Betrayal and Vengeance

At our family’s most sacred event, my husband put his mistress’s son on his shoulders—a place of honor meant for our daughter, the true Vitali heir.

When our little girl ran to him, he let the other boy shove her to the ground.

Then, in front of everyone, he asked the one question that would get him killed.

“Whose kid is this, anyway?”

I picked up my daughter and delivered his eulogy: "Her father just died."

Chapter 1

Seraphina POV:

My husband put another woman’s son on his shoulders at our family’s most sacred event, a place reserved for the heir, a place my own daughter had only dreamed of, and as the world around me went silent, my phone buzzed with a text from him: “I see you. Remember your place. Don't embarrass me.”

The nausea that rolled through my stomach had nothing to do with pregnancy and everything to do with the five years of my life I’d spent playing a role I was never meant for.

“Mommy, when is Daddy coming to play with me?”

I looked down at Liliana, my five-year-old daughter, whose bright blue eyes were a perfect copy of her father’s. A painful echo, because Aidan used to look at me with that same innocent adoration.

“He’s talking to a very important business partner, sweetie,” I lied, forcing a smile that felt like cracking porcelain.

An hour ago, his text had been much clearer. *“Keep the kid busy. Don’t let her bother me.”*

I smoothed down the front of my simple sundress, a plain, off-the-rack thing I’d chosen specifically to not outshine him. For five years, I had been Sarah Miller, the quiet, unassuming wife of Aidan Gallagher, a rising soldier in the Vitali family. I had sanded down my own edges, dulled my own shine, all to protect his pathetic, fragile pride.

My gaze drifted across the sprawling lawn of the Vitali estate, past the laughing faces of soldiers and capos, to the champagne tower where he stood. Aidan. My husband. He was laughing, his head thrown back, one hand resting possessively on the lower back of Cassandra Thorne.

And on his shoulders, perched like a king, was her son, Leo. He was squealing with delight, reaching for the highest glass of champagne, a privilege, an honor, reserved only for the children of the family’s inner circle.

My breath caught in my throat. The cheerful music of the string quartet, the clinking glasses, the summer breeze—it all faded into a dull, distant roar. There was only that image, burned into my mind: my husband, his mistress, and her son, forming the perfect family portrait where my daughter and I should have been.

Then came the buzz of his text. “I see you. Remember your place. Don't embarrass me.”