Chapter 24 – Serafina
Bellarosa Estate
A hundred candles cast trembling halos of gold across the vaulted ceiling, the gilded edges of saints carved into the stone.
My dress whispers against the crimson carpet as Cristofano leads me toward the marble altar, his hand warm and immovable around mine.
It’s the night of the blue moon, our wedding night.
On the altar rests a shallow silver bowl, a goblet of deep wine, and two daggers with ivory handles. Don Vittorio waits behind them in his wheelchair, regal despite the frailty of his frame. His storm-grey eyes pin me in place before he speaks.
“Step forward,” he commands.
Cristofano positions me opposite him, palm to palm. The Don takes the knife. His voice is low but steady. “Blood binds deeper than vows.”
The blade kisses Cristofano’s hand first. A thin red line blooms, a drop falling into the bowl with a soft sound that echoes in the silence.
Then the blade turns to me. My breath catches.
I force myself not to flinch as it slices my skin, hot pain flaring before the blood beads up and spills down, mixing with his.
Our blood swirls together in the silver bowl. Red into red. No telling where mine ends and his begins. My pulse pounds in my ears.
This is it, I tell myself. This is for Bianca. This is to end him.
The Don tips the bowl, letting the mingled blood spill into the goblet. His own palm opens under the dagger, dark red joining ours. “By my blood,” he intones, “I bind you to the house of Bellarosa.”
His words are foreign but heavy, rolling in Sicilian like a prayer and a threat. Cristofano repeats them without hesitation. I force my lips to follow, stumbling over the syllables, repeating the last line because my voice falters the first time.
“Again,” the Don says, his eyes sharp on mine.
I repeat it, clearer now, my voice steady even as my hands tremble.
The Don drinks first, the metallic tang of blood staining his mouth. He passes the goblet to Cristofano, who takes a slow sip while watching me with unreadable eyes. Then he offers it to me.
The rim is warm from his mouth. The first taste is wine—rich, bitter—but then the iron tang hits. My stomach twists. I swallow anyway. Swallow my fear. Swallow my disgust. Swallow the voice screaming that this is madness.
The Don lowers the goblet. “It is done.” His gaze lingers on me a moment longer before turning to his son. “Lead her to the Black Book.”
As the nurse wheels him away, his voice echoes in my mind. The Black Book. The thing Marcello wants. The thing that could bring all of this crashing down.
Cristofano squeezes my hand, leaning in just enough for his words to be meant only for me. “You did well.”
I nod, my mouth forming a faint smile I don’t feel. My palm throbs under the cloth binding, but it’s nothing compared to the weight in my chest.
One step closer, I remind myself. One step closer to ending Cristofano Bellarosa.
Cristofano’s hand tightens around mine—not enough to hurt, but enough to remind me I’m not in control here.
“Follow me,” he says, voice low, no room for argument.
We walk in silence through a side corridor of the estate, past doors I’ve never seen open. The walls are bare of their usual gilded frames. At the end, a steel door waits, its hinges heavy, its lock thick enough to keep a monster in—or out.
He enters a code, and the lock releases with a heavy clunk.
The door swings open.
My gaze sweeps over the basement—row after row of metal cages, their bars dark with rust…
and other stains I know aren’t rust. Each cage holds something different: a pair of blood-stiffened gloves draped over a chair; a bent knife, its handle cracked; a torn dress shoe, the leather split and darkened; a single earring dangling from the bars.
“This is where my family keeps people who betray us,” Cristofano says, his tone casual—almost conversational—but there’s tension under the words.
I force my voice to stay steady. “And what’s in the cages now?”
He doesn’t stop walking. “Memorabilia.”
The word lands cold. I step closer to a cage, my eyes catching a glint in the dim light—a silver ring, delicate, engraved with YLA.
My lungs constrict. Isla. I know every curve of that band—the engraving YLA etched along the inside, the way it used to catch sunlight on a warm afternoon in Naples.
Because I bought it.
I slipped it onto Isla’s finger on her twenty-first birthday, laughing as she called it her lucky charm. She never took it off.
My nails dig into my palm hard enough to sting, but my face stays still, the perfect mask.
I don’t have to imagine how it got here.
The picture blooms in my mind whether I want it to or not: Isla on her knees, wrists bound in front of her, that ring catching the dim light of this place while men circle her like wolves.
One strikes before another wrenches her hair back, forcing her to meet the eyes of the man sitting in the shadows. Cristofano.
I can almost hear her voice breaking under the strain, almost see the moment when pain turns to pleading, and pleading turns to silence.
