Ferran Moretti.Don of the Moretti family.My husband. At a Mafia gathering held on the Moretti estate, before the five great families, he ordered me to paint him in bed with his mistress, Nina Lombardi—an intimate portrait of the two of them tangled together. It was the eighteenth time he had paraded a mistress in front of me to provoke a reaction. Everyone expected me to lose my composure. Instead, I finished the painting, my face perfectly still. One of his friends drawled, half-joking, half-mocking: "Ferran, your Donna has nerves of steel. She isn't even angry." Ferran scoffed. "She wouldn't dare." "The Sheridans are nothing but ash. I paid off her debts. Her mother's studio, the Rosa estate—they're all in my name." "Without me, she is nothing." I set down my brush and quoted the price, the way I always did. "Custom commission, intimate setting—three million." Ferran slid a check and a set of divorce papers across the table. "Nina is timid. She's been with me without a title, without recognition, and she's felt slighted because of it." "So we divorce first." "Don't worry. Once she settles in, you can stay by my side as my mistress." The whole room waited, hungry for my collapse. Instead, I picked up the pen and signed. The smile slipped from Ferran's face. "You're serious?" I nodded. "I'm serious." "Ferran, may you and Nina be together forever." Three years had been long enough for me to gather every shred of intelligence on him. I will never spare you again, Ferran. ... Ferran's fingers rested on the divorce papers for a long while. He looked up at me, as if only now realizing I wasn't joking. After a moment, he twisted his lips into a sneer. "Fine." "But remember this: nothing inside Rosa Manor is to leave with you. Not a single item." "Understood." I'd never intended to take anything from that house. I knew he hated me. I only wanted what my mother had left behind. For three years, Rosa Manor had been little more than a cage around me. The designer bags, the expensive jewelry, even the title of Donna—they were chains he'd thrown around my neck while calling them gifts. But my calm clearly didn't satisfy Ferran. He was about to say something else when the Underboss beside him gave a soft laugh. "Ferran, Serafina knows exactly what she's doing. Whenever Nina threw a tantrum, you softened. Now Serafina's learned to sign her name and act unbothered—she's waiting for you to come coax her back." At those words, whatever complicated emotion had flickered in Ferran's eyes vanished. He looked down at me, regal and contemptuous. "Sera, isn't it a bit late to start playing this game?" "Nina is young. When she's willful, it's charming." "You threatening me with divorce only makes you look pathetic." He caught my chin and forced my face up. "Do you really still think you're that pampered heiress of the Sheridans?" "The Sheridans turned to ash long ago. Without me, how exactly do you plan to live?" My fists clenched. I swallowed down the fury of hearing my family insulted, and kept my voice level. "I'll paint." "Paint?" He laughed as though I'd told a joke. "All of New York knows you're my woman. After our divorce, who would dare buy a painting from you?" I'd heard variations of this so many times I'd lost count. Ferran hated me for breaking off our engagement when he had nothing. He hated that I'd once said, I don't want to marry a man who has nothing. So after he rose, after he built his empire, he married me—just so he could grind me into the dirt over and over again. I didn't want to argue. I simply met his gaze. "I signed." "Now return my mother's studio keys, and the deed to the Rosa garden." Ferran sneered. "You want the keys? Fine. Nina wants a maternity portrait." "Paint until she's satisfied. Then I'll give them back." The room went still in an instant. Nina, leaning into Ferran's chest, curled her lips into a delicate smile. "Ferran, don't be cruel to Sera. She only just signed." Ferran steadied her, his palm settling protectively at the small of her back. "You're carrying a child. Don't worry yourself over things like this." At the word child, my hand stilled. Ferran caught it. He let out a low laugh. "Surprised?" "Nina isn't like you. She can give me a family." "You—you're just a useless thing." He led Nina to the main sofa and lifted his chin toward me. "Paint." The servants brightened the lamps. Nina nestled against Ferran's side, one hand on her belly, a small smile at her mouth. And I stood at the easel and, numbly, captured every inch of their intimacy. Someone