Chapter 4

Seraphina POV:

The invitation was delivered by one of the younger Moretti soldiers, a boy named Leo with eyes that still held a flicker of kindness. It was for a private party, a small gathering of the family's inner circle.

"Will you come, Fina?" he asked, his voice hesitant. He glanced over his shoulder as if expecting Dante to materialize from the shadows. "The Don... will he be there?"

In the past, the question would have been absurd. Where Dante went, I went. I was his shadow, his little ghost.

I looked at Leo, his hopeful face a painful reminder of a life that was no longer mine. For the first time, I verbally severed the tie that had bound me to Dante for a decade.

"He has more important people to be with," I said, my voice calm and distant.

Leo's face fell, but he nodded in understanding. He knew, as everyone now knew, that my time as the Don's favored pet was over.

That night, I had a nightmare.

I was back in the library, the smell of old paper and leather thick in the air. Dante stood before me, but his eyes were different. They were the eyes of a stranger, cold and dead. In his hand, he held a sleek, black pistol. He raised it slowly, aiming it directly at my forehead.

"Traitors to the Moretti family only have one way out," he said, his voice devoid of all emotion.

The blast was deafening. I woke up with a gasp, my body drenched in a cold sweat, the phantom pain of a bullet hole throbbing in my head.

The dream was a warning. My subconscious screaming at me what my heart already knew. There was no gentle exit from this life. Dante would not let me just walk away. To him, leaving was the ultimate betrayal.

A frantic energy seized me. I scrambled out of bed and dragged the duffel bag of his gifts from my closet. It wasn't enough. I had to erase everything. Every memory, every piece of evidence that the girl who loved Dante Moretti had ever existed.

I was dragging the bag down the main staircase, intending to take it to the incinerator in the basement, when the front door opened.

Dante and Isabella walked in, laughing at something she'd said. The sound died in their throats when they saw me. Dante's eyes locked on the bag in my hand.

His face was unreadable. He walked towards me, his steps silent and predatory. Without a word, he ripped the duffel bag from my grasp. I thought he would open it, confront me with the pathetic collection of his discarded affections.

He didn't.

He turned and handed the bag to the guard at the door. "Burn it," he commanded, his voice flat and hard as steel.

The guard nodded and disappeared into the night. Dante turned back to me, his gaze sweeping over me with cold appraisal. My hacked hair, my defiant stance.

He had just incinerated a decade of our history without blinking.

"I've arranged for your new school," he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "It's here in New York. You're not going anywhere."

The words were a prison sentence. He was pushing me away with one hand and caging me with the other. He didn't want me, but he would never, ever let me go.