And the ring, sliding off her limp hand, rolling against these bars like an afterthought.
A sick, twisting question coils in my gut.
How did he even find her? She was careful—just like me.
The only reason he would have hunted her down was if she had gotten too close.
Maybe she’d found a thread in her investigation that pointed straight to him.
Maybe she was about to expose him, and he’d decided to cut her voice from the world before she could speak.
I can almost hear her voice breaking under the strain, almost see the moment when pain turns to pleading, and pleading turns to quiet. And the ring, sliding off her limp hand, rolling against these bars like an afterthought.
I keep my face still, even as a sharp twist of grief and fury burns behind my ribs. My hand itches to reach through the bars, to grab the ring, but I step back instead, schooling my features into mild curiosity.
“And what do you do to people you bring here?”
Cristofano stops, his gaze sliding over the cages like he’s cataloguing old friends. “We strip them of what they love. Break them. Piece by piece. And when they’re begging for it to end…we let them die.”
My mind paints the image—Isla’s face contorted in pain, his men circling, his steel-gray eyes watching without blinking.
A brittle laugh escapes me. “Will you put me here?”
He turns to me, and for a moment, the warmth he’s shown before is gone, replaced with something cold enough to freeze bone. “If you betray me…yes.”
I nod slowly, tilting my head. “Noted.”
He studies me for a heartbeat too long, searching for something in my eyes. He won’t find it. My rage sits deep, masked under obedience.
Without a word, he takes my hand again and leads me upstairs.
In his study, he moves to his desk and presses something beneath it. A faint mechanical hiss fills the air. The polished tile at our feet shifts and slides open, revealing a spiral staircase plunging into darkness.
His eyes find mine. “Go down.”
The words aren’t loud, but they wrap around my throat like a tightening noose.
The stairwell narrows as we descend, each step echoing against cold steel. When we reach the bottom, the space opens into a chamber that hums faintly, as if the walls themselves are alive.
Light floods the room—not the warm gold of chandeliers, but the sharp, sterile glow of recessed LEDs.
Every surface gleams with brushed metal, the air tinged with the faint scent of ozone.
Floor panels glint underfoot, separated by narrow seams that hint at hidden mechanisms. Against the far wall sits a single matte-black safe, its edges trimmed with a faint blue light that pulses like a heartbeat.
Cristofano moves toward it, his broad shoulders blocking half my view.
He presses his palm to the panel. A thin, mechanical whir fills the air before the door slides open with an unnervingly soft click.
From within, he lifts out a box unlike anything I’ve ever seen—sleek, rectangular, with edges beveled like a gemstone.
A thin strip of light runs around its perimeter, flickering once as if acknowledging him.
“This,” he says, “is the Black Book.” His steel-gray eyes find mine. “The source of the Bellarosa power. The one thing that must always be protected.”
My fingers curl into my palms, nails biting skin. Isla’s face flashes in my mind, then Bianca’s. Protected? No. Guarded like a weapon, used to destroy anyone who stood in their way.
He steps closer. “Do you swear to protect the Bellarosa name?”
The weight of the moment presses against my chest. I force my lips to move. “Yes.”
He takes my hand, large and warm around my trembling fingers, and guides my thumb to a small sensor on the box.
The moment my skin touches it, a pinpoint prick slices into me—sharp, deliberate.
I hiss softly at the sting. The strip of light flares red, then green, and a deep, resonant chime vibrates through the room.
“You now guard the Book,” he says. “And its content. As a Bellarosa.”
The box lifts its lid with mechanical precision, revealing a single microchip nestled in dark velvet—a sliver of silicon that looks utterly ordinary, yet hums with significance. The light from above catches its surface, and for a heartbeat, I can’t breathe. This is it. The thing Marcello wants.
He closes the box so suddenly I jerk. His fingers are warm when they slide into my hair, tucking a loose strand behind my ear. The movement is intimate, and when he leans close, I can feel the faint brush of his breath along my head.
“I love you,” Cristofano murmurs, the words heavy, as if he’s offering me something sacred.
I look up at him, forcing my lips into a small, steady smile. My hand finds his, squeezing gently, as though I believe him. As though I want to. I nod once. “I know,” I say softly.
But inside, my chest feels like it’s closing in. This man—this monster—doesn’t know what love is. He knows control, obsession, and loyalty forged in blood. Whatever this is, it isn’t love. And I can’t let myself forget it.
The safe is shut behind him, sealing the Black Book away again. The faint hum of the room fades into the background. I keep my expression serene, even as my thoughts coil tight with resolve.