But I didn't drop the urn.

My baby. My last piece of him. My arms locked around it like it was the only thing keeping me alive.

Lucian's voice thundered through the stairwell. "Are you out of your mind, Serafina? You disrespect my parents in my house?"

I blinked. Swallowed the blood and stayed silent.

He stepped closer. "My mother told me everything," he spat. "You cursed at her. You spit in her tea. You threatened to kill them." His nostrils flared. "You think that's funny? Huh? You think that makes you tough?"

I opened my mouth but all I got was another hit.

Worse. My neck snapped sideways, pain ricocheting down my spine. I tasted metal. Somewhere behind him, two soldiers stood in the foyer with their hands at their sides. Neither flinched. In this house, the Don's fist was law.

Gianna's voice floated from the staircase like poisoned honey.

"Lucian… don't hurt her. She's not worth it, baby. She's just emotionally unstable. You know how she gets."

Her fingertips grazed her collarbone as she spoke, lingering there, the picture of a woman too gentle for this world.

He turned toward her, and in an instant, that rage melted into tenderness.

Like a switch. Like love; whatever version he offered her was the only language he knew.

"You're too kind to her," he said. "That's why she thinks she can still step out of line."

Gianna pouted. "She's been acting strange all day. I tried to understand her, but… she just hates me. I can feel it."

From the couch, Nico didn't even bother to pretend concern. His headphones hung off his neck, music still playing. He smirked at me.

A show. This was entertainment to him.

None of the household staff moved. They gathered at the dining room doorway, whispering like ghosts.

"She's still holding the urn…"

"She didn't even raise her hand…"

"I heard she went to the shore alone… with the ashes."

My heart was already ash long before they said it.

Lucian's gaze finally dropped to my arms. To the white urn cradled against my chest like a newborn.

"What's that?" he asked.

Before I could step back, he ripped it from my hands.

"No!" My voice tore out of me too late.

He held it like it was garbage. Turned it over. Sneered. The two soldiers in the foyer still hadn't moved. The compound's security cameras blinked red in their ceiling mounts, recording everything, protecting no one.

"You carried this around the city? Crying to strangers?" He shook it lightly, like he wanted to hear it rattle. "What the hell is this? Another one of your pathetic stunts? Trying to get sympathy?"

My stomach fell. My breath stopped.

"It's an urn," he scoffed. "Who died this time? Your dignity?"

Gianna let out a soft laugh behind him. Nico snorted like he was watching a movie.

I stood there, blood drying on my lip, face on fire, and finally spoke.

"Give that back!"

Lucian raised it higher, taunting. "Why? Who is it supposed to be, huh? You collecting ashes now?"

I didn't blink.

"It's Matteo," I said quietly.

The world went silent. Lucian's hand froze around the ceramic. Gianna's smile vanished. Nico's eyes dropped. The staff stopped whispering. Even the low hum of the compound seemed to die, as if the house itself had drawn a breath and held it.

For one long breath, nobody moved.

Then… the urn slipped.

No. He let it go.

"No—!!!"

It hit the tile.

One clean CRACK, then the explosion of everything I had left.

Ash. Bone. Shards.

My son scattered across the floor like he had never been held, never been loved, never existed.

The scream ripped out of me. I fell to my knees, fingers trembling, scooping whatever I could into my palms. My nails scraped the floor. I didn't feel the cuts. I didn't feel anything except the absence of him.

Behind me, Lucian exhaled like he was annoyed at the dust on his shoes.

"Stop screaming like someone murdered you," he said coldly. "You're not the victim here."

My hands were black with ash. My breath shook. My vision smeared with tears I couldn't control.

Then he added, "I got the hospital's update this morning. Matteo is fine. Alive. Sitting up. Smiling. The doctor even sent pictures."

I froze.

The ashes blurred under me.

Alive?

Impossible.

No… no. I was there. I held him when the monitors stopped. When his chest went still. When the nurse covered him with a sheet I couldn't move.

"You lied," Lucian said, stepping closer until his shadow swallowed me. "You faked his death. You drugged him. You staged this whole show because you wanted pity."

