Chapter 3

Serafina's POV:

I stared at Dante's message, the words radiating his casual, thoughtless authority.

I didn't reply.

Simply deleting his threats wasn't enough; I needed to erase him completely.

Just as my finger hovered over the block button, a new notification popped up. A friend request.

From Isabella Falcone.

A cold, detached smile touched the corners of my mouth.

The timing was too perfect to be a coincidence.

I accepted it.

Instantly, a message appeared on the screen. It was a photo of Dante, slumped in a leather chair with a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table beside him. He looked wasted, his tie loosened, his eyes unfocused.

Isabella followed it up with a caption: "He's heartbroken because I'm getting married tomorrow. Poor guy."

I scoffed. He didn't look heartbroken at all; he looked like a pathetic drunk drowning his sorrows.

Next came a voice note. The background was loud, filled with the clinking of glasses and muffled music. But over it all, I could hear Dante's slurred voice, heavy with alcohol and self-pity.

"Isabella... don't marry him... I love you... only you..."

The words were a grotesque parody of a romantic confession. Then, she dropped the final bombshell: a photo of her and Dante tangled in the bedsheets, her face pressed smugly against his bare shoulder.

Her final message was simple, yet dripping with malice: Loser.

A feeling akin to pity welled up inside me. Not for myself, but for the sheer delusion of it all.

I had spent seven years falling in love with a lunatic, and he had an equally unhinged friend to match.

My fingers moved slowly across the screen. I opened a digital gift card app, loaded it with exactly one dollar, and attached a note.

No refunds on secondhand goods. Buy yourself some class.

I hit send. Then, with a deeply satisfying sense of finality, I blocked and deleted Isabella Falcone.

I switched back to my chat with Dante. His message was still sitting there, like an order waiting to be obeyed.

"Come back when you're done throwing your tantrum. Don't make me come get you."

I blocked him, too.

For what felt like the first time in forever, my world finally went quiet, and it was an absolute blessing.