Chapter 7

Seraphina POV:

The color drains from Isabella's face. She stares at the trust officer, then whips her head around to look at Lorenzo, her eyes wide with disbelief and pleading.

Lorenzo's jaw tightens. He turns to me, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous command. "Give the earrings to Isabella."

I meet his gaze, and for the first time in months, I don't look away.

"No," I say, my voice clear and cold. "I am Mrs. Bianchi. That is a right reserved for me alone."

Isabella's mouth falls open. For a second, I can almost see the words forming on her lips: But you signed the divorce papers! She catches herself just in time, but the frantic look in her eyes tells me everything.

Lorenzo's gaze darts between us, a flicker of confusion in his eyes.

Isabella immediately starts to cry. Fat, theatrical tears roll down her cheeks. "If you can't even do this for me, Enzo," she sobs, "then maybe I should just leave. Forever."

It's the one threat that always works.

He pulls her into his arms, his voice a possessive growl. "You're not going anywhere." His eyes, when they meet mine over her shoulder, are like chips of ice. "Disobey me again"-his whisper a blade meant only for me-"and I will show you no mercy."

Just then, an auction assistant emerges with a new item on a velvet tray. It's a small, velvet-lined box.

Lorenzo takes the microphone. "The next item," he announces, his voice booming through the silent hall, "is a personal effect of my wife, Seraphina Bianchi."

He opens the box. Inside, nestled on black silk, is a piece of my lingerie. A delicate web of lace and silk-a gift from our last anniversary. He dangles it from two fingers for the entire room to see.

The air in my lungs turns to ice.

"The bidding will start at one million dollars," he says, a cruel smile twisting his lips. "It comes with a collection of private photographs."

He is publicly shaming me. He is discarding me for her.

My hand instinctively flies to my phone, a desperate, futile impulse to bid for my own dignity. My credit lines have been frozen. He's thought of everything.

Young, arrogant sons of other Dons start shouting bids, their eyes leering at me, undressing me with their gazes. The price climbs to three million.

Lorenzo, still holding Isabella close, whispers in her ear. "Have some fun."

Isabella smiles, a slow, triumphant curve of her lips. She raises her hand. "Five million," she calls out, her voice ringing with dominance.

The room falls silent. It's the winning bid.

I watch, numb, as that small box, a symbol of my most private self, is handed over to my husband's mistress in front of the entire criminal underworld. She holds the box, her eyes glittering with victory. I close my own, enduring the ultimate humiliation.

I escape the suffocating ballroom the moment the auction concludes, seeking refuge in a quiet service corridor. But the reprieve is short-lived. Isabella sidles up to me.

"Ninety-seven percent," she whispers. "He's almost completely mine."

I don't even look at her. I just turn and walk away.

"Don't you walk away from me!" she hisses, her fingers digging into my arm like talons. Her eyes are wild. "Hurting you is the only way to win him completely. He loves to see you suffer."

She smashes a nearby wine glass against the edge of a marble console table. Before I can process what's happening, she snatches a jagged shard and drags it, deliberately and viciously, across her own forearm.

Then she lets out a bloodcurdling scream just as Lorenzo's footsteps echo from the end of the hall. He rounds the corner a second later.

Weakly, she points a trembling finger at me.