I lifted my face, broken. "H-he died… he died in my arms—"

"Hush," he snapped. "Fucking save it."

His left hand hung at his side. The knuckles cracked once, twice, slow and deliberate. The soldiers in the foyer heard it. One of them shifted his weight toward the door.

Gianna drifted to his side. Her fingers found her collarbone again, pressing lightly. "Maybe she did it to hurt me," she whispered, voice trembling with fake fear. "Maybe she hated me so much she wanted me to feel what she's feeling." Her eyes flicked to the ashes on the floor. "Maybe she wanted me to imagine myself like that someday… swept away. Shattered. Ashes."

She pretended to choke on a sob. Fell into the couch dramatically, shaking like delicate glass.

"Come here, sweetheart," she whimpered, clutching Nico's hand. "Let's go. Mommy can't breathe with all this… filth. I don't want you seeing this kind of darkness."

Nico frowned but didn't look frightened. Just obedient. A soldier trained young.

But Lucian wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her close.

"Don't waste tears on that woman," he murmured against her hair. "You're the only one who matters. Let's go upstairs. Leave her there with her mess."

I was still on the floor, sweeping what remained of my son with trembling hands. Ashes spread across my palms, streaking the tiles like a ghost trying to cling to me.

Nico suddenly broke away from them and charged toward me.

His shoes came down hard, right on the ashes.

"Witch!" he screamed. "You made my mommy cry!"

He stomped again. The ashes scattered further. My boy, thrown to the corners of the room.

No. No. No!

He kicked the shattered pieces of the urn so hard they flew across the floor and cracked against the wall. Ceramic fragments rained like glass.

I froze. My breath stalled in my throat. My body wouldn't move.

My chest convulsed. A sound clawed up my throat, too broken to be a scream, too raw to be a cry.

Lucian stepped in front of me. His hand wrapped around my face, his fingers pressing into my cheeks until I felt bone.

"Enough," he growled. "Enough of this spectacle."

I blinked at him. His expression was carved from stone. No guilt. No grief. Nothing.

"I almost believed you. For a moment, I almost pitied your little corpse."

His thumb dragged along my jaw. The touch burned.

"But then the clinic sent proof. Videos of Matteo laughing. Sitting up. The doctor said you exaggerated everything. Said you used him. Said you let him pretend he was worse just so you could collect pity."

A lie. Her lie.

My gaze drifted past him... to the stairs.

Gianna stood halfway up, one hand resting on the rail. Her eyes gleamed in the dim light, and there it was, that tiny smile curling the corner of her mouth like she was savoring a secret victory.

She bought those photos. She paid off the doctor. She spun the story. And Lucian swallowed it whole, like he always did.

They headed upstairs. Gianna leaned her head on his shoulder, her steps slow and delicate, her fingertips brushing her collarbone as though the ordeal had left her too fragile to speak.

"Come to bed, amore," she murmured. "I can't breathe another second around her."

Nico looked back just once, disgust flickering in his eyes before lifting his chin and following his mother. The wide-eyed innocence he wore for the adults slipped on like a second skin the instant Lucian's gaze left him.

The house fell silent. The compound's surveillance cameras blinked their red eyes in the hallway corners, recording nothing that mattered. I stayed on the floor, hands torn and bloody, gathering the last pieces of my child with fingers that wouldn't stop shaking.

Hours passed. Or maybe the world just forgot to move.

I didn't sleep. I couldn't. I sat outside my room, knees pulled to my chest, dried blood on my palms, the taste of salt still trapped in my mouth. Somewhere beyond the walls, a soldier made his rounds along the perimeter. I heard the crunch of gravel, the low static of a radio check. The compound breathed on as though nothing had happened.

Past midnight, I heard a cough.

Then Lucian's voice. Sharp. Frantic.

"Gianna, look at me. What hurts? Tell me."

I didn't move.

Gianna's cries rose like thunder through the walls.

"I can't breathe," she gasped. "Oh God, Lucian! My stomach, my chest, she cursed me. That urn! Ever since she brought that death into this house... something's choking me!"

Footsteps thudded. Lucian paced. Swore.

