The Lord's Plaything

Everyone warned me never to fall for Dante Moretti.

They said he was the ghost of the Velasco family—an underboss who ordered hits without blinking, his heart colder than the barrel of his gun. But when he bent me over that mahogany desk, his mouth against my ear commanding me to say his name, I was stupid enough to think that was possession.

It took me an entire year to see the truth.

The photographs locked in his study drawer were never of me. The woman in white waiting for him in the cathedral district on Sunday mornings was never me. The girl who took a bullet for him, the one he called his "salvation"—her name is Elena Abate.

And Elena happens to be my stepmother's daughter.

My father is trying to sell me to a half-dead Agosti heir for five hundred million to save the family. My stepmother is scheming to erase me from existence entirely. And the man I thought would burn this city to the ground for me? On the day I needed him most, he was lifting Elena up a flight of stairs, cradling her like something sacred.

They all thought I was just a pawn to be moved around their chessboard.

They were wrong.

If Dante can't let go of his precious white moonlight, his "salvation," then I'll become someone else's "widow." If Elena believes she's already won this game, I'll let her watch from the front row as a woman with nothing left to lose burns it all down.

My name is Serafina. Remember it. Because I am about to become the reckoning none of them saw coming.

I knew exactly what I was.

The men in my father's circles called me a little demon in red lipstick. The wives whispered "whore" behind their fans while their husbands couldn't stop staring.

Dante Moretti never stared. Not at first.

He was the underboss of the Velasco family—cold-eyed, sharp-suited, a man who could order a hit without blinking. They said he'd never shown interest in any woman.

They were wrong.

I still remember the first night. His penthouse, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. He'd summoned me to "discuss my father's debts." Twenty minutes later he had me bent over his mahogany desk, my dress pooled at my ankles, his mouth against my ear.

"Say my name."

"Dante."

"Again."

The affair should have been a one-time mistake. Instead it became a year of clandestine meetings. His private elevator. The back of his armored Escalade. Once, memorably, the confessional booth at St. Margaret's during a family baptism.

I was addicted. I was delusional.

I was about to learn the difference.

-

The hotel suite smelled of sex and expensive whiskey.

I lay in tangled sheets, listening to water run in the bathroom. My phone was already pressed to my ear.

"Father."

Chiara, my stepmother, picked up. "Serafina. Your father is occupied."

"Put him on."

"Darling, he's very busy with—"

"Put him on, or I swear I'll walk into