Chapter Seven – The Taking

Seraphina Vellaro – POV 

The rain was a language. 

It spoke in morse code on the slate roof, a frantic, tapping rhythm. It wept down the windowpane in long, shuddering sighs. It drummed against the earth, a low, persistent pulse that masked other, smaller sounds. On nights like this, the world was reduced to water and noise, and I was its sole translator. 

It was the only thing that kept me sane. 

I sat on the floor, my back against the wall, listening. My body was a mosaic of fresh and fading pains. Each breath was a careful negotiation with my bruised ribs. But the rain was a distraction, a symphony that demanded my full attention. 

And then, a new note. 

A sharp, wet crunch from the gravel drive below. Not the heavy, plodding step of a guard. This was lighter, purposeful, and then gone. 

I stilled, my head tilting. 

Silence. Only the rain. 

Perhaps it was an animal. A fox, or a stray dog seeking shelter. 

Another sound. A soft, metallic scrape from the east wing—a door I knew was rusted shut. It wasn’t forced. It was… manipulated. Picked. 

My heart, a sluggish, wounded thing in my chest, began to beat a little faster. This wasn't my father’s chaos. This was precision. 

Gloria. The thought was a desperate, forbidden flare in the darkness. Had she sent someone? 

Hope, a sensation so foreign it felt like a new bruise, bloomed in my chest. I pushed myself up, wincing as my leg protested. I moved to the door, pressing my ear against the cold, splintered wood. 

Nothing. 

Then, a muffled thud from downstairs. A sound a body makes when it hits the floor without a cry. 

The guards. Someone was silencing the guards. 

This wasn’t a rescue. It was an invasion. 

Fear, cold and sharp, lanced through me. Was it Danta’s enemies? Had they finally come to finish what he started? To erase the last Vellaro? 

I stumbled back from the door, my hands flailing, searching for a weapon. My fingers closed around the leg of the broken chair in the corner. It was heavy, solid oak. Useless against a gun, but it was something to hold. Something to swing. 

I backed into the farthest corner, the chair leg held like a club in my trembling hands. The rain was no longer a symphony; it was a curtain, hiding the approach of my end. 

Footsteps on the stairs. Not one set, but two. Maybe three. They moved with a quiet, synchronized efficiency that was more terrifying than my father’s thunderous rage. This was professional. 

They stopped outside my door. 

I held my breath. 

The lock turned. Not with a key, but with a series of delicate, clicking sounds. A pick. The door swung inward on silent hinges. 

The air in the room changed. It grew colder, heavier. It carried the scent of rain, cold metal, and a faint, expensive cologne—sandalwood and smoke. 

“Well, this is depressing,” a rough male voice muttered. “Smells like a tomb.” 

“Quiet,” another voice commanded. 

This one was different. It wasn’t loud, but it cut through the air like a shard of ice. It was a voice devoid of warmth, of empathy, of anything but absolute authority. It was the voice of the man who owned the silence in the room. 

I tightened my grip on the chair leg. “Stay back.” 

My own voice was a ragged whisper, hoarse from disuse and fear. 

A low, dark chuckle came from the rough-voiced man. “She’s got spirit. Little mouse with a toothpick.” 

“Razo.” The ice-voice again. A single word, a warning. 

I heard him step into the room. He moved like a shadow, his footsteps barely whispering against the floorboards. I could feel his presence, a dark star pulling all the energy in the room toward him. He was close. Too close. 

“Seraphina Vellaro,” he said. 

He didn’t ask. He stated. He knew. 

I didn’t answer. I swung the chair leg blindly in the direction of his voice. 

It was a pathetic, desperate act. He caught it effortlessly. One moment the wood was in my hands, the next, his fingers were wrapped around my wrist, his grip like iron. He didn’t hurt me. He just held me, his touch freezing the blood in my veins. 

He was tall. I could feel the sheer size of him, the heat radiating from his body. He smelled of the storm and that cold, clean cologne. 

“Let me go,” I breathed, trying to pull away. 

He didn’t release me. Instead, his other hand came up. I flinched, expecting a blow. But it never came. His fingers, surprisingly gentle, brushed against the cut on my lip. A clinical, assessing touch. 

“Danta’s work?” he asked, his voice a low murmur near my ear. 

The intimacy of it, the violation, was worse than a slap. I jerked my head away. “Who are you?” 

“I’m the reason this little cage of yours is open.” 

“I’d rather stay.” 

“That,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper that was for me alone, “is not an option.” 

He released my wrist, but before I could react, something heavy and warm was draped over my shoulders. A coat. It smelled overwhelmingly of him—sandalwood, smoke, and power. 

“Razo, get her out the way we came. The car is waiting,” the ice-voice commanded. 

“What about you?” Razo asked. 

“I’m going to pay my respects to Danta.” 

There was a smile in that voice. A cruel, anticipatory smile. 

The man called Razo approached me. “Come on, little mouse. Time to go.” 

I dug my heels in. “No. I’m not going with you.” 

“You are,” the ice-voice said from the doorway. I could feel his attention shift back to me, a palpable weight. “Gloria is waiting.” 

The name was a key that unlocked my paralysis. Gloria. Alive. 

My resistance shattered. The chair leg clattered to the floor. 

Razo’s hand, less gentle but not unkind, guided me toward the door. “Watch your step. Place is a shithole.” 

As we moved into the hall, I heard the ice-voice walking away, his footsteps heading not for the exit, but deeper into the house. Toward my father’s chambers. 

A sudden, terrifying thought occurred to me. I was being traded. One monster for another. 

We moved quickly through the dark, silent house. I could smell the coppery tang of blood now, faint but unmistakable. The guards were down. We stepped over a still-warm body on the stairs. I stumbled, and Razo’s grip tightened, keeping me upright. 

“Easy there.” 

He pushed open a side door, and the cold, clean rain hit my face. It was a baptism. A shock. I gasped, lifting my face to the sky, feeling the water wash the dust and the stench of my prison from my skin. 

“In here.” Razo guided me into the back seat of a car. The interior was warm, leather-scented, and impossibly quiet. The door thudded shut, sealing me in. 

I huddled in the coat, my mind reeling. I was out. I was free. But the voice of the man with the ice in his soul echoed in my ears. 

'That is not an option.' 

The driver’s door opened, and Razo slid in. The engine purred to life. 

“Is he… is he going to kill my father?” I asked, my voice small in the luxurious silence. 

Razo glanced at me in the rearview mirror. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel the shift in his posture. 

“Let’s just say,” he grunted, pulling the car away from the house of my nightmares, “he’s going to deliver a message.” 

I turned my head, pressing my forehead against the cool, damp window. I was leaving my cage. But as the car sped through the rainy night, I knew with a chilling certainty that I was being driven toward a different one. A gilded one, built of marble and blood, ruled by a man who without a doubt made death shiver. 

And he had just claimed me.