"That bitch."

Gianna's voice cracked into a trembling whisper.

"I heard the maids... they said she bought poison. Something... something meant for me. Maybe she put it in the urn. Maybe she wanted me gone. I'm scared, Lucian. I'm pregnant. I don't want to die... not me... not the baby."

The door slammed open like a gunshot. Lucian stormed in, his rage so thick I could taste it. The Don of the Ferro Family, and he moved through his own house like a man possessed by something smaller than himself, something she had planted in him and watered nightly.

He grabbed my wrist and yanked me up from the floor.

"You did this."

My ankle twisted. My arm burned. His grip was iron.

"You poisoned this house," he roared. "You cursed her. You knew she was carrying my child and you still brought death into these walls."

"I didn't—"

He cut me off with a jerk so violent I choked on my breath.

"She almost died tonight! Is that what you want? You want her dead?"

He dragged me into their room and shoved me forward.

"KNEEL."

"I said kneel."

"No."

The slap cracked across my face. Stars burst behind my eyes.

"On your knees."

I stood.

He kicked the back of my legs. Pain shot up like fire. I dropped hard, skin tearing open again. The floor stained red beneath me.

Gianna sat on the couch like a queen receiving tribute. Her hair immaculate. Her swollen stomach framed by a soft blanket. She pressed her hand to her chest as if fragile, but her eyes were sharp. Hungry. The fingertips at her collarbone lingered, tracing small circles against the hollow of her throat, the gesture so practiced it had become instinct.

"I don't believe her," she whispered. "She doesn't sound sorry. Make her louder, Lucian. I want to hear her break."

Lucian towered behind me, a shadow ready to crush.

"Apologize," he hissed. "Until she forgives you."

My lips trembled. My voice splintered.

"I'm sorry."

Again.

Again. Until my throat burned. Until my voice cracked. Until I felt something inside me tear open and bleed.

Gianna rose slowly, clutching her belly, swaying on her feet.

"L-Lucian... something's wrong." Her voice shook with manufactured terror. "My stomach... I think I'm bleeding—"

Gianna collapsed cleanly, right into Lucian's arms, as if she'd rehearsed the fall in front of a mirror.

He caught her instantly, clutching her like she was carrying the last heir of the Ferro bloodline.

"Gianna. Amore! Stay with me," he choked out, his voice cracking as he cradled her face. "Look at me. Don't close your eyes. Breathe, baby, breathe."

Her eyelids fluttered like a saint under attack.

"Lucian... I'm scared..."

He snapped toward the hallway, shouting loud enough to shake the walls.

"Get the damn car! Move!"

I stayed kneeling.

Blood seeping through my pants. Hands sticky, torn. My son's name still burning somewhere inside my chest.

He lifted her with both arms as if she might shatter. Gianna curled into him, whimpering, holding her stomach as if her soul was slipping out.

Before leaving, he turned back.

His eyes; those same eyes that once held me like I was his whole world were now a pair of knives.

"Don't move," he said. "You don't even deserve to breathe."

I didn't answer.

"You don't deserve a bed."

The door slammed. Silence swallowed the room whole.

I don't know how long I stayed like that. My legs felt carved from stone. My head buzzed. My throat was raw.

Then… the door creaked.

Tiny footsteps padded close.

I didn't look up until his shadow touched mine.

"Why are you sitting like that?" Nico asked.

He held a blue toy car by the roof, swinging it casually. His pajamas were spotless. Hair brushed. Eyes bright like he'd just woken from the best sleep of his life.

He crouched beside me with a little smirk, elbow on his knee, like he was studying a stain.

"My mommy's a really good actress, isn't she, puta?" he whispered with a grin.

The word sliced clean.

My mouth opened, but nothing came out.

He pushed his toy car across the tiles. The little wheels clicked against the marble that the Ferro family had shipped from Carrara three generations ago.

"Daddy always falls for it," Nico added. "Again and again."

He stood and walked away humming. Like he hadn't just stomped on my son hours earlier.

I lowered my face. My voice barely scraped out.

Soon.