snickered. "The ex-wife paints the future wife, and a maternity portrait at that. Don, you've won this round in spectacular fashion." "If I were Serafina, I couldn't hold the brush steady." I might as well have been deaf. Then Ferran had a servant bring out a canvas draped in white cloth. The moment they pulled the cloth away, my pupils contracted. It was my mother Rosa's portrait. Her final self-portrait, painted before her death. Ferran held out a palette knife to me, his tone light, careless. "Nina likes the composition of this piece." "Change the face to hers." The room fell utterly silent. Then someone laughed under their breath. "Don, this is crueler than a divorce." "Making Serafina paint over her own mother with Nina's face—that's something else." Nina nibbled her lower lip. "Ferran, don't. Sera will hate me." Ferran tilted his head and smoothed her hair. "She wouldn't dare." His eyes turned on me, cold as winter. "Serafina. When you finish, the keys are yours." I looked at my mother's gentle face in the painting, and something thick lodged in my throat. It was the last piece of her I had. And Ferran intended me to destroy it with my own hand. I drew a long breath and took the palette knife. Stroke by stroke, I scraped away her eyes, the bridge of her nose, the corners of her mouth. Soon, her face was buried under white paint. Then I painted Nina over her. When I finished, I set down the brush. "Mr. Moretti. Are you satisfied?" Ferran stared at me, something furious and unreadable churning behind his eyes. A few seconds passed. He took a manila envelope from his assistant's hand and hurled it at me. The corner scraped my cheek before falling to the floor. The keys and documents inside scattered across the marble. "Take them and get out." His voice had gone heavy with ice. "Let's see what kind of price a woman cast out of the Moretti family can fetch for herself, without me." I knelt and gathered the papers one by one, then turned for the door. Behind me, Ferran's voice rang out again. "Serafina Sheridan." "Walk out that door today, and even if you come crawling back on your knees, I won't take you." I smiled, faintly. "I won't." This time, I wouldn't look back. I left with the studio that had been my mother's. I left the cage that had held me for three years.
I returned to Rosa Manor. In the small studio at the end of the second-floor corridor, my mother's belongings still waited. Studio was a generous word. It was really just the storage room Ferran hadn't bothered claiming. After the wedding, the estate my mother had left me was seized by him. For three years, in either Moretti Manor or my mother's Rosa Manor, I hadn't had so much as a bedroom of my own. The master suite was Ferran's—the same suite where he brought Nina home, again and again, and ordered me to paint them. He'd humiliated me in the very places my mother had left to me. I pushed open the door. By the bed sat a painting whose paint was still drying. Ferran, half-undressed, with Nina in his arms. She was curled against him, the corners of her eyes still flushed pink. That session, halfway through, she had melted boneless into his embrace. "Ferran, my back aches." He'd bent his head to massage her. "Sitting too long? Or wore yourself out earlier?" Nina had glanced at me, blushing. "Sera's still here." I'd mixed paint behind the easel, my expression unchanged. She hadn't been willing to let me go. "Sera used to be a prodigy, didn't she? All those awards. Your parents must have been so proud." Ferran's face had twisted with disdain. "The Sheridans worship money. They sent her to study art so they could sell her off at a higher price when the time came." "Now that she can't get a cent out of any of it, they must be turning in their graves." I'd nearly spoken then. I'd nearly told him that when the Moretti family was on the verge of collapse, it wasn't his poverty that drove me away. That I had sold my own paintings, leveraged every scrap of Sheridan intelligence, mortgaged my mother's studio—and funneled it all into his family, anonymously. That the cruel things I said were because I was terrified the Sheridan debts would drag him under. But Ferran would never believe me. In his eyes, I was filthy. Greedy. Deserving of every cruelty. There was one thing, though, that he'd been right about. I had failed my mother. After the Sheridan family was ambushed, our enemies hunting us day and night, the Morettis' cash flow also broke. I sold my paintings in secret. I paid down both families' debts. I hid the true strength