I stood by Don Declan Marchetti through everything—from nothing to controlling New York’s underworld. And six months into our marriage, I asked for a divorce. The scholarship girl I’d personally funded was on her knees, sobbing, swearing she’d cut all ties. Declan sat motionless, his thumb tracing the edge of the divorce papers, jaw clenched tight. “I just thought Isabelle reminded me of who you used to be. I wanted to give her everything I couldn’t give you back then.” “I wanted to make it up to the girl who suffered beside me.” Make it up. Taking Isabelle to late-night diners on the Lower East Side. Carrying her shopping bags down Fifth Avenue. Flying her to Santa Fe to watch the sunset. Dropping six figures at Sotheby’s to win her the Moonlight Heart diamond. Sitting up with her until dawn. All of it—compensation. But that compensation belonged to me. And since he’d given it away, I didn’t want him anymore either. I smiled—just a ghost of one, edged with something cold. “Declan, am I dead?” I was standing right here. Breathing. Alive. So why was someone else collecting what was mine? He said nothing. Just pressed his lips together and stared at me with that infuriating silence. Isabelle’s face went sheet-white. She nearly crumpled to the floor. In the past, this was where I’d lose it—screaming, raging at his composure, hating how he could sit there like a marble saint while I burned. As if nothing he ever did was wrong. But today, I just laughed softly. I uncapped the Mont Blanc pen and tossed it in front of him. “Sign it. I’m only asking for half. That’s more than fair.” Ink splattered across his fingers. Maybe I imagined it, but his hand seemed to tremble. He picked up the pen. The trembling got worse. Three attempts. No signature. Then the pen hit the table with a sharp crack. “Sera, it’s not what you think. You’ve got this all wrong.” “Our marriage deserves more than this. I won’t agree to it.” Isabelle snapped awake then, tears glistening like crystal. She crawled toward me, clutching the hem of my dress, voice breaking. “I swear—there’s nothing between us. He treats me like a sister. He’s just projecting his guilt about you onto me.” “Please don’t fight because of me. I’ll leave. I’ll disappear right now. Just please don’t be angry anymore.” I exhaled slowly. Same question as before. Am I dead? If I’m not dead, why is someone else living my life? “She’s the scholarship student you chose to sponsor,” Declan said, an edge creeping into his voice. “You’re seriously jealous of a charity case?” “If I wanted a woman who reminded me of you, why wouldn’t I just keep a mistress outright?” “Isn’t that exactly what this is?” I asked quietly. Every bone in my body ached with exhaustion. No brother-in-law buys his little sister a diamond ring. No brother-in-law stays up all night talking to his sister. Once or twice might be concern. But twenty times in a single month? That’s not concern. That’s devotion. I used to think I was being paranoid. Now I realized I’d been blind. Stupid. “Seraphina! Have you lost your mind?” “She’s nineteen years old! You want to destroy her?” Declan’s face went dark, fury blazing behind his eyes. “She just started at Juilliard! She’s not like you—dropped out of high school and had two abortions over a man before you were twenty! Are you trying to ruin her life?” Three accusations, each one sharper than the last. He didn’t even hear himself. Didn’t realize what he’d just revealed—how deeply he cared about Isabelle Laurent. My eyes burned. The tears came before I could stop them. He was right. I wasn’t like Isabelle. I gave up my scholarship for him. Worked double shifts. Threw away my future—Harvard, the National Ballet Company, and even the two babies I lost to malnutrition without ever knowing I was carrying them. All of it—for him. He could forget all that if he wanted. But he had no right to weaponize it against me. I tilted my head back, swiping roughly at my face. It took everything I had to form a complete sentence. “Then sign the papers.” “Declan. Let’s end this cleanly.”
Declan’s fist tightened. He was about to speak when Isabelle lurched to her feet with a sob and threw herself headfirst into the marble fireplace mantel. Blood everywhere. Streaming down her face, soaking into the white silk of her blouse. And still—still—she was begging me. “If my dying is what it takes for you two to be happy again, then I’ll do it willingly.” “I never meant to come between you. I thought—I thought you wouldn’t mind, that we were family—” I went rigid. Frozen in place. Declan’s face drained of all color. His eyes turned crimson in an instant. He shoved me aside—and caught Isabelle in his arms, tears falling without warning or restraint. “Belle—Belle, wake up. Open your eyes.” She went limp against him. Declan looked up at me, red-eyed and shaking, disbelief carved into every feature. There was shock in that look. Rage. And accusation. He didn’t say a word to me. Not until the family doctor arrived and loaded her onto the stretcher. Not until he was following them out the door. Then he paused. Turned halfway. His voice like gravel. “Happy now, Sera?” The penthouse went silent. Cold drafts seemed to pour straight through my chest. Tears blurred everything. I slid down against the sofa until I was sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around myself, aching in a way that had nothing to do with my body. I kept seeing it—the moment she hit the marble, the moment he wept. Declan Marchetti does not cry. When Declan was twenty-two, men from a rival family shattered his kneecap with an iron pipe. He never made a sound. And my two miscarriages, Declan held me and just said the same thing: “We’ll have more. Sera. I’ll make it up to you.” But tonight, he cried for Isabelle Laurent. In that instant, I understood exactly what she meant to him. And what our ten years together amounted to. I bit down hard, swallowed the copper taste of blood and bitterness, and sat there until the sky outside turned black. He came back well after midnight. Saw me still