Seraphina POV
The east tower room was a relic of a different era.
It was dusty, stripped of the modern luxuries found in the rest of the estate, and smelled of cold stone and neglected history.
To anyone else, it would have been a prison. To me, it was a defensible perimeter.
I spent the first hour in total silence. I didn't unpack. I moved through the room with a handheld frequency sweeper I had hidden in the lining of my duffel bag.
I checked the heavy velvet curtains, the underside of the mahogany desk, and the ornate light fixtures.
Finding two crude listening devices—likely planted by Bianca’s security favorites—I didn't remove them. I simply disabled them with a burst of static and left them as a warning.
I was cleaning the carbon scoring off the Browning’s slide when a soft, hesitant knock interrupted the silence. I didn't say 'come in.'
I moved to the side of the door, my weapon held in a low-ready position.
"Who is it?" I asked.
"It’s... it’s Caterina."
I opened the door just enough to see her. She looked like a hunted animal, her eyes darting toward the shadows of the hallway as if she expected the walls to sprout ears. I didn't move to let her in.
"What do you want?"
"You can't stay here," she hissed, her voice trembling with a frantic, rhythmic energy.
She pushed her way into the room, her composure finally breaking now that she was away from Giovanni’s watchful eyes.
"You think you’re safe because you can shoot a gun? You have no idea what you’ve walked into.
Giovanni thinks he can use you to intimidate the other families, to climb the ladder of the Syndicate, but you're going to get us all killed."
"I just saved his life," I reminded her, closing the door and locking it. The sound of the deadbolt was like a gunshot in the quiet room.
"You should be thanking me for the fact that you aren't a widow tonight."
"You don't understand!" Caterina turned on me, her face contorted with a grief that looked more like guilt.
"You shouldn't have come back. The people who took you... the people who 'raised' you... they are monsters, Seraphina. You have their eyes. You have their coldness."
I leaned against the door, studying her.
My mind flashed back to the Cistern, to the freezing water and the rattle of chains. "How do you know what kind of monsters they are, Caterina?" I asked softly.
She froze. The color drained from her face, leaving her looking skeletal in the dim light of the tower.
"The official police report from eighteen years ago—the one in the Russo archives—said I died in a hospital fire during a routine checkup," I continued, taking a slow, predatory step toward her.
"But you just said 'the people who took you.' You didn't think I was dead. You knew I was taken. You knew exactly where I was going."
"I... I misspoke," she stammered, backing away until she hit the edge of the dusty desk. "The shock... the shooting today..."
"In La Fossa, children die for lying," I said, my voice dropping to a lethal, vibrating calm. "Did you owe a debt, Caterina? Was I the currency used to pay off Giovanni’s early failures? Or did you just want me gone so you could mold an outsider like Bianca into your perfect, obedient little doll ?"
"No! I am your mother!" she cried, but there was no maternal love in her eyes—only the sheer, unadulterated terror of a woman whose darkest sin had just walked back into her house holding a suppressed pistol.
"You lost the right to that title the day you let them put me in the dark," I whispered, leaning in until she could see the reflection of her own fear in my pupils.
"Keep your secrets for now. But remember this: I am not the little girl who cried for you in the middle of the night. I am your reckoning. If I find out you sold me to Silas, not even Giovanni will be able to save you."
She fled the room, her silk skirts rustling against the stone floor, leaving behind the suffocating, bitter scent of fear.
I stood in the center of the tower, the silence returning like a heavy shroud. I wasn't just in New York to infiltrate. I was here to find out who had signed the contract on my soul.
