2

“Sera...” Mark's voice was barely more than a rasp.

“Don't think about any of that right now, Dad.” Seraphine tightened her grip around his hand, swallowing the thick lump in her throat. She forced her voice to remain steady. “You need to rest.”

Mark's eyes filled with hot tears. “My little girl...” His voice broke completely. “I'm so sorry.”

A tear slipped down the deep, weathered lines of his face. “I ruined your life,” he whispered, his breathing turning shallow and uneven. “I ruined your entire future because of my mistakes.” His frail fingers tightened weakly around hers, trembling with a sudden rush of grief. “If I hadn't been so damn greedy... none of this would have happened. That bastard never would have come after you.”

“Dad, please...”

“This is all my fault, Sera. All my fault.”

Hearing those words hurt more than anything Arthur had done to her at the altar. Seraphine felt as though a tight band had wrapped around her chest, squeezing the air right out of her lungs. Yet, she forced a smile. Not because she wanted to, but because her father couldn't see her fall apart. Not tonight.

She lowered her head and pressed a gentle kiss against the back of his rough hand. “You don't owe me an apology,” she whispered, looking up to meet his guilt-ridden eyes. “You really don't, Dad.”

She took a slow, grounding breath before lifting her head. “Maybe this is God's way of opening my eyes before it was too late. Maybe He wanted me to see exactly who Arthur really is before I spent the rest of my life bound to him.” A sharp, burning ache spread through her chest, but she pushed it down. “It hurts now... I won't lie. But it would have hurt so much more if I had learned the truth after we were already married.”

Mark shut his eyes tight, shaking his head on the pillow. “I can't forgive myself.”

“You don't have to carry this alone, Dad.”

“I failed you, Sera. I failed your mother.”

“No,” Seraphine insisted, squeezing his hand tighter until his eyes opened again. “Look at me. What happened today doesn't define my life. Arthur walking away doesn't destroy me.”

She leaned closer, resting her forehead lightly against his knuckles. “You're the only thing that matters to me.” She closed her eyes, letting out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. “I already lost Mom when I was sixteen. I can't lose you too.”

The room fell deathly silent. Ever since her mother passed away after a long illness, Mark had become her entire world. Her father, her protector, her safest place in a ruthless city. She had survived losing one parent; she wasn't sure her soul would survive losing the other.

Mark let out a shaky, rattling breath. “But I dragged your name through the mud, Nak. The whole world watched you get humiliated because of my past.”

“I don't care about the world,” she said, her tone sharper than she intended. She softened immediately, brushing away the tears on his wet cheeks with trembling fingers. “I really don't. The only thing I care about in this world is you. So please, Dad... no more apologizing. You need to get better.”

She carefully adjusted his pillow before pulling the heavy silk blanket higher over his chest. For the first time all day, Mark looked truly defeated. Years of battling chronic heart disease had finally taken their devastating toll. Seraphine knew that was the real reason he had rushed the wedding... he simply wanted the comfort of knowing his only daughter would be protected after he was gone.

Instead, he had handed her straight to a monster.

“I promised your mother I'd protect you,” Mark whispered, his voice cracking into nothingness. “And I became the very reason you're hurting.”

Seraphine shook her head, forcing a brave smile through her blurred vision. “Mom is at peace. And you're still here with me. So stay with me, Dad. That's all I'm asking.”

Mark stared at the ceiling for several long, agonizing seconds before speaking again. “You don't understand, Sera.”

Something about the hollow tone of his voice made Seraphine's stomach drop. “What do you mean?”

He let out a slow, painful breath that seemed to rattle his ribs. “When the doctors told me, my heart was giving out... I realized my time was running short. I wanted to make sure Anderson had someone powerful at the helm. Someone I could trust.” His eyes drifted toward her, swimming with a new wave of agony. “I trusted Arthur. I trusted him enough to prepare him to take over everything.”

Seraphine froze, her blood turning to ice. “What...?”

“I signed the transfer documents a few weeks ago,” Mark swallowed hard, the confession visibly draining the last of his strength. “Company shares. Several of our most valuable core assets. They're already under Arthur's legal control.”

