Chapter 3

But the nightmare began.

Dr. Aris called from the clinic, his voice tight with sheer panic. "Seraphina, your mother needs an emergency arterial bypass immediately. Her organs are failing. It's half a million dollars, payable upfront before the surgical team can scrub in."

I had immediately submitted the emergency approval request, but Elena hadn't replied at all.

I ran to the syndicate headquarters. My body, still agonizingly weak and hollowed out from the miscarriage just days ago, screamed in protest with every step, but the blinding dread pushed me forward. 

I bypassed the security guards and violently shoved open the doors of the executive suite.

Dante wasn't in Chicago on business like I was told. He was sitting casually on the black leather sofa. Elena was leaning intimately over his shoulder, a tablet in her hand, their heads close together.

Dante looked up, his dark eyes instantly flashing with cold irritation. "Learn to knock, Seraphina. You're disrupting my meeting."

"My mother needs surgery!" I gasped, stumbling toward him, gripping the edge of his desk just to stay upright. "Right now. Dr. Aris sent the invoice. Half a million. Please, Dante. You promised her medical bills would be covered. That was our deal!"

Dante slowly set his whiskey glass down on the coaster. His handsome face was a mask of absolute ice. "Your family already owes me a big debt, Seraphina. Do you think my money is a bottomless charity fund for a dying woman?"

"She will die today!" I screamed, tears streaming down my face.

Dante scoffed, a cruel sound that echoed in the large room. He pulled out his phone, dialed the clinic, and put it on speaker. "Dr. Aris? This is Dante Moretti. Cut off all syndicate medical funding for Seraphina's mother. Immediately. Do not proceed with any treatment."

He hung up and tossed the phone onto the table.

The room spun. My knees buckled. "No! Dante, why?! I'll do anything!"

He stood up, walking slowly toward me. He pointed toward the open French doors that led to the second-floor balcony. 

"You want half a million dollars?" Dante’s voice was devoid of a single shred of humanity. "Prove how much her life is worth to you. Jump from that balcony. If you do it, I’ll sign the check."

Behind him, Elena let out a soft, mocking laugh.

I stared at the man I loved. I was looking for a flicker of a joke, a hint of mercy. There was nothing.

I thought of my mother in the ICU, hooked up to a ventilator, fighting for every breath while waiting for me to save her. 

I turned and walked toward the balcony.

I stepped up to the edge. I gripped the wrought-iron railing. I looked back over my shoulder, holding onto one last, pathetic sliver of hope that he would soften. Stop me. Please, Dante. Just say you're angry.

He looked down at his Rolex. "Ten."

My breath hitched.

"Nine. Eight."

He was actually counting. He wanted me broken.

"Seven. Six."

I closed my eyes. I'm sorry, I'm coming, Mom.

I lifted my foot onto the ledge. I shifted my weight entirely forward into the empty air.

"Four."

I let go of the railing.

"Three!"

A massive, violent force clamped around my waist. I was yanked backward so hard my feet left the ground. I crashed heavily into a wall of solid muscle.

Dante towered over me. His chest was heaving violently. His grip on my arm was bruising, and his dark eyes were blazing with a sudden, chaotic, terrifying fury.

"Are you insane?!" he roared, his voice cracking. "You actually jumped?!"

"You told me to! If I don’t die, am I supposed to keep being controlled by you, tortured by you, and watching my mother leave me at any moment?" I sobbed, struggling wildly against his iron grip.

"You can not die!" Dante snarled, shaking me, his breathing ragged. "You don't get the easy way out! You live to pay off your family's debt! You stay alive so I have someone to punish!"

He released me as if my skin burned him.

"Don't flatter yourself," he spat, his voice forcibly leveled, though he aggressively refused to look me in the eye. "I'm just not in the mood to clean a corpse off my courtyard today."

He turned to Elena, his jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek. "Process the approval. Wire the half million to the clinic. Keep her alive."

Without another word, without a single backward glance, Dante stormed out of the office, as if the person who had just been gripping my wrist and losing his temper had never been him at all.

I let out a shuddering breath, collapsing against the sofa leg. I whispered. "Send it now,Elena. She has no time."

Elena slowly locked her tablet. She looked down at me, her mask of professional sweetness completely gone, revealing the raw, ugly, festering jealousy beneath.

"Wire the money?" she whispered venomously. "I don't think so."

"Dante gave the order!" I panicked, scrambling to my knees. "You heard him!"

"Dante was momentarily confused. I am not," she sneered. "You contribute nothing to this family. You just spread your legs for Dante. I won't let you drain our coffers for a corpse."

"No!" I lunged forward, desperately grabbing for the tablet on the desk. "Give it to me! I'll do it myself!"

Elena’s eyes flashed with vicious delight. She stepped back and snapped her fingers. "Security! Restrain this lunatic. She’s attacking me."

Two heavy-set guards burst into the room. They grabbed my arms, twisting them painfully behind my back. 

"Let me go!" I shrieked. 

They hauled me through the lobby and threw me violently out the front doors.

I hit the concrete hard. The skin on my knees and palms tore open. I scrambled to my feet, flagging down a passing taxi with bloodied hands. 

"The clinic! Please, step on it!" I begged the driver. 

Every red light was a knife to my chest. By the time the taxi screeched to a halt in front of the clinic, I didn't even wait for the change. I sprinted through the automatic doors, my lungs burning, my dress torn and stained with dirt and blood.

I burst into the ICU corridor. 

But it was too quiet. 

Just a single, continuous, high-pitched tone echoing from Room 402. 

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

I froze in the doorway. 

Dr. Aris was standing beside the bed, slowly pulling a white sheet over my mother's face. He looked up, his face pale and drawn. He didn't have to say a single word. The silence in the room was a tomb.

"The surgery?" I croaked, my throat tasting like copper and ash.

"The funds never arrived, Seraphina," he whispered, tears spilling over his eyelashes. " We tried to stabilize her with what we had, but... her heart gave out. I'm so sorry."

I stared at the white sheet. Dead. 

My mother was dead. 

I didn't scream. I didn't cry. My eyes were completely dry. 

A guttural, agonizing scream ripped through my throat, shattering the silence of the room. My knees buckled, and I collapsed onto the cold linoleum floor, my fingers desperately clutching the edge of the sterile white sheet. 

"Mom..." I sobbed, my voice completely broken, the tears falling so violently they choked me. "Mom, please wake up! Don't leave me here! Please!" 

But the monitor remained dead and silent. 

I did everything they asked. I endured his cruelty. I swallowed my pride. I even stood on that balcony ready to jump, just to save her.

I had traded my body and my youth to pay a debt. They took my dignity. 

I cried until my throat tasted like blood, until my lungs burned and my body physically couldn't produce another tear. 

Then I pulled my phone from my pocket. I dialed Dante’s number.

He answered on the second ring, his tone laced with impatient arrogance. "What now, Seraphina? Are you calling to cry your thanks?"

"I want a divorce, Dante," I interrupted, my voice cold and resolute. "We're done."