LOGINVALENTINA The boutique was too bright for a Saturday morning, all glossy white floors and gold accents that reflected the light in sharp, unforgiving angles. I stood at the counter with my mother’s claim ticket clutched between my fingers, trying to ignore the faint pressure building just behind my eyes. I hadn’t slept well. I rarely did anymore. The sales associate returned with a garment bag draped over her arm, offering a polite professional smile as she set it on the counter. “Mrs Romano’s jacket,” she said. “Freshly tailored. Would you like to inspect it?” I shook my head. “No, it’s fine.” The woman wrapped the receipt around the bag handle and slid it toward me. “Have a lovely day.” A lovely day. Sure. That sounded achievable. I picked up the jacket and turned toward the entrance, weaving between displays of winter accessories. My phone buzzed inside my coat pocket —pop once, twice, then almost continuously, vibrating against my thigh with a persistent urgency that ma
VALENTINA I stood at the entrance of the room I grew up in, and everything felt unfamiliar. The room didn’t feel like mine anymore. It looked the same with the soft lavender curtains, the framed ballet poster, and the little stack of books I never returned to the shelf after moving out, but somehow it felt like I was trespassing in a life I’d outgrown. My mother had moved half of her closet in here, and there was barely any space to move freely. I sat at the edge of the bed with my knees pulled up to my chest, wrapped in one of my old high-school sweatshirts. The sleeves still smelled faintly of detergent and my teenage years. It was nothing like the warm cedar scent of Adrian’s shirts that still lingered in my memory like a bruise I couldn’t stop pressing. I stared out the window and was met with sunlight, birds and a normal neighborhood. A normal life. But still, I felt nothing. Just emptiness. A hollow ringing in my chest that had settled there the moment I walked out of Adr
ADRIAN Stefan was already crying before I even had the chance to tell him no. “No, Daddy, please,” he sobbed, clutching his iPad to his chest as though the thing could disappear at any second. “I want to call her again.” His small shoulders trembled. His hair was sticking to his forehead, damp with tears, and his lower lip kept wobbling in that way that made him look younger than he actually was. “Stefan,” I said gently, crouching in front of him. “You already talked to Mommy today.” “But I want to talk again. She said I could call anytime,” he insisted, wiping his face with his sleeve. “I didn’t get to tell her about Milo’s new trick. Daddy, please.” He held the iPad tightly with both hands, arms locked like I might try to take it away. God. He had done this yesterday too. And the day before that. He called her, she answered for him and Sofia. But the second I tried to say a word, the screen went black. Every time. After leaving her countless calls and messages, she’d blocked
VALENTINA I didn’t remember turning on the water. I didn’t remember taking off my clothes, or stepping into the tub. All I remembered was red. Red on the steps. Red on my arm. Red painting the marble when her head hit the floor. It must’ve followed me here, because the bathwater was stained the same shade. I couldn’t tell where Serena stopped and where I began. I wrapped my arms around my legs and pulled my knees to my chest. My chin rested on top of them. I didn’t realize how cold the water had gotten until my teeth began tapping together, faintly, like two pieces of porcelain. I didn’t care. I didn’t bother to move, or to reach for the steaming tap, or to step out of the bath the way any sane, functioning adult would. I just sat there, staring blankly at the red swirl around me. It wasn’t even the bright, shocking red anymore. It had diluted into this murky watercolor— pinkish in some places, brownish in others— cloudy, like something spoiled. My skin was numb under it.
ADRIAN The car hadn’t even come to a full stop before I was out. The tires crunched over the gravel, the headlights cutting through the dark as the driver braked in the circular drive. My phone was still warm in my hand from the call that had wrenched me out of a boardroom in another country and thrown me onto a jet. I didn’t even remember the flight. Only Elia’s voice. “Sir… you need to come home… it’s your wives.” Wives. I could confidently say that nothing had ever scared me like hearing that word did four hours ago. Throughout the flight, I kept trying to imagine what the situation would be like, but something told me it would be much worse than I could even try to imagine. The front doors were open, letting the light from inside spill into the night like a warning. I stepped inside. The metallic tang of blood in the air hit me first. I knew that smell better than I wished I did. I’d called both Damien and my father before I even got on the plane, and as expected, my f
VALENTINA Milo’s barking was the first thing that interrupted us. It was so loud, it bounced off the walls and came right back, filling the air around us like a warning siren. Serena didn’t flinch. I did. “Call him off,” she said, blade glinting under the light. “I— I can’t,” I whispered. “Of course you can. He listens to you.” She hissed viciously, as if my hesitation was an insult to her. “Tell him to stop right now.” “No,” I breathed, trembling. “For God’s sake, Valentina.” Serena took another step down toward me with the knife still raised. “You’re being dramatic.” “I’m being dramatic?” My pulse spiked. “ You’re the one with a knife trying to stab me!” “I’m not trying to.” She rolled her eyes like I was dense. “I meant to stab you.” Her voice heightened. “There’s a difference.” Milo barked louder, claws skidding across the marble downstairs as she paced, confused and panicked. Her growls rolled up the staircase like thunder, even making me a little scared. “Shut that
VALENTINA “Is Daddy a bad man?”I nearly fell off the ladder. For a heartbeat, I forgot how to breathe. In the three weeks since his birthday, Stefan had barely spoken. He had only made small, hesitant words here and there, and now, on the morning before Christmas Eve, this was what came out of h
ADRIANI hadn’t had a family dinner at the beach house in a really long time. I could tell how immensely pleased Gemma was over this new development. She’d been trying to convince me to do one for months.Emiliano joined me for a quick Negroni before dinner, and I caught him looking at Valentina i
VALENTINA Knowing what I knew now, a chill crept over my skin when I found Stefan curled up in his mother’s bedroom the next morning. The air felt heavy in that space, still carrying the ghost of what Adrian had described so vividly, and so raw that I could almost see it. My throat tightened as
ADRIAN … THE PAST Sofia was born a month later by Cesarean section. Serena’s emotional state had worsened, so we had to restrain her at night and have someone watch her every minute of the day, even when she went to the toilet. Elia, Sybil, and Gemma took turns keeping an eye on her. I couldn’t

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