Chapter 3

Lysandra’s eyes flicked up.

A slow, cruel smile stretched across her lips.

“Oh good,” Lysandra said, waving a hand dismissively, “the maid is here. Can you get me another cup of coffee, sweetheart? Damian likes it strong.”

Damian didn’t correct her.

He didn’t glance at Seraphina.

He didn’t defend her.

Her chest tightened painfully.

She forced breath into her lungs. “I’m not...”

“What?” Lysandra leaned back, smirking. “Not useful? Not busy? Not wanted?”

Damian didn’t look up.

The humiliation was so sharp she felt it in her bones.

Seraphina’s voice came out small. “I’ll have the staff bring you coffee.”

“Yes, do that,” Lysandra purred, waving her off like a servant.

Seraphina walked away, spine straight, head high. But the moment she turned the corner, she collapsed against the wall.

She pressed a hand to her mouth to muffle the sound.

Her tears came silently, burning down her cheeks as she held her stomach, still unaware yet of the life forming inside.

She had loved Damian.

Or tried to.

Desperately.

But all he ever did was show her her own insignificance.

Her phone rang that afternoon.

She didn’t recognize the number at first, but her breath caught when she heard the voice.

“Sera?”

Adrik Volkov.

Her closest friend from medical school.

Warm hearted. Loyal. Brilliant.

She hadn’t expected him to call.

“Sera,” Adrik repeated gently. “I heard rumors… that you married into the Blackwell syndicate. Is it true?”

Seraphina swallowed the lump in her throat. “Yes.”

“And are you okay?”

No.

She wanted to say no.

She wanted to scream it.

Instead she whispered, “I… don’t know.”

Adrik exhaled softly, a sound she hadn’t realized she needed to hear until that moment.

“I’m calling because I have news,” he said. “There’s an opening at a new medical research center. They want a director with surgical potential and leadership promise. I gave them your name.”

Seraphina’s breath stilled. “Adrik…”

“You deserve better than whatever is happening there, Sera. You deserve your own life. Your own identity. Your own future.”

Her throat tightened. “Damian would never let me go.”

“Then don’t ask him,” Adrik said simply. “Just leave.”

A tear slid down her cheek.

“Sera,” he added softly, “I will help you. Whatever you decide.”

She wiped her tears. “Thank you, Adrik.”

“Anytime. And Sera?”

“Yes?”

“You don’t deserve to be someone’s shadow.”

........................

Two days later, her body turned against her.

She woke nauseous, dizzy, barely able to stand. The smell of breakfast from downstairs sent her stumbling into the bathroom.

She knelt over the toilet, shaking.

The symptoms were unmistakable.

She was a doctor.

She knew.

She forced herself to stand, washed her face, and stared at herself in the mirror.

A baby.

Damian’s baby.

Her tears flowed silently.

What kind of life would her child have here?

A loveless father.

A violent empire.

A house where she was treated like dirt.

Her child would be born into duty, not love.

Into war, not warmth.

Into a world where power mattered more than innocence.

“I won’t let that happen,” she whispered to the small life inside her.

She grabbed her coat and hurried to the pharmacy.

Minutes later, she walked back through the mansion doors with a pregnancy test hidden in a small white bag.

Her pulse pounded as she rushed toward the stairs.

Just get to your room.

Just a few more steps...

“Seraphina.”

She stopped dead.

Damian stood at the bottom of the steps, undoing his tie, hair slightly mussed from another night out.

And behind him…

Lysandra.

Still wearing his shirt.

Seraphina clenched the bag tighter behind her back.

Damian’s eyes narrowed.

“What are you hiding?”

Her heart crashed violently in her chest.

“Nothing,” she whispered.

He climbed one step.

She stepped back.

His voice dropped, low, suspicious.

“Seraphina. Show me.”

He reached for her hand...

“Sir!” a guard shouted from the foyer.

“Urgent news!”

Damian’s head snapped toward the guard.

Lysandra smirked.

Seraphina exhaled shakily. She had been seconds from exposure. Seconds from losing everything, including her unborn child’s chance at freedom. 

Lysandra sauntered past her, brushing her shoulder with a mocking smile, Seraphina then knew.. 

It wasn’t just Damian’s coldness that broke her. It was the woman he allowed to ruin her. The mansion. The humiliation. The loneliness.

She didn’t remember climbing the last flight of stairs. Her legs moved on instinct, fueled by fear and the desperate need to reach her room before Damian returned or Lysandra found a new reason to shred her dignity.

She shut the bedroom door softly, back pressed against the wood as her breath hitched.

The small white pharmacy bag dug into her palm.

Her hands shook.

Her lips trembled.

Her heart… her heart felt like a wounded thing clawing against her ribs.

She dropped to the bathroom floor, ripping the test open with trembling fingers, barely reading the instructions she already knew by memory.

She took the test.

Set it down.

And then time stopped.

The three longest minutes of her life ticked by. Her chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow breaths as she knelt on the tile floor, arms wrapped around herself for warmth she couldn’t find anywhere else. Memories of Damian and Lysandra in the foyer stabbed her over and over.

His silence.

Her smirk.

Her humiliation.

One tear slid down Seraphina’s cheek.

Then another.

Then a third.

The timer on her phone buzzed softly.

Seraphina reached for the test with a shaking hand…

Two lines.

Bright.

Undeniable.

Life changing.

Her vision blurred instantly.

A sob tore from her throat, broken, raw, full of every bruise she carried on the inside.

“I’m pregnant…” she whispered.

Her hand flew to her stomach, fingers shaking as they pressed lightly over the place where a tiny spark of life had begun.

“I’m pregnant.”

The words should’ve brought joy. But all she felt was terror.

Her baby would grow up under Damian’s control. Watched. Trained. Molded into a weapon.

Born into a world where love was weakness and power was purpose.

She flashed back to the wedding night, Damian fastening his shirt. His cold voice: “We do what is necessary.”

His indifference: “This isn’t about love.”

This child was the reason he married her.

Not her.