.
She was lounging in a dimly lit room, surrounded by three men wearing the colors of our rival family.
She was laughing.
"He's so stupid," her voice rang out through the ballroom speakers, clear, crisp, and mocking. "He thinks he's a wolf, but he's just a sheep with a heavy wallet. He actually thinks the brat is his."
The room went deathly silent.
On the screen, one of the men leaned in. "Who's the father then?"
Camilla shrugged, taking a long drag of a cigarette.
"Does it matter? As long as the check clears."
The video cut to black.
Dante stood frozen, a statue of disbelief.
The humiliation radiated off him in palpable waves.
Slowly, he turned to Camilla.
His face was a mask of absolute horror.
"You said..." he whispered, his voice cracking. "You swore on your mother's grave."
Camilla scrambled up, backing away in terror.
"Dante, listen to me! She's lying! It's a deepfake! I love you!"
Dante struck her.
It was a vicious backhand that sent her crashing into the table, shattering the crystal champagne flutes.
She screamed, curling into a ball amidst the shards.
Dante looked down at his stinging hands.
He looked at the room full of powerful men who were laughing at him behind their hands.
Then, he looked at me.
There was a plea in his eyes.
A desperate, silent beg for me to fix this, just like I had fixed everything else for seven years.
I looked back at him with nothing but cold indifference.
"I'm not done, Dante," I said softly.
I reached into the dossier and retrieved one final sheet of paper.
It was a medical record.
"This is the part that hurts the most."
I held it up for him to see.
It was from a renowned specialist in Switzerland.
Patient: Dante Vitiello.
Diagnosis: Azoospermia. Sterile.
"You can't have children, Dante," I stated, my voice carrying to the very back of the silent room. "You never could."
His knees finally buckled.
He gripped the edge of the table, knuckles white, just to stay upright.
"The baby I just lost," I continued, the grief finally cracking my composure, "was a miracle. It was the result of five years of IVF-procedures you were too proud to even acknowledge. It was yours. And you killed him today when you pushed me."
"Camilla's baby?"
I looked down at the sobbing woman on the floor.
"That belongs to the streets."
I turned my back on him.
The silence in the room was heavy, pressing down with the weight of a fallen King.
I walked out of the ballroom.
I didn't look back at the ruin I had left behind.
I walked out into the crisp night air of New York City.
I was alone.
I was empty.
But for the first time in seven years... I was free.
A gunshot echoed from inside the hotel.
I didn't flinch.
I just kept walking.
