2

When they got home, my father made the call he’d been dreading.

Aunt Eva.

He dialed her number and filled her in, voice low and clipped, as if admitting I was missing would somehow chip away at his pride.

“We still haven’t heard from Serena,” he said.

The response came fast—and loud. Even I could hear her voice, crackling through the phone from beyond the grave.

“You call yourself a father?” Eva’s voice practically shook the walls. “You sent your own daughter to that man—and now she’s missing? And you’re still pretending it’s not a big deal?”

“She’s done this before,” he said, already defensive. “When she went off to college, she disappeared for a year. Didn’t call, didn’t visit. I just wished she could make Adam happy, so I can expand my business.”

And there it was.

He didn’t care I was gone. Not really.

He cared about the deal. About Rossi. About his little expansion dreams to Mexico.

I wanted to scream. To punch through the air and shove my voice into his ears.

I was your daughter, the only one who was truly yours. Would you still think it was worth it—sending me to that monster—if you knew what happened to me?

But the dead don’t get to ask questions. We just watch.

Aunt Eva had always been the exception in my life. And now she was furious. Because she worried about me.

“I haven’t heard from her in over a month, Enzo,” she snapped. “You’d better pray she’s fine. Because if anything’s happened to her, I swear to God, I’ll make you regret it. You son of a bitch.”

She meant it. Eva didn’t throw threats unless she planned to cash them in.

My father just laughed, a hollow, grating sound. “You always were dramatic.”

But he didn’t dare challenge her. He never had.

Eva was the one who inherited everything—while Enzo got the scraps.

His little drug ring was nothing without her backing. He needed her to bankroll his empire, and he knew it.

Eva had offered to help me once. Really help me. A new city. Tuition. A life outside the Barone.

I said no. I didn’t want to owe anyone. Not even her.

“Enzo,” she said, “You’ve gone too far this time. I want to hear from Serena. And I want it soon. Or you can forget your little expansion fantasy in Mexico. I’ll pull the money. And the protection.”

Click.

The line went dead.

My father stared at the phone for half a second—then swore and hurled it at the wall.

The screen shattered. So did his temper.

“That ungrateful little bitch,” he hissed. “Always screwing things up. Can’t do one goddamn thing right.”

Funny. That’s exactly what I used to whisper to myself at night.

…

You might wonder why things were so broken between me and my family—so bitter, so twisted—that I still said yes to dinner with Adam Rossi.

Truth? I didn’t know the dinner was with Adam Rossi.

I thought it was with my family.

“Serena,” my father had said, voice unusually soft over the phone, “we’d love to have dinner with you. It’s been so long. Your mother misses you.”

I blinked at my screen for a long moment after that call, then replied to my friend, letting them know I’d miss class the party on the weekend.

I was coming home.

I even bought a new blouse. Simple. Navy blue. Something my mother might call "respectable."

It’d been almost a year since I last saw them. I missed them—God help me, I missed them.

A simple dinner, I told myself. Just one.

We’d eat and talk. Maybe even laugh.

Turns out I was just stupid.

I walked into that restaurant expecting a family reunion. What I got was Adam Rossi.

Alone.

My family never came.

That night, everything snapped into focus.

Adam Rossi broke me. Degraded me. Used me.

And when he was done, he handed me off to his men like trash. They took me to the basement, and they ended me.

No one came looking.

Not then. Not even now.

…

“Did Eva call again?” my mother asked casually, walking into the room.

“Yeah, that bitch,” my father muttered. “Said if we don’t get Serena to call her back, she’ll cut off the money. Typical. Always acting like she’s better than us. No wonder she liked Serena more. They were both the same—stuck-up little cunts.”

Hearing him speak like that… about Eva… I felt something twist inside me. Something that hadn’t even stirred when I died.

Sadness. Real, choking sadness.

The only one person that cared about me was a bitch in my father’s eye.

Then, my mother added, “I told you, we should’ve sent Gia. She would not mess things up.”

My father snapped instantly. “Gia? Are you listening to yourself, Lucia? Gia can’t go. She’s my daughter. I’m not sending her to do something so degrading.”

I stood in the corner of the room, invisible. Cold. Dead.

And still, I bled.

So that was it. Gia was your daughter.

And I never was.

…

I had lived with Aunt Eva since I turned five.

My father always said it was for the best. “Eva’s rich,” he told me. “She can give you the kind of life I can’t. Wouldn’t it be nice to let your aunt take care of you for a while?”

He made it sound like a gift. A privilege.

But even as a little girl, I should’ve recognized what it really was.

A rejection.

He never sent my siblings away. Just me.

Aunt Eva took me in with open arms. She had more money than she could ever spend—her own island, her own castle. Literally. My grandparents had left the entire Barone empire to her: arms trafficking, laundering routes, offshore accounts.

He liked to pretend it was his idea. That he wanted me to “live carefree.” What he really wanted was distance.

When I turned twelve, father called, asking me to come home.

I was so stupidly hopeful. I thought—maybe they missed me.

I left Eva’s estate with my heart wide open, expecting warmth. A reunion. Maybe even love.

What I got was ice.

My family looked at me like I was a stranger. My mother barely acknowledged me. And the father who once kissed my forehead goodnight? He was silent. Distant. Like I’d imagined every good moment between us.

Home wasn’t a home. It was purgatory.