The wind up on the roof didn't just blow; it bit.
It was mid-December, and the air slashed through my thin dress like invisible knives.
Fifty feet below, the estate pool waited.
It was unheated, a stark black rectangle of freezing water shimmering in the dark.
Dante hauled me toward the ledge.
The soldiers had bound my hands behind my back with industrial zip ties.
The plastic dug into my wrists, biting deep and cutting off circulation.
"You tried to wipe out my bloodline!" Dante roared over the howling wind.
He wasn't listening.
He never listened.
"She told me about Maria!" I screamed back. "You're the one who had her killed!"
"She was a liability!" Dante bellowed. "She was weak! Just like you!"
Lucia had followed us up.
She leaned against the doorframe, snug inside Dante's jacket.
She looked perfectly fine.
No pain. No miscarriage.
Just a cool, smug satisfaction.
"She needs to cool off, Dante," Lucia said softly, yet her voice cut clearly through the gale.
"Look at her. She's hysterical."
Dante looked at the construction beam extending over the pool, where a maintenance rope swayed.
"String her up," he ordered.
The soldiers hesitated.
Torturing the Don's daughter was one thing.
This was... medieval.
"Do it!" Dante barked.
They looped the rope around my bound wrists and hoisted me up.
My shoulders screamed in agony as my feet left the ground.
I dangled over the abyss, swaying helplessly in the freezing wind.
"Dante, please," I whispered—not begging for my life, but for his soul.
"Don't do this."
He walked to the edge, staring at me, then glancing back at Lucia.
"Cut it," Lucia said.
Dante pulled a knife from his belt.
He looked at me one last time.
There was a flicker of something in his eyes—regret? guilt?—but it was instantly swallowed by his obsession with control.
He slashed the rope.
And I fell.
The air rushed past me.
The water hit me like concrete.
The cold was instantaneous, a shock that seized my heart.
I sank.
I couldn't swim.
My hands were tied.
The heavy dress acted like an anchor, pulling me down.
The water filled my nose, my mouth.
It burned like acid.
My lungs spasmed.
I saw the surface above me, rippling with the distant lights of the penthouse.
I saw Dante's silhouette looking down.
He was watching me drown.
Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision.
The cold faded into a strange warmth.
I thought of Maria.
I was coming to see her.
Then, nothing.
*
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound was rhythmic. Annoying.
I opened my eyes.
White light blinded me.
The sharp smell of antiseptic filled my nose.
I was in a bed.
I tried to move, but my body felt like lead.
"You're awake."
Dante was sitting in the chair next to the bed, calmly reading a newspaper.
He looked unsettlingly domestic.
"You drowned," he said, folding the paper.
"My men pulled you out. You were dead for two minutes."
I stared at him as the memory of the fall crashed over me.
"Why?" I croaked.
My throat felt like it was full of glass.
"Because Lucia forgave you," he said simply.
He stood up and poured a glass of water.
"She begged me to save you. She said you were sick in the head from the Russians. That you didn't mean to hurt the baby."
He held the straw to my lips.
"So we are going to fix you, Seraphina," he whispered, brushing a stray strand of hair from my forehead.
"You are going to rest. And then, you are going to be the perfect wife. Because no one leaves the Family. Not even in death."
I looked at him, and I realized the truth.
The water hadn't killed me.
But Seraphina Vitiello had died in that pool.
The woman in the hospital bed was something else entirely.
And she was going to tear his world apart.
