Chapter 1

Seraphina POV

I was the daughter of the Grant family. My father controlled half the city's underworld.

Gunfire and bloodshed were the currency of his business, the leverage he held over everyone.

And I was meant to enjoy the wealth and privilege that came with it, to never know a day's worry.

Until my twelfth birthday, everything changed.

My parents brought home a girl who looked disturbingly like me, claiming she was my long-lost twin sister, Karen.

She hadn't had an easy life, wandering outside our world.

My parents' guilt washed over them like a tidal wave. To make amends, they poured everything they could into her hands.

And Karen, as if she were owed the world, simply pointed a finger.

My room, my cherished dolls, my favorite dresses, even my parents' love and attention—everything that was mine was now hers.

Then she set her sights on Marco, the youngest, most promising Mafia boss in the city.

She demanded that I give up my position as his fiancée.

This time, I refused.

I rebelled with a fury I had never known.

After a massive fight with my parents, I set the curtains on fire, smashed five cars in our garage, and destroyed half the house.

In a fit of rage, my father sent me to Macro.

"Turn Seraphina into a proper lady—then she won't have to come back. If she fails, she'll never return."

My world plunged into darkness.

But I wasn't about to give up. I turned my fury on Macro.

I splattered paint across his ceilings, floors, walls, and all his expensive furniture.

And he grabbed me in the bathroom, pulling me tight against his chest, his hot lips pressing against the side of my neck.

"Sera... be a good girl."

Sera?

My parents hadn't called me that since Karen came home. They would only ever yell my full name, Seraphina.

A sharp ache hit me, and I returned his kiss, turning all my resentment and pain into wild, urgent desire.

Though he seemed cold on the surface, Marco always cared for me in a way no one else did.

He remembered my preferences without me having to say a word.

He'd shield me from a troublesome suitor at a dinner party.

Once, when a landslide buried our car, he dug me out with his bare hands and carried me for five miles until we found help.

Slowly, I stopped fighting him. I was falling in love.

One night, I walked to his study with a gift I had carefully prepared, intending to ask him about our wedding.

But at the door, I overheard him on a video call.

"Marco, your fiancée's been so much better. When are you going to marry Karen?"

"Karen was there for me when I was at my lowest. It's a debt I have to repay. Just make sure Sera behaves so she doesn't get in Karen's way."

"You seem so close to Seraphina... I thought she was going to be your wife."

There was a faint amusement in Marco's tone.

"That spoiled little girl? She's not fit to be my wife."

Each word struck like a blade, piercing straight through my chest. My heart stopped.

Marco's heart had always belonged to Karen. And I... I was just a willful playmate to be trained.

I threw the gift aside and locked myself in my room, shivering in the darkness.

I once believed that lacking my parents' love didn't matter, because I had Marco.

But the man I thought was my only light in the dark... was nothing but a fantasy.

Everything I had, everything I trusted, turned out to be nothing.

The door creaked open, and the lights flicked on.

Marco leaned over, cupping my chin, meeting my desperate gaze with a faint smile on his face.

"So... planning to tempt me into bed again?"