Soon this would end. The dissolution papers were already with the family's outside attorney. I just had to wait.

Then I would finally be free. Then they would finally learn what it meant to lose everything.

…

Lucian came back before dawn.

He tossed a bottle onto the floor in front of me. It clattered and rolled. Painkillers. No label. The kind the family's private doctor dispensed without questions or records.

"Try not to kill anyone next time," he muttered, not even looking at me.

He grabbed his keys again. Stopped at the doorway.

"My parents' anniversary feast is this weekend. You're still my wife. People will look for you. Bring Matteo."

I felt nothing. Not even anger.

"You heard me," he repeated. "Bring him. Clean him. Smile. You know how this family works."

Then he left, back to Gianna, back to the private clinic the Ferro family kept on retainer.

…

The anniversary arrived.

Lucian didn't let me sit beside him. He pushed me to the front seat with the driver like I was hired help.

Behind us, Gianna curled against him like she was the rightful queen of the empire. Nico sat beside her, tucked under her arm.

She whispered something. Lucian laughed softly, brushing his thumb across her knuckles.

I looked down at my black dress, plain, scratchy, too short. Everyone else would wear diamonds or silk. Gianna wore white. Pearls down her back. A halo of expensive innocence.

No one spoke to me before we left.

No one even glanced.

At the estate, cameras flashed like gunfire. Reporters swarmed the gates, the kind of press the Ferro family cultivated for their legitimate face. Lucian stepped out first, adjusting his cuffs, pretending he was a faithful man.

He opened Gianna's door himself.

She stepped out like she owned the night.

Nico followed her, his hand in hers. He went perfectly still and wide-eyed as a flashbulb caught his face, the innocent child mask settling over him like a second skin.

I stepped out alone, sinking into the gravel.

"Don't speak unless spoken to," Lucian said quietly.

I nodded.

He didn't look back.

The ballroom glowed with gold and wealth. Chandeliers dripping like jewels. Music soft and arrogant. The room was filled with associates, silent partners, capos from allied families, and the politicians who owed the Ferro name favors they could never fully repay.

Lucian lifted his glass.

"Everyone," he announced, "meet Gianna. The woman who will soon carry this family into the future."

Applause thundered.

She bowed her head, shy and royal at once. Her fingertips drifted to her collarbone, lingering there as she accepted the room's adoration.

"And this," he said, bringing Nico forward, "is our future. The next heir."

Carmela and Geraldo embraced Nico like he was a crown made flesh. Carmela adjusted her left pearl earring with a single precise turn before kissing the boy's forehead, having already decided how the evening's hierarchy would arrange itself.

I stood near the coats. Out of focus. Forgettable.

Someone near the dessert table whispered, "Who's she?"

"Oh," Carmela said lightly, "that's just the old wife. She couldn't even raise her own son right. Sick little thing she kept hidden. God knows what happened to him."

Gianna placed a hand over her heart.

"Matteo's… still recovering," she said gently. "He wasn't strong enough to travel." Then she turned to me, pity etched perfectly on her face. "Poor Serafina… still grieving."

She kissed Lucian on the cheek.

My nails dug into my palms.

A waiter bumped a dessert tower. A silver tray crashed, echoing through the hall.

Laughter rose. Geraldo's loudest.

"We're here to celebrate," he boomed. Then pointed at me. "Let her clean it. She knows how."

Some guests laughed. Capos who ran entire districts. Associates who feared the Ferro name. All of them laughing at the woman kneeling to pick up broken silver.

Gianna stepped forward, voice dripping syrup.

"She used to be such a lovely hostess," she said. "Maybe she can help serve the champagne. Just until they catch up."

Lucian said nothing.

So I picked up the tray.

I followed the servers around the room, handing out flutes. One waitress gave me a sympathetic look.

Someone by the bar whispered, "Is that the first wife? I heard she poisoned the house."

Another replied, "With her dead kid's ashes. Can you imagine?"

I kept walking, quiet, steady.

They couldn't take anything from me.

I'd already lost everything worth losing.

Let them mock the ghost they thought I was.

Soon, they'd all learn my name again.

And they'd learn it screaming.