CHAPTER 8
1355 Words
A WIFE, NOT A PARTNER
Power lived everywhere in the mansion.
It settled into the walls, soaked into the floors, lingered in the air like an invisible perfume—sharp, metallic, impossible to ignore. It hummed beneath every conversation, every footstep, every carefully measured breath. Decisions that shaped the city were made within these walls, often over wine and quiet laughter, often with consequences that spilled far beyond the gates.
And yet Serafina was never invited to touch it.
She was close enough to feel its heat, but never allowed near the flame.
Meetings took place around her.
She learned this early on. Men gathered in the study, voices low and deliberate, the doors sometimes left ajar just enough for sound to travel. Serafina would sit in the adjacent sitting room, pretending to read, her back straight, her ears straining despite herself.
Names drifted through the air—ports, districts, families. Numbers followed, then silences that felt heavy with implication. She could sense when a deal had gone wrong, when tempers frayed beneath calm exteriors. Sometimes laughter followed. Sometimes nothing at all.
She never heard the final decisions.
When the meeting ended, the men emerged changed—relaxed, tense, satisfied, furious. Power altered them subtly, like wine or violence. Serafina watched these shifts with growing awareness, piecing together patterns from fragments.
Alessandro never debriefed her.
If she asked—carefully, casually—he brushed her off.
“These things don’t concern you,” he said. “It’s better that way.”
Better for whom, he never specified.
She was expected to host, not to rule.
When important guests arrived, Serafina was summoned like a decoration brought out of storage. She greeted men whose hands were stained with crimes she could not name, smiled at women who wore diamonds bought with blood. She poured drinks, listened politely, laughed at jokes she did not understand.
They spoke around her, never to her.
“She’ll look lovely at the gala,” one man said once, gesturing vaguely in her direction.
“Yes,” another agreed. “She photographs well.”
Alessandro nodded, satisfied. “She knows her role.”
Serafina stood beside him, silent.
She learned that being a wife in this world meant being visible but voiceless. Her presence legitimized Alessandro’s power—it softened his image, made him appear stable, respectable. A man with a young, beautiful wife appeared controlled, successful.
Her purpose was symbolic.
She did not sign documents. She did not attend councils. She did not hear negotiations to their end. Information reached her filtered, diluted, stripped of context.
And yet the consequences of those decisions surrounded her constantly.
One morning, she woke to the sound of shouting outside the gates. She watched from a balcony as guards dragged a man away, his face bruised, his pleas incoherent. Blood stained the gravel where he’d fallen.
She asked Alessandro what had happened.
“Business,” he replied, sipping his coffee. “Eat.”
That afternoon, a woman arrived—wild-eyed, disheveled, clutching a child to her chest. She screamed at the gates until guards forced her away. Serafina caught a glimpse of her terror, her desperation.
Later, she overheard a maid whispering about unpaid debts and warnings ignored.
That night, Alessandro slept soundly.
Serafina did not.
She existed in the aftermath.
She saw the wives who came calling days after decisions were made—women with tight smiles and hollow eyes, asking for favors Serafina could not grant. They brought gifts, spoke gently, hinted at hardship.
“You could speak to him,” one said softly, desperation creeping into her voice. “He listens to you.”
Serafina knew better.
“He doesn’t,” she replied quietly.
The woman looked at her then—really looked—and something like understanding passed between them. The woman left without another word.
Sometimes Alessandro used her presence as leverage.
He would invite her to sit beside him during tense dinners, his hand resting lightly on her knee beneath the table. The gesture looked affectionate to outsiders. Serafina felt it as control.
When he squeezed, conversations ended.
When he withdrew his hand, the room relaxed.
She was part of the performance, a signal disguised as intimacy.
Once, a deal fell apart.
Serafina knew it before anyone told her because the mansion changed. Voices lowered. Doors closed more firmly. Guards doubled at the gates. Alessandro’s temper grew precise and cold.
That evening, a man was executed in the courtyard.
Serafina did not see it happen. She heard it.
A single shot.
The sound echoed through the halls, sharp and final.
She dropped the glass she was holding. It shattered at her feet.
No one rushed to comfort her. A maid silently swept up the shards while Serafina stood trembling, her ears ringing.
Later, Alessandro entered her room.
“You need to be more composed,” he said calmly. “Fear invites weakness.”
“I heard—” she began, then stopped.
He raised an eyebrow. “You heard nothing.”
She nodded.
The next day, she wore black—not for mourning, but because it felt appropriate.
She wondered who the man had been. What choice he’d made. Whether he’d known the cost.
She wondered how many lives were shaped by decisions made in rooms she was barred from.
Sometimes, men mistook her silence for ignorance.
They spoke freely in front of her, forgetting she was there. Serafina listened, learned, memorized. She built a quiet understanding of the empire she was married into—how alliances shifted, how loyalty was bought and broken.
Knowledge became her secret rebellion.
But it was dangerous knowledge.
She could see how power worked without ever holding it. She understood its mechanisms, its cruelty, its indifference. She felt its weight without the ability to redirect it.
That was the cruelest part.
She was surrounded by consequences but denied agency.
Even Luca, who commanded respect without raising his voice, did not include her. He acknowledged her presence, treated her with a formal courtesy that set him apart—but he never crossed the invisible line.
He did not explain. He did not confide.
She wondered if that was loyalty—or restraint.
One afternoon, Alessandro hosted a meeting that lasted hours. Serafina was instructed to remain nearby, in case guests required her attention. She sat in a small adjoining room, listening to the muffled sounds of power being exercised.
At one point, shouting erupted.
A fist struck the table. Glass shattered.
Serafina’s breath caught.
Moments later, Luca exited the room alone. He paused when he saw her, his gaze sharp and assessing.
“You should go,” he said quietly.
“Is someone hurt?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Luca hesitated—a fraction of a second, but enough.
“Yes,” he said. “Someone always is.”
Then he turned and walked away.
That night, Serafina stared at the ceiling and understood something with painful clarity.
She was not Alessandro’s partner.
She was not his equal. Not his confidante. Not his advisor.
She was a wife.
A symbol.
A possession.
A boundary marker.
Her role was to soften the image of a man who did not need softening—and to absorb the emotional fallout of decisions she had no hand in making.
She bore the weight of power without its authority.
And slowly, quietly, that realization reshaped her.
It taught her patience.
It taught her observation.
It taught her how to exist in proximity to danger without being consumed by it.
But it also planted something darker.
A question she did not yet dare to voice:
If she could see the consequences so clearly—if she could feel the cost of power so intimately—what might she do if she were ever allowed to choose?
The mansion did not answer.
It simply stood around her, beautiful and unforgiving, holding her at the edge of a world that shaped lives and ended them—while reminding her, every day, that she was never meant to belong to it as anything more than a witness. Bottom of Form
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