The Most Painful Goodbye

I was the wife of the De Luca crime family's Underboss, a beautiful statue whose only purpose was to produce an heir. But after five years, my body had failed.

The day my husband, Alessandro, told me I was barren, he also introduced me to my replacement. He called her a "vessel," a temporary arrangement, but I saw the infatuation in his eyes.

He promised it was just business, but soon he was calling me a "cold statue" behind my back while spending every night with her. The ultimate humiliation came at my birthday party. When a champagne fountain shattered and sliced my arm open, he ignored me bleeding on the floor to shield her instead.

In front of his entire family, the Underboss chose his mistress over his wife.

He left me there, my honor shattered as completely as the glass. I was no longer just a failed wife. I was an obstacle. And in our world, obstacles are removed.

But my arrogant husband didn't know his own father had a contingency plan to protect me. While he was distracted by his mistress's fake pregnancy, he unknowingly signed our divorce papers. My disappearance was no longer an escape; it was the start of my revenge.

Chapter 1

Seraphina POV:

The day my husband, the Underboss of the De Luca crime family, told me I was barren, he also introduced me to my replacement.

He didn't use those exact words, of course. Alessandro was a man of precision and power, a man who had brought rival families to their knees with a single, whispered order. He controlled shipping routes, politicians, and the lives of thousands of men who had sworn fealty to his name. His hands, which had once held me with a possessiveness I mistook for passion, had also signed death warrants. He was a king in all but name, and I was supposed to be his queen.

But queens, in our world, had one primary function.

"It's a mitochondrial defect, Seraphina," he said, his voice as cold and hard as the marble floors of our penthouse. We were in the family's private clinic, a sterile white room that smelled of antiseptic and shattered dreams. "A flaw in your bloodline. It means you are unfit to bear a De Luca heir."

The words didn't shock me. For five years, my failure had been a silent, gnawing shame. Every month that passed without a child was another crack in the perfect facade of our marriage, a strategic alliance between my family's old-world influence and the De Lucas' brutal power. I was a Vitali, bred for this role, my classical ballet training a lesson in discipline and silent obedience. I was an asset, a beautiful, untouchable statue meant to produce the next generation.

And I had failed.