Silence stretched over them, suffocating and vast. The massive bedroom suddenly felt as though it were shrinking around her. For one terrifying second, Seraphine forgot how to breathe.

Arthur hadn't just humiliated her at the altar for a public spectacle. He had planned every single move under a calculated radar. Every smile, every late-night promise, every "I love you" had been a weapon to rob them blind.

“So...” Her voice came out strangely calm, a dangerous contrast to the storm in her chest. “He already owns a part of Anderson?”

Mark closed his eyes in shame. “Yes. He owns enough to cripple us from the inside out. I handed our legacy to the devil himself. I was such a fool, Sera.”

Seraphine didn't say a word. She slowly pulled the blanket higher around his shoulders before smoothing a hand across his damp forehead. The warmth in her eyes vanished entirely, replaced by a cold, sharp resolve.

“Dad,” she said, her voice dropping into a commanding whisper. “You're done blaming yourself. You have exactly one job now.” She gently tucked a loose strand of gray hair behind his ear. “You're going to rest. You're going to recover. And you're going to stay alive.”

“But Anderson...”

“I'll handle Anderson,” she cut him off, her voice ringing with an authority she had never used before. There wasn't a single trace of hesitation left in her. “I know exactly what's waiting for us out there, and I will face Arthur Ashford myself.” Her gaze hardened into flint. 

She kissed Mark forehead again. “Go to sleep now. I'm right here.”

Only after his breathing became slow and rhythmic did Seraphine finally let go of his hand. She quietly slipped out of the room, closing the heavy wooden door behind her without a sound.

The second she stepped into her own bedroom, the fragile mask she'd been wearing shattered into dust.

She stopped dead in front of the full-length mirror. A bride stared back at her... only she didn't look like one anymore. The hem of her designer gown was shredded, the long white train streaked with black dirt from the Manhattan streets outside the hotel. Smeared mascara clung to her pale cheeks. She looked less like a happy bride and more like the sole survivor of a violent wreck.

“Pathetic...” The word escaped her lips in a ragged whisper.

Her hands shook violently as she reached behind her back, yanking the zipper down with an aggressive force. Fabric ripped loudly under her grip, but she didn't care. She tore herself free from the lace and satin she had once dreamed of wearing, letting the dress pool around her feet like a broken promise.

Without another glance at the mirror, she walked straight into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Cold water pounded against her skin before it even had a chance to warm up. She didn't flinch. She welcomed the freezing sting. Maybe it would numb the ache in her bones. Maybe it would wash Arthur's touch away.

She braced both hands against the cold marble wall. For a few seconds, she just stood there under the downpour. Then, she completely broke.

Her heavy sobs echoed against the tiles, drowned out only by the running water. Every ounce of suffocating humiliation she had swallowed in front of New York's elite came crashing out of her chest.

“Why, Arthur?” her voice cracked, raw and bleeding with pain. “Why did you have to do this to me?”

She cried until her throat burned and breathing became difficult. She cried until the entire bathroom began to spin.

Seraphine blinked, but the floor tilted beneath her feet. A sudden, violent wave of dizziness slammed into her without warning. Her stomach twisted into a painful knot, and she stumbled blindly toward the sink, gripping the porcelain edge with both hands to keep from collapsing into the wet floor.

“What is... what is wrong with me?” She closed her eyes tight, trying to steady the frantic rhythm of her breathing.

Something felt profoundly wrong. She forced her panicked mind to look backward, searching her memory. When had her body started feeling this heavy? This exhausted?

Her heartbeat suddenly quickened, drumming a wild alarm against her ribs. Then, the truth hit her like a physical blow.

Her period.

She counted the days in her head. Once. Twice. A suffocating chill ran through her entire body, a coldness that had absolutely nothing to do with the shower water.

She was over two weeks late.

Seraphine's fingers tightened around the edge of the sink until her knuckles turned bloodless. “No...” her whisper trembled in the dark room, heavy with a brand new terror. “Please... God, please don't let this be happening.”