Erasing Serena Rossi

On our seventh wedding anniversary, I sat at my vanity with my laptop open. The lemon and elderflower cake Gabriel had ordered for the party scented the room. I barely noticed it. The encrypted file on my screen had taken three hours to c***k. It was a classified trust document buried in the Rossi family's ghost servers. I had built those servers, though Gabriel liked to call the network impenetrable and leave my name out of the story. He had forgotten that I still held every master key. I scrolled through the legal terms until two names stopped me. Beneficiary: Mia Fiore. Dependent: Unborn child. Then I saw the funding source. The account was titled "The St. James Children's Memorial Wing." It was the charity fund I had established in memory of my second miscarriage. The money Gabriel had sworn would give other children the future ours never had. He had taken a memorial for our child and handed it to his mistress's baby. My hand stayed on the trackpad. I had cried enough over that account when I created it. This time, I opened the live feed from the hidden micro-camera in his study. Gabriel was on the phone. Mia's face filled his screen, her lower lip pushed out while he soothed her the way he always soothed me when he wanted the questions to stop. "She’s the Donna, Mia," Gabriel said. "Her position is unshakeable. It has to be, for the sake of the Family." He paused to listen. Then he laughed. "Of course you're different. You’re giving me an heir. The *future* of the Rossi bloodline is growing inside you. Serena is the foundation. You, my love, are the legacy." Foundation. Useful enough to build on, easy enough to forget once the walls were standing. That one word settled what the trust document had started. Seven years beside him had made me a temporary stand-in while he waited for a woman who could give him a son. I closed the feed and opened a triple-encrypted communication channel. The contact was labeled "Professor." My message was brief. "It's time. Ghost Protocol. 48 hours." The reply was instantaneous. "Confirmation required, Ghost. This is a one-way street." I typed my answer. "Confirmed. Burn it all." The message cleared from my screen as the bedroom door opened. Gabriel came in carrying a black velvet box, dressed for the part of the devoted husband. "There you are, my love. I was looking for you." He crossed to the vanity and looked at me with the tenderness that had fooled me for seven years. "A little something for the most beautiful Donna in the world." He opened the box. A diamond necklace lay inside. He fastened it around my neck, his knuckles brushing my skin. The stones felt cold against my throat. He leaned in, his lips brushing my temple. "Seven years, Serena. And you're still the only woman who's ever mattered." In the mirror, the powerful Don stood behind his elegant Donna. Anyone looking in would have seen a perfect mafia couple. I smiled for him. It was the last honest gift he would get from me. On my blank laptop screen, Ghost Protocol was already counting down from 48 hours.