on the floor. His expression was unreadable, but his tone was pure ice. “Belle survived. but the blow had left a scar on her forehead.” “She’s the most promising student in her program at Juilliard. She shouldn’t let a scar ruin her career, the only option is a skin graft.” My eyelids felt like lead. My forehead burned. Every word reached me through a fog. Before I could respond, Declan steeled himself. “Sera, you and Belle are practically sisters. You’re the only possible donor.” “Besides—if you hadn’t pushed her to the edge, she never would have tried to prove her innocence that way.” Then, afraid I’d refuse, he exhaled and crouched in front of me. Drew me gently into his arms. “Think of it as one small cut. That’s all. Just one. Okay?” That sentence—I heard it clearly. My mind dragged me back ten years. Declan drowning in debt, fighting bare-knuckle in underground rings just to survive. The worst night, the other side demanded they break both his arms—shatter his pride permanently. I got on my knees and begged. Then I drove a knife into my own body. Seven times. Until they were satisfied. That night, Declan didn’t cry. But his eyes were blood-red. He swore against my ear: Never again. I will never let anyone hurt you again. Now he was telling me it was just one small cut. I was burning alive with fever, barely conscious, and somewhere in the delirium I was twenty-two again, my face pressed into his shoulder. “I don’t want to… I won’t…” “Declan, I don’t want to anymore… please, I really don’t want to…” Tears rolled down, soaking half his shirt. He closed his eyes. His nails dug crescents into his palms. Three minutes of silence. Then his voice, hoarse: “Be good, Sera. It won’t hurt. It’ll be over fast.” “Just get through this one thing, and I’ll pretend none of this ever happened. We’ll go back to how things were.” “One cut. After that, I’ll never do anything you don’t like again.” Consciousness slipping, I only shook my head, murmuring the same words over and over. “I don’t want to anymore… I really don’t want to…”
I burned with fever for three days. When I finally opened my eyes, the skin below my collarbone screamed with pain. I tried to sit up, but a nurse caught me by the shoulders and pressed me back down. Only then did I realize I was in the family hospital. Her brow was furrowed, voice tight with concern. “You just had a skin graft procedure. The pain is normal—you were running a high fever during surgery. You’ve been unconscious for seventy-two hours.” She dabbed a wet cotton swab across my cracked lips as she spoke. “The Don Declan, though—so sweet to his wife. I never expected that. He stayed by her side for three straight days. Didn’t sleep. Eyes completely bloodshot. And assigned six bodyguards to guard her room closely.” “He was worried the skin on her forehead wouldn’t heal pretty enough, so he insisted we use the patch from just below your collarbone. We told him multiple times it would cause you excruciating pain, but he wouldn’t budge.” She glanced back at me. “You’re really selfless, though. Are you one of his subordinates?” The pain from the wound drilled straight into my chest. My fingers twisted into the sheets until my knuckles went white. “They’re… a couple?” My voice came out like sandpaper. The nurse nodded cheerfully. “Last night when the girl woke up, she threw herself into his arms and kissed him. If that’s not his woman, what is?” Something inside me cracked open. Declan has never been demonstrative. Public affection—kissing, hand-holding, embracing—he finds it undignified. In ten years, he never once kissed me where anyone could see. But Isabelle became the exception. After the nurse left, the tears finally came. I bit into my lip until I tasted iron, refusing to let a single sob escape. Everything Declan said that night while I was delirious came rushing back with brutal clarity. I’ll never do anything you don’t like again. I was the only one who believed it. I waited until well past midnight. Then Declan came in, startled to find me awake. Something guilty flickered across his face. “Family meeting ran late. Sorry I’m only just getting here—how do you feel? Still hurting?” The lie came so naturally. He even touched his nose—his tell. Always has been. I looked at him calmly and felt nothing but the absurdity of it all. This was the fourth lie this month. The first time: Working late at the office. Actually shopping for lingerie with Isabelle on Madison Avenue. The second: Drinks with Marcus. Actually fixing a leaking pipe in her apartment. The third: Business trip to Chicago. Actually flying to Palm Beach to buy her a bracelet she’d admired. Beneath the blanket, my nails carved half-moons into my palms. I couldn’t even feel it. I lowered my gaze, a bitter smile forming. “Declan. I never agreed to give Isabelle my skin.” The air crystallized. His guilt vanished, replaced by something harder. He studied me for a long moment, then rubbed his brow with weary exasperation. “Sera, how old are you? You’re a decade older than her. Are you really going to compete with a teenage girl?” “Her life is just beginning. You’re supposed to be sisters—not enemies.” “Another scar means nothing on you. But for Belle—one scar and her entire future is over. Her dream is Hollywood. Her face is everything.” He looked at me the way you’d look at a child throwing a tantrum. “When are you going to grow up?” I almost laughed—a broken, incredulous sound. Grow up? Wasn’t it him who promised, before we married, that I’d never have to? Another scar means nothing on me? Isabelle’s dream is to be an actress? What about my dream? What about the seven scars already carved into my body? Is that just my bad luck? He saw the tears and immediately softened—reached out to brush them away. I flinched back. His hand hung frozen in the air between us. “Declan… sometimes I really wish I’d never traded seven stab wounds for your hands.” He went silent. Something like panic flashed through his eyes. “Just let me go. Please.”
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