Page 96 of Torn By Fate

This was the same kind of conviction that could build empires as well as topple them. I recognized it because I had seen it before—in my father’s eyes, in my grandfather’s voice, in the mirror every morning.

It was the lethal certainty of someone who had decided, irrevocably, that they would not be denied.

“So, I did my research,” Serafina said. “As best as I could. There wasn’t much about you and your family on the internet. The Salvatore name existed in whispers and rumors… criminal organizations, mafia connections, but nothing concrete. Nothing I could use.”

She paused, and something shifted in her expression, a flicker of what might have been satisfaction, or disbelief, or both.

“But fate was on your side,” I murmured, finally speaking, saying the words she was thinking aloud.

Her lips curled with a sharp, deadly smile. “Fate was indeed on my side.” The words came out quietly, almost reverently, not matching her expression. As if she still couldn’t quite believe the coincidence that had delivered her to this moment.

“My aunt was a cook at St. Clare’s Academy for Girls. An exclusive boarding school for the rich and the corrupted. She had been there for years. She was good at what she did, reliable, invisible.” Serafina paused, swallowing. “One day, she was staying late for an event, some kind of fundraising gala. She asked me to come with her because she didn’t want me sitting alone in the apartment.”

Her voice dropped lower, and I found myself leaning forward, drawn in by the gravity of what she was about to say.

“And you know who I found there?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She didn’t need to. I already knew what she was going to say, what name she was going to utter on those pretty, deceptive lips of hers.

“Serafina Morelli.”

The name took shape in the air between us, heavy and almost tangible.

My fingers curled tighter where they were clasped between my knees, knuckles whitening with the pressure.

Serafina saw. She noticed my reaction, and her eyes gleamed dangerously.

For the first time in years, my body betrayed me before my mind could control me. Before I could physically compose myself.

“The name was familiar to me,” she uttered slowly, carefully as she laid each piece of the puzzle exactly where it needed to go. “Morelli. I had heard it before. My father had mentioned it in fragments of conversations. And then it clicked.”

She held my gaze, her eyes bright with what I could only describe as ultimate triumph.

“My father was sent to spy on them, correct? The Morellis. That was his mission. That was what Enzo Salvatore sent him to Chicago to do.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. Serafina—Elyssa already knew.

“I thought it was fate playing a joke on me.” A rough sound escaped her, not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. Something broken in between, her own emotions playing with her.

“The daughter of the man my father was sent to spy on, standing right in front of me, clueless. I thought the universe was mocking me. But then I realized… no, it wasn’t fate playing a joke. It was fate helping me.”

The room fell silent for a long, heartbreaking second. I could hear the hum of the AC, the distant murmur of traffic from the street below, and under all of it, I heard the steady, brutal pounding of my own heartbeat.

Her words settled into me slowly, sinking beneath my skin with each passing second.

Disbelief came first.

Then anger.

Then it was something else that was more unsettling… the sickening realization that everything I had believed about my wife, about our marriage, about the woman I trusted enough to let into the most guarded parts of my life, had been built on a lie.

And it wasn't just any lie.

“So I made a plan,” my wife continued speaking, not caring that everything she was revealing was breaking apart our already fragile marriage. “I learned as much as I could about Serafina from my aunt. Everything Elena knew and she knew a lot, because she’d been working at that school for years, and my aunt had taken a liking to her.”

She paused, and a complicated expression moved across her face… guilt, maybe.

“Serafina was quiet. Shy. Reserved. She was bullied by the other girls at the academy. My aunt felt sorry for her. She’d bring her extra food, talk to her, treat her like a person when nobody else did.”