Serafina
Adrian stood at the kitchen counter, staring into a cup of untouched coffee as though it held answers he had long forgotten how to ask for.
His shoulders were hunched, his jaw tight, his eyes distant in a way that frightened me more than any raised voice or argument ever could. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t disappointment. It was something far worse—erosion.
A quiet unraveling he didn’t know how to stop.
I watched him from the doorway, clutching the edge of the frame as guilt coiled like a living thing inside my ribcage.
I wanted to speak.
I wanted to ask him what demons haunted him, what shadows followed him, what fear hollowed him out night after night. But my own shadows pressed against my throat, making the words impossible to form.
He sensed me before he saw me, turning slightly, an attempt at a smile flickering across his lips.
“Morning,” he said gently, though the gentleness sounded forced, as if he had practiced it in the mirror. “Did you sleep?”
“Not well,” I admitted, because that at least was true. I stepped forward, moving to pour my own coffee simply so I wouldn’t have to face the full weight of his gaze. My hands trembled only slightly, but the slightness felt damning.
Adrian hesitated behind me before asking, “Is something troubling you? You’ve seemed… distant.”
The word struck deeper than he intended. Distant. Yes. I was distant—from him, from myself, from the life I had built with blood and sacrifice. But Adrian wasn’t wrong. He was noticing the cracks. Cracks I had tried desperately to conceal, even from myself.
I forced calm into my voice. “Just a lot on my mind. The council, the alliances, Leonel’s schooling—”
“You’ve carried the world before,” Adrian interrupted softly. His tone wasn’t accusatory. It was wounded. “This feels different.”
My breath faltered. “What do you mean?”
He moved closer, but not close enough to touch. Close enough to feel the distance between us, stretching like a fault line. “You look at me like you’re afraid of what I’ll see. You speak to me like you’re choosing every word carefully. You… you don’t reach for me anymore.”
His voice broke slightly at the last sentence.
My heart clenched painfully. I opened my mouth to deny it, to soothe him, to repair the wound I had carved into him without meaning to—but the lie caught in my throat, choking me.
He watched me, his eyes searching, his voice barely above a whisper. “What’s happening to us, Fina?”
I swallowed the rising panic. “Nothing. Nothing is happening to us,” I lied gently, tenderly, as if softness could disguise betrayal.
He seemed to accept it with a reluctant nod, but his expression remained troubled. He brushed past me to grab his jacket, and the brief contact of his arm against mine sent a jolt of guilt through me so sharp I had to grip the counter for support.
When he left the house, the silence he left behind was suffocating.
I pressed both palms flat against the cold marble and whispered, “What have I done?”
The truth rose inside me like a tide I could no longer hold back: I had crossed so far beyond a single lapse in judgment that I didn’t know where I stood anymore. I was meeting Matteo in the shadows, hiding behind anonymity and blindfolds, letting him touch parts of me I had sworn belonged only to my husband. And it wasn’t just physical. It was emotional. Devastatingly emotional.
Matteo’s words still echoed in my mind.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”
“You feel like home.”
“You’re going to destroy me.”
Each memory tore me apart in a different way. And yet—and yet—I kept going back. I kept answering him. I kept allowing those clandestine nights to pull me deeper. Because something inside me, something I had buried for survival, felt alive with him. Alive in a way that scared me, thrilled me, and broke me all at once.
I wasn’t supposed to feel anything for him. Matteo had once been the love that gutted me, the flame that nearly burned me to ash. I had rebuilt myself after him. I had chosen Adrian. A life. A family. Security.
And yet here I was—torn between two men, each holding different fragments of my heart. Adrian held the stability, the loyalty, the gentleness I had always longed for. Matteo held the chaos, the fire, the hunger I had never fully escaped.
I closed my eyes, gripping the counter until my knuckles whitened. “This is temporary,” I whispered. “It has to be temporary. I just need… clarity. Closure. A decision.”
But the lie tasted bitter.
The truth was far more dangerous.
I was hooked.
Not to the meetings themselves, but to the freedom they offered—to be someone unburdened by titles, expectations, responsibilities. Someone who existed only in sensation and memory. Someone who could explore the parts of herself that had been locked away for years.
I wasn’t ready to face which man truly held my heart. The thought of choosing terrified me. The thought of letting go—of either of them—felt like amputating a limb.
My phone buzzed on the counter, and I jumped as though caught in a crime. I grabbed it instinctively, praying it wasn’t Matteo—praying it was, hating both possibilities.
It was a message from the encrypted line.
My breath caught.
“Tell me when you need me next.”
I closed my eyes, pressing the phone to my chest as if I could silence the storm inside me. My fingers hovered over the screen. I should delete it. I should block him. I should choose my husband, my family, my life.
Instead, my thumb typed a reply slowly, painfully, betraying everything I promised myself I would do.
“Soon.”
The word glowed on my screen like a confession.
When I heard footsteps in the hall—one of the house staff—I quickly set the phone face-down, wiping my expression clean. I was becoming skilled at this now: hiding, lying, pretending. Each time it grew easier. Each time I hated myself a little more.
As I walked toward the dining room, preparing to greet my children, preparing to smile through the weight of my own ruin, a thought struck me so sharply I stopped mid-step.
I wasn’t confused anymore.
I wasn’t seeking clarity.
I was seeking both men—because each one filled a different void, each one awakened a different part of me.
And that meant one devastating truth:
I was already trapped.
Between loyalty and longing.
Between duty and desire.
Between the man I married…
And the man my soul still remembered.