Serafina POV

Vincenzo cleared his throat and walked, the hard heels of his dress shoes scraping a dull line across the floorboards, over to the family safe. It was time to distribute the illicit cuts from the family's recent operations.

He pulled out thick stacks of hundred-dollar bills, each bound in heavy rubber bands. He handed a massive stack to Serena.

Serena feigned a gasp of innocence. She clutched the money to her chest and clung to Rosa's arm. "Oh, Papa, this is too much." She turned her large, doe-like eyes toward me. "How much did you get, Serafina?"

I looked down at the two crisp bills Vincenzo had tossed onto the table in front of me. "Two hundred," I replied, my voice flat.

Serena burst into laughter. She covered her mouth quickly, masking her cruelty with a sweet smile. "Oh, I'm sure Mom and Dad just didn't want you to attract the wrong kind of attention." She patted her massive stack of cash. "They trust me with twenty thousand because I know how to handle it."

Rosa wrapped an arm around Serena's shoulders. She kissed the top of Serena's head. "That twenty thousand is a reward for your decryption score, sweetie." Rosa turned her gaze to me. Her smile vanished, replaced by a tight-lipped scowl. "You barely scraped by, Serafina. You should be grateful we give you an allowance at all."

Serena shook Rosa's arm gently. She played the saint flawlessly. "Don't be mean, Mom. It's still something that Serafina managed to secure a basic Associate position at all."

A cold wave of disgust rolled through my stomach. I knew exactly how much manipulative poison dripped beneath her words.

The heavy oak door swung open without a knock. Salvatore walked in, his combat boots thudding against the hardwood floor. He tossed two boxes onto the center of the dining table. One was a sleek, heavy black case. The other was a flimsy cardboard box.

"State-of-the-art surveillance and encryption gear for my favorite sister." Salvatore pointed to the black case.

Serena squealed and jumped out of her chair to hug him.

Luca smiled proudly. "That gear is worth twenty-eight thousand dollars." Luca looked at Serena with pure adoration. "That's a single week of Salvatore's extortion cuts."

Salvatore puffed out his chest. "Nothing is too expensive for my princess."

I looked at the flimsy cardboard box left on the table. I reached out and opened the flap. Inside was an outdated, gray burner tablet. It was the kind of cheap tech they handed out to street-level runners. I felt the sting of the blatant disparity.

I chose the safety of the Omertà. I set my jaw and remained silent. I shoved the gray tablet back into the box. I pushed my chair back and stood up to leave for my room.

No one even glanced my way.

"Is something wrong?" Serena asked in a falsely sweet tone.

"I'm just tired," I muttered.

Salvatore sneered. He grabbed a bottle of beer from the table. "She's just dead weight with a miserable attitude." He pointed the neck of the bottle at Serena. "Don't waste your breath on her."

Luca nodded in agreement. He didn't even look at me. "She's eccentric and a total buzzkill anyway."

I walked down the hallway and shut my bedroom door. The heavy wood cut off the laughter and warmth of the family I no longer belonged to.

An hour later, a call for dinner dragged me back to the dining table. Rosa had prepared a lavish spread of imported delicacies. Everything on the table was Serena's favorite. There were creamy pastas, delicate seafood, and sweet pastries—dishes heavy with creams and sugars that always made my stomach turn.

I looked at the rich food. "Can I have a simple, spicy dish?" I asked quietly.

Rosa slammed her serving spoon into a bowl. "Stop being so difficult." She glared at me from across the table. "Why can't you learn some grace from your sister and just eat what is served?"

I bit my tongue. I stared at my empty plate, fully accepting the reality that my mother had never cared for my survival.

That night, I lay awake in my bed, my hidden screen glowing beneath the covers. The New York Syndicate had sent me a preliminary dossier—building schematics, personnel files, operational weak points. They were already testing me, feeding me fragments to see what I could piece together. I worked until my eyes burned, and for the first time in years, the exhaustion felt like hope. Somewhere beyond the walls of this house, a different world was already sharpening its claws for my arrival.

Serafina POV

The next evening, Luca entered the compound carrying a plastic drink carrier. He held two large iced mango drinks from a high-end cafe downtown that served as a syndicate front. Condensation dripped down the sides of the plastic cups.

Serena clapped her hands together. "You know my tastes so well, Luca." She took one of the cups and took a long sip, smiling brightly at him.

Luca handed the second cup to me.

I wrapped my fingers around the plastic. The biting cold seeped directly into my palms and shot a dull ache up my arms. I stared at the bright, orange liquid.

I remembered a time when Luca used to sit with me in the dark, quiet courtyard. He used to claim we were fellow survivors in this brutal life, linked by our shared history. That was before he became blinded by Serena's shiny, newly-minted status. Every gift he brought into this house was now exclusively tailored to her preferences, with me as an afterthought.

