Worried that he might feel uncomfortable after drinking, I sent him a message, disrupting his peace. I apologized again.
I stumbled upon a text from Daniela, inviting him to a hotel. And once more, I found myself saying, "I'm truly sorry for invading your privacy..."
With blood in my mouth and pain in my bones, I straightened up, resigned. My thumb pressed against the inside of my ring finger where the wedding band still sat, though it felt like nothing. Like absence shaped into gold.
Bowing 180 degrees to Daniela, I offered three deep apologies.
Then I looked at Dominic with cold, empty eyes.
"Is that enough?" I quietly asked.
His chest rose sharply, eyes fixed on the blood at the corner of my lips.
"Seraphina," he sneered, "your precious old man isn't here to protect you anymore. The Rossetti name doesn't open doors in this city. Not anymore. Who are you pretending to be so pitiful for?"
Before I could answer, the Family's private physician arrived, bag in hand, flanked by one of Dominic's soldiers who held the door.
Brushing past me like I didn't exist, Dominic led him straight to Daniela's side.
While Dominic's world revolved entirely around Daniela, I walked swiftly out the door.
I had barely stepped beyond the foyer of the estate when a car horn sounded twice from the darkness beyond the perimeter wall.
Two short blasts. A signal.
I saw a silver sedan idling just past the iron gate, its headlights off, and quickened my pace, hope rising in my chest like something I hadn't allowed myself to feel in years.
But before I could reach the gate, two of the Family's soldiers materialized from the guardhouse shadows, moving with the practiced silence of men who had done this before.
They grabbed me roughly, one on each arm, and dragged me back into the estate without a word, their grips bruising through the fabric of my sleeves, as if I were contraband being returned to inventory.
Inside the study, Dominic had me bound to a chair, my arms restrained behind my back with zip ties that bit into my wrists, the kind the enforcers kept in the supply closet alongside things I tried not to think about.
Without warning, he ordered the Family's private physician to drive a needle into my vein, the bore of it so thick it looked like it belonged in a veterinary clinic, not pressed against the crook of a woman's arm.