Serafina
The moment I saw the girl slip her hand around Adrian’s wrist—a slender thing dressed in glitter and shadows, her smile dripping false sweetness as she whispered something into his ear—my entire body turned cold.
Adrian laughed, head tipping back slightly, drunk enough to be led like a man who had forgotten the boundaries of his life.
He let her pull him from the velvet chair, let her guide him through the throng of half-clothed bodies, let her touch him as though she had a right to him. Something hot and violent twisted inside me, a hurricane ripping through my ribs.
“No,” I breathed, stepping out of the shadows. “Not anymore.”
I followed them, keeping close enough that their movements dragged me in their wake.
The girl’s hips swayed deliberately, her confidence sharpened by experience. She knew men like Adrian—men who came here not for love, but for oblivion.
She led him toward a narrow hallway draped in black curtains, a corridor dimmer and quieter than the main club. A place for secrets. A place for sins.
My pulse hammered wildly. Every step felt like I was walking deeper into something I could never undo.
Adrian let his arm drape over the girl’s shoulder, his voice thick with drink as he murmured, “Just a quiet room, sweetheart. Nothing complicated.”
The girl giggled softly. “Whatever you want.”
My stomach lurched. My hands shook with rage and heartbreak. It was one thing to see him surrounded by women, drunk and lost. It was another to watch him willingly follow one toward a private room.
“Adrian,” I whispered fiercely under my breath. “Don’t do this. Don’t be this man.”
They reached the curtained doorway, and the girl moved to open it. That was the moment I stepped forward, my voice cutting sharply through the hush. “Wait.”
The girl turned, brows lifting behind a glittered mask. “This room is taken, sweetheart,” she said, her voice sugary but dismissive. “You can wait your turn or find someone else.”
“I’m not here for someone else,” I replied, lowering my voice into the controlled, sultry tone expected of a woman in this place. “He asked for me.”
Adrian blinked at me through heavy lashes, eyes struggling to focus. “Did I?” he slurred, leaning slightly against the wall. He looked at me without seeing me. Without recognizing me. Without recognizing the woman he’d vowed to cherish.
The betrayal cut deep, but I swallowed it.
The girl narrowed her eyes. “He came with me.”
I stepped closer, my mask casting sharp shadows across my cheekbones. “He said he wanted something darker tonight. Something different.” I let my fingers trail lightly along Adrian’s arm, pretending confidence while terror churned inside me. “You can check with the manager if you want.”
Her scowl deepened as she debated whether the confrontation was worth it. But the club was busy, men were waiting, and Adrian looked too drunk to protest. With a huff, she turned away. “Fine. He’s yours. For now.”
As she stormed off, Adrian swayed slightly, confusion clouding his features. “Do I know you?” he asked, reaching for my waist. His touch was too familiar in intention, too foreign in execution. I stepped back, guiding him toward the room to keep him from focusing on the question. “Inside,” I murmured, pushing the curtain aside.
The room was drenched in shadows, lit only by a faint red glow from behind a silk screen.
The air smelled of sweat and incense. My heart pounded so violently it hurt. I needed to speak. I needed to tell him who I was. I needed to drag him out and demand answers. But before I could form the words, another shape stumbled into the room.
Matteo.
His entrance was chaotic—shoulder hitting the doorframe, laughter spilling from his lips as though the world were spinning only for his amusement. “Thought this room was empty,” he drawled, then froze, staring at us through glazed eyes. His mask hung crooked, revealing the dangerous beauty I once loved and resented in equal measure. “Or maybe not.”
My breath vanished. “Get out,” I said, my voice cracking under the weight of disbelief.
But Matteo didn’t move. His attention slid over me slowly, hungrily, drunkenly. “You…” he whispered, stepping closer. “You feel familiar.”
Panic surged through me. “Leave,” I said again, backing away until my shoulders touched the wall.
Adrian, barely processing the intrusion, murmured, “Who’s that? I didn’t ask for anyone else.”
But neither man could truly see me. The mask. The wig. The shadows. I was an illusion—a woman with no name, no history, no ties.
Matteo’s breath warmed my ear as he whispered, “Something about you… god, I can’t place it, but I want it.” His hand slid along my hip, and I tried to push him away, but my body froze under the weight of too many memories.
His touch burned like it used to—dangerous, consuming, terrifying.
“Stop,” I rasped. “Stop—”
But he didn’t hear the plea. He wasn’t listening.
He was drunk, reckless, drawn to the heat he recognized but couldn’t name.
His fingers tangled in my wig, his lips trailing down my neck as if claiming a territory that no longer belonged to him. The fire I had extinguished years ago roared to life in a violent flash.
“Wait—” I began, but then Adrian was there too.
“Share?” Adrian asked Matteo in a slurred murmur, and Matteo laughed, the sound low and feral.
“She doesn’t seem to mind,” Matteo said.
They didn’t know. They didn’t recognize me. They thought I was nothing but another faceless woman in a club built for secrets.
The moment spiraled into madness.
Hands—his, then his—lips, heat, shadows, breathless words uttered by men who did not know they were speaking to the same woman they had fought over, loved, ruined, built.
The world blurred into red light and conflicting desire and terror and heartbreak. My pulse raced until I felt dizzy, my body responding in ways my mind couldn’t process. I was overwhelmed—by their touch, by the anonymity, by the destruction of everything I thought I understood.
When it was over—when the chaos subsided and the silence thickened—I stumbled away before either man could regain clarity.
“I have to go,” I whispered, my voice breaking. Neither of them heard me. They were too lost, too drunk, too far gone.
I fled.
Out the door, past the curtains, through the pulsing crowd. My legs shook violently. My breath hitched with every step. I didn’t stop until I reached the cold night air outside the hotel, where I collapsed against the wall, ripping off the mask with trembling hands.
Inside that room, I had been nameless.
But out here, I was Serafina.
A wife. A mother. A Dona.
And I had just crossed a line I could never uncross.