of mine, and I sent the money to him with no name attached. When my mother discovered what I'd done, she was heartsick. She was already ill. The worry deepened, and within a year, she was gone. So when Ferran later rose to power and asked to marry me, I felt more shame than joy. My mother had died because of me. What right did I have to be happy? But I never imagined that he had married me only to punish me. I dug through the corner and pulled out an old suitcase. Inside were my mother's well-worn sketchbooks, and an iron tin. The tin held mementos from when Ferran and I were young. The first time he secured outside investment, he'd written me a note. Sera, when I have money, I'll build you the biggest studio in the world. I'll make sure you only ever paint what you love. Back then I had believed our love was unbreakable. That was why, when the Sheridan family collapsed, I'd been willing to leave under a cloud of slander rather than drag him down with me. But now—I tossed the note into the ashtray. I watched it shrivel to nothing, then shut the suitcase and went downstairs. Outside, it had begun to rain. I had just reached the front door when two of the bodyguards stepped in front of me. "Donna. The Don gave instructions. Nothing inside Rosa Manor is to leave with you." "What's in this case belongs to me." Behind me, Nina's voice rose like silk. "Sera, if it's only your own things, surely a quick check won't hurt?" I turned. She had changed into a loose white dress, with Ferran's coat draped over her shoulders, standing at the top of the stairs. Ferran stood beside her. "The studio keys and the deed—I gave those to you myself." "Anything else in there belongs to me." His expression was cold, his eyes scrutinizing me without mercy. "Whether or not it's yours, we'll see when we check." I tightened my grip on the suitcase handle. "Ferran. Do you really need to take it this far?" His gaze hardened. His voice was a quiet command. "Open it."
I clutched the handle of the case, my knuckles whitening one by one. "Ferran. There's nothing from Rosa Manor inside." He stepped closer. There was no warmth in his eyes. "Serafina. How much of what you say is still worth believing?" "You once swore you'd never leave me. And what happened then? When I was ruined, you ran faster than anyone." I didn't explain. Ferran didn't want my explanations. He flicked a look at the bodyguards. The next second, the suitcase was wrenched from my hand and slammed onto the floor. The zipper tore open. Clothes, brushes, document folders spilled out. I reached instinctively for my mother's sketchbook, but a bodyguard blocked my arm. The little book, with its grey-blue cover, rolled to a stop at Nina's feet. She bent, picked it up, flipped through a page or two—and her eyes lit. "Ferran, these are beautiful. Could I have it?" The color drained from my face. I lunged forward and shoved her back. "Don't touch it!" Nina jerked, as if frightened. Her fingers trembled. The sketchbook tumbled, thunk, into the rainwater outside the doorway. A buzzing filled my head. Inside that book were the last sketches my mother had ever made. I rushed forward to grab it. But Nina's heel came down first—pressed firmly onto the cover. I looked up at her. Her eyes were full of venom, even as she affected innocence. "Sera, don't look at me like that. You're scaring me." Ferran was at her side in an instant, sweeping her behind him. "It's just a worthless book." "I'll replace it." "Ferran. You can't." His face darkened. "Serafina. Don't push your luck." I didn't look at him again. I bent down and reached for the sketchbook. The moment my fingers touched the cover, Nina let out a small cry and stumbled backward. "Ferran, she pushed me—" Before she finished, Ferran's eyes had gone cold. He seized my wrist with a grip that felt as if it would crush bone. "Serafina. Are you done losing your mind?" I winced, but didn't let go of the soaked book. "Let go." He didn't. He yanked. I lost my footing. My shoulder slammed into the glass cabinet beside the door. The cabinet shattered. Glass exploded across the floor. Instinctively, I caught myself with my right hand. Pain detonated from my wrist outward. Blood pulsed down my arm. The world went silent. The anger froze on Ferran's face. He stared at my right hand, at the blood dripping between my fingers, vivid and red. For the first time, panic flickered behind his eyes. He moved to speak. I only looked at him. "Ferran. Are you satisfied now?"
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