Chapter 1
The smell of antiseptic, gasoline, and burned rubber—that’s all I could think about when I got the call describing Gianni’s death.
They said it was a car accident.
A blown tire on the highway. The car lost control, flipped over the guardrail, and caught fire before it even hit the ground.
Gianni Vitale, sixty-three years old. My mother’s most trusted Soldato. The only man in this world who ever treated me like his own daughter.
And just like that, he was reduced to a three-line accident report.
I stood in the middle of the penthouse living room I shared with Lucian, phone in hand, completely numb.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan stretched endlessly—lights burning like a city that never slept, never died.
I built a lot of those lights for Lucian, one deal at a time. He just never knew it.
Tonight was supposed to be our fifth wedding anniversary.
I had spent the entire night preparing to finally tell him the truth I had hidden for five years.
I wanted to tell him that the mysterious figure known only as “S.C.”—the shadow financier quietly fueling the Moreau empire—was never some rival syndicate.
It was me.
I spent five years turning a nobody who couldn’t even hold onto a shipment into a Don everyone in this city feared.
I wanted to lay my entire world—my real name, my real identity—into his hands.
Because I truly believed there were no secrets left between us.
Then the tablet on the coffee table buzzed.
An encrypted video. From an unknown number.
I opened it.
The footage showed the private elevator in Moreau Group’s underground level. The camera was steady—intentional.
Lucian had Camille pressed against the cold metal wall, kissing her neck.
Camille—my personal assistant. The woman I trusted with my back.
She was smiling, twirling his tie between her fingers.
"That annoying old man is finally gone. No one will be passing messages for S.C. anymore—baby, you’re free now."
Lucian laughed.
"Once I figure out who S.C. really is, I’ll make him regret sticking his nose into my business for so long."
Then the video ended.
A loud ringing filled my ears.
And in that moment, my entire world went completely, irreversibly silent.
Gianni didn’t die in an accident.
Lucian ordered it.
To cut off the only remaining thread leading back to the mysterious “S.C.” he had been hunting—he killed the only man my mother ever trusted.
And the “puppet master” he was so desperate to eliminate…
was me.
The sound of a key turning came from the door.
Lucian was home.
Camille’s perfume followed him in. His shirt collar was wrinkled. He didn’t even look at me.
He walked straight to the bar.
"Sera, we need to talk." He poured himself a whiskey like he was announcing the weather. "This marriage is over."
I stared at his back.
"Because of Camille?"
He finally turned around. No guilt. No hesitation. Only irritation—and something colder.
Contempt.
"Because you’re not enough for who I am now." He swirled the ice in his glass. "When I married you five years ago, you were a nobody who couldn’t even say her last name. I took you in out of pity."
"Sera, don’t forget—this life, these clothes, this penthouse overlooking Manhattan… I gave them to you."
"Without me, you are nothing."
I looked at the man I had loved for five years.
And I smiled.
I smiled until tears fell.
Until my chest felt like it had been shot clean through.
So this was what I had become in his eyes.
A disposable thing he had already outgrown.
I didn’t argue.
I turned and walked into the walk-in closet, pulled out an old phone from the deepest compartment of the safe.
It powered on.
Only one contact.
A number I hadn’t dared to call in five years.
It rang once.
Then picked up.
A voice heavy with restrained rage came through—
"Seraphina? Do you remember this number?"
I closed my eyes.
"Papa… I was wrong."
"Bring my brothers home."
