Chapter 2

Seraphina Vitiello POV

My engagement ended not with a bang, but with a trivial notification.

It was Valentine's Day.

It had been three days since Dante brought Roxy home.

I was in the greenhouse, methodically watering the orchids my mother had planted before she died. It was the only sanctuary on the Moretti estate that smelled of peace and damp earth instead of gunpowder and cigar smoke.

My phone buzzed against my hip in my apron pocket.

It was an Instagram notification.

Dante Moretti has tagged you in a post.

I wiped the dark soil from my hands and unlocked the screen.

It was a photo of Dante's hand holding Roxy's. On her finger sat a diamond ring.

Not just any ring.

It was a gaudy, heart-shaped monstrosity, likely bought with the blood money from his last shipment.

The caption read: Real passion can't be contracted. Sorry @SeraphinaV, but I need a woman who can handle my speed. #NewEra #TrueLove.

He had broken the betrothal on social media.

The humiliation was calculated. He wanted the world to know he had discarded the "boring Vitiello girl" for something exciting.

I stared at the screen, waiting for the tears.

They didn't come.

Instead, I felt a strange lightness expand in my chest.

The cage door had just swung open.

For three years, I had suppressed everything. I had hidden my racing license under the floorboards of my closet.

I had raced under the name "Ghost" in the midnight circuits, wearing a full-face helmet and oversized leathers so no one would know the best driver in Chicago was a woman.

I had come home at dawn, smelling of burnt rubber and gasoline, scrubbing my skin raw to smell like lavender before Dante woke up.

I did it all to honor my mother's debt.

But a debt cannot be paid to a man who breaks the contract.

I walked back to the main house with a steady stride.

I went to the master bedroom, the room I was never allowed to sleep in, and packed my things.

It didn't take long. I had very little that truly mattered.

I took the small box from the nightstand. Inside was the Moretti family crest hairpin, a piece of silver filigree given to me by the Don when the contract was signed. Beside it lay the engagement ring Dante had thrown at me three years ago.

I placed them in a velvet pouch.

I needed to return them. According to the Old Laws, a broken engagement requires the return of the tokens to formally sever the alliance.

I would not give them the satisfaction of keeping them.

My phone buzzed again.

A text from an unknown number.

I hesitated before opening it.

Expectations are heavy chains, little bird. The sky is waiting.

I frowned, staring at the message. It was cryptic. It was intimate.

It felt like someone had seen me in the greenhouse, seen the relief on my face instead of the sorrow.

I didn't reply. I deleted the thread, but the words stayed burned in my mind.

I changed out of my house dress. I put on black trousers and a fitted black turtleneck.

I pulled my hair back, not in a demure bun, but in a high, sharp ponytail.

I looked in the mirror.

The submissive girl was gone.

The Ghost was waking up.

I walked out of the Moretti estate without looking back.

My father and stepmother would scream. They would call me a failure.

But for the first time in my life, the silence in my head was louder than their voices.