Serafina

“Follow me.”

Castellano’s leading me down a hallway that screams “bad things happen here” in seventeen different architectural languages. Marble floors polished to perfection, oil paintings of dead patriarchs judging everyone from their golden frames, and the kind of oppressive silence that makes you understand why people invented hell.

We stop at a steel door that looks like it belongs in a bank vault, not a family mansion. He punches in a code, and when it swings open, my stomach drops into my fucking shoes.

There are four people chained to the wall like they’re part of some medieval torture exhibit. Three men and one woman, all bearing that particular brand of exhaustion that comes from prolonged captivity. But their eyes are alert, angry—definitely not broken.

“Let me introduce you to your extended family,” Castellano says, gesturing like he’s conducting a goddamn orchestra. “Dorian loyalists who forgot where their allegiances should lie.”

The woman looks up, and Jesus Christ, she looks exactly like my mother. Same bone structure, same defiant tilt to her chin.

“Serafina?” Her voice is hoarse but hopeful. “Maria’s daughter?”

“Yeah. And you are?”

“Your aunt. Your mother’s cousin. Veronica.”

Aunt Veronica. The one Father mentioned exactly once, in passing, during one of his stories about the old days. The one who supposedly died in a car accident fifteen years ago.

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Convenient story. Easier than admitting I was kidnapped for refusing to betray your father.”

Castellano’s smile could power a small nuclear reactor. “Family reunions are so touching, don’t you think?”

“What do you want?”

“Simple. Sign this.” He produces a document from his jacket. “Transfer of allegiance from the Dorian family to the Castellano family. Your bloodline returns to where it belongs.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then your newfound relatives become significantly less… alive.”

I look at the four people chained to the wall, at Veronica who has my mother’s eyes, at the men who’ve probably been here for months or years because they stayed loyal to my father.

“You’re holding them hostage.”

“I’m holding family. There’s a difference.”

“There’s really not.”

“Sign the paper, Serafina. Your signature saves four lives and brings you home where you belong.”

“My home is with my father.”

“Your father is dying. Cancer, remember? In six months, maybe less, you’ll be alone anyway.”

The casual cruelty of it makes me want to tear his throat out with my bare hands. “Fuck you.”

“Sign the paper.”

“Make me.”

That’s when the world explodes.

Literally fucking explodes. The far wall disintegrates in a shower of brick and mortar and what sounds like the apocalypse having a temper tantrum.

Through the dust and debris comes Adrian, moving like he’s the star of an action movie and the director gave him carte blanche to destroy everything. He’s got a rifle in his hands and murder in his eyes, followed by what looks like half the Dorian army.

“Get down!” he shouts, but I’m already dropping, muscle memory from our training sessions kicking in like autopilot.

Gunfire erupts around us. Castellano dives behind a marble pillar that probably costs more than most people’s houses, shouting orders in Italian that definitely aren’t requesting tea and cookies.

Adrian moves like liquid violence, taking out Castellano’s security with precision that would make Navy SEALs weep with envy. The Dorian men spread out behind him, covering exits and corners with the kind of coordination that only comes from serious training.

“The keys!” Veronica shouts over the gunfire. “Panel by the door!”

I army-crawl across the floor, glass and debris cutting through my dress, my palms. Everything hurts, but pain is just information, and right now the information is telling me to move or die.

The key panel opens with a electronic beep, and I’m fumbling through numbered keys while bullets ping off marble like deadly wind chimes.

“Hurry!” Adrian’s voice cuts through the chaos.

I find the right keys, unlock the chains, and Veronica and the others are moving faster than people who’ve been captive for months should be able to move.

“This way!” One of the Dorian soldiers gestures toward the hole that used to be a wall.

That’s when I feel it—sharp, burning pain tearing through my shoulder. I look down and see blood spreading across my dress like spilled wine.

“Shit.”

Adrian appears beside me like he materialized from thin air. “How bad?”

“Bad enough.”

“Can you move?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

He scoops me up like I weigh nothing, and suddenly we’re running through the hole in the wall, past unconscious guards and into the night air that tastes like freedom and gunpowder.

The car is already running, doors open, engine screaming. Adrian slides me into the backseat and we’re moving before I can process what just happened.

“Hospital,” someone says.

“No,” I manage. “Safe house first. Questions later.”

My shoulder feels like someone’s taking a blowtorch to it, but I’m alive. Veronica’s alive. We’re all alive, which is more than I expected five minutes ago.

Adrian’s beside me, checking my wound with hands that know exactly what they’re doing. Medical training, probably. Along with military training, tactical training, and apparently the ability to coordinate rescue operations like he’s done this before.

I grab his hand, partly because I need an anchor and partly because I need answers.

“You said you weren’t part of a family.” My voice comes out weaker than I want, but the question needs asking. “Then how the hell did you pull that off?”