"Drink up, Serafina," Luca urged me, but his eyes never left Serena's face.

I set the freezing cup down on the table. "I have a deadly allergy to mangoes." I kept my voice cold and steady. "And I have a severe physical intolerance to ice."

Luca finally tore his gaze away and looked at me. He frowned, his eyebrows pulling together as if searching for a memory that refused to surface.

"You never mentioned that before," he said, his voice carrying the faintest edge of irritation.

I stared at him. The silence stretched.

I remembered that single, terrifying incident three years ago. My throat had closed up. I had fought for every breath, darkness blooming at the edge of my vision. Luca had sat by my bed, his hand over mine, and sworn on his life that he would always remember my allergy.

He had forgotten. Or worse—he had chosen not to remember, because remembering would have been inconvenient.

Salvatore walked into the room and his eyes fell on my untouched drink. He rolled his eyes, his face a mask of disdain. "Always trying to ruin the mood." Salvatore grabbed a handful of nuts from a bowl. "Stop playing the victim, Serafina. It's pathetic."

I felt a profound, hollow disappointment settle in my chest. But beneath that ache, a grim, hardening satisfaction bloomed. I was glad I had defected to the New York Syndicate.

I was glad, because I now understood with absolute clarity: there was nothing left here worth saving.

The next morning, Vincenzo and Rosa prepared to drive to the Cloudview Casino. They needed to book the grand ballroom for the Syndicate Initiation Banquet.

I walked out to the driveway and pulled open the door to the armored SUV. There was no seat for me.

Vincenzo tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "Just squeeze into the trunk space."

Rosa adjusted her sunglasses. "Stop complaining. Serena needs the front seat for security reasons."

I looked at the spacious back seat. It was occupied by Luca. He was carefully holding Serena's expensive new surveillance gear across his lap, consuming the remaining space.

"There's no room," Luca stated, not meeting my eyes. "Find your own transport to the casino."

Vincenzo didn't even wait for me to nod. He floored the gas pedal, the engine roaring. The heavy tires spit gravel into the air, and I stepped back to avoid the spray.

I stood in the driveway, the vehicle's exhaust fumes catching in my throat as the SUV disappeared down the road.

I retreated back into the empty, quiet compound. I went to the kitchen and cooked myself a massive bowl of heavily spiced noodles. I sat at the counter and ate in a profound, undisturbed silence. Salty tears mixed with the burning spice on my tongue, but I didn't wipe them away. For the first time in years, the food tasted of freedom.

While I was washing my bowl, my phone lit up. It was an encrypted voice note from Rosa. "Hurry up and get to the casino. You need to show your face."

I looked at the screen, then without a second thought, pressed the record button. "I'm not coming."

I sent the message, set the phone down, and walked straight to my bedroom. I pulled my dark canvas go-bag from the closet. I packed only my tactical essentials—spare ammunition, a combat knife, and a heavily encrypted digital identity drive I had coded myself. I left the gray burner tablet and all the cheap, ill-fitting clothes they had bought me.

I walked over to the corner of my room and pried up the loose floorboard. I reached my hand into the dark, dusty space to grab my escape fund.

My fingers brushed against bare, splintered wood.

The sting of a splinter under my fingernail had yet to register when the saliva in my mouth evaporated. I attempted a swallow, my throat making a dry, clicking sound. I ripped the floorboard away, splintering the wood in the process.

The compartment was empty.

Not entirely empty. A single gold earring—Serena's—glinted in the dust, dropped carelessly by whoever had raided my stash. A taunt. A signature.

Thirty-eight thousand dollars. It was money I had bled, fought, and starved for over eighteen years—some of it earned through encrypted freelance jobs no one knew I took, each dollar a brick in the wall I was building to keep myself alive. It was gone.

The bedroom door creaked open before the reality of the theft could settle. Serena strolled into the room, a smirk on her lips. She raised her wrist, flashing a heavy, custom-made gold mafia dowry bracelet. The gold caught the afternoon light, blindingly bright.

"Mom bought me this for my initiation," Serena gloated, her eyes shining with triumph. "It cost exactly thirty-eight thousand dollars."

The number landed in the quiet room like a gunshot as I looked past her shoulder. Rosa was standing in the doorway, watching me with a flat, unreadable expression.

I looked at the bracelet. I looked at my mother. And for the first time in my life, I let them see exactly what they had made.

My eyes went dead. Cold. The eyes of a woman who had nothing left to lose and no one left to protect.

Rosa's expression flickered—just for a moment—before she set her jaw and stepped fully into the room. She didn't yet know that this was the moment she lost her daughter forever.