Seraphina
(Past)
The message arrived before sunrise.
Seraphina read it once, without blinking, the screen's pale glow cutting across the dark of the penthouse bedroom.
Two images.
The first was careless. Adrian leaning toward a woman whose face dissolved into familiarity the longer Seraphina looked at it. One of the interchangeable ones. Young, polished, smiling too easily. The kind chosen for visibility, not permanence. The kind meant to provoke jealousy, not consequence.
That image meant nothing.
The second image was deliberate.
Mistress number three.
The hotel room woman.
Seraphina recognized her instantly—the curve of the jaw, the defiant tilt of the chin, the eyes that had looked past fear and into calculation. The woman who had screamed and clutched and begged, then returned as if pain were a negotiation tactic. As if persistence could outlast power.
Beneath the image was a single line of text.
We should talk.
No apology. No explanation. No attempt at subtlety.
A challenge.
Seraphina set the phone down gently on the bedside table. She did not exhale. She did not frown. For a moment, she lay still, listening to the distant hum of the city below—the traffic, the early-morning sirens, the quiet insistence of a world that did not pause for personal wars.
So. She wanted escalation.
Seraphina reached for her phone again and dialed without sitting up.
"Clear my afternoon," she said when the call connected. Her voice was calm. Pleasant, even. "Everything after eleven."
There was no question on the other end. Only compliance.
She rose, showered, and dressed without haste. There was no rush when you intended to arrive intact. Today, she chose red—from silk blouse to tailored heels. The color was not emotional. It was intentional. Red commanded attention without pleading for it. It suggested danger without chaos.
The only contrast was the cool gleam of her natural titanium iPhone resting on the marble counter. Metallic. Neutral. Untouched by feeling.
In the car, she made one more call.
"I need a location," she said. "Valecrest Condos. Quiet access."
She didn't elaborate. She didn't have to.
Seraphina already knew the building. She had seen it before—not in person, but in fragments. Carefully curated Instagram posts. A balcony angle too precise to be accidental. Marble counters that echoed a design she recognized intimately. Valecrest properties had a language. She spoke it fluently.
The reply came before noon.
Room 26.
She left her meeting early. No explanations. No apologies. Her pearl-white Range Rover was already waiting at the entrance, engine idling as if anticipating urgency. The driver stepped forward, but she took the keys herself.
At the condos, the staff registered her arrival instantly. The car. The posture. The silence. This was not a guest. This was a reckoning.
Someone glanced toward the parking area, as if expecting Adrian's car to be there.
It wasn't.
No one stopped her.
The elevator ride was slow. Deliberately so. Seraphina watched the numbers climb, her pulse steady, her breathing measured. Once, long ago, she had imagined moments like this differently—loud, volatile, theatrical. She had imagined fury would feel like power.
Now, the scene felt instructional. Almost impersonal.
The door to Room 26 opened on the second knock.
The woman smiled automatically—habit, instinct—until recognition struck. The smile collapsed, replaced by something sharper. Calculation. Fear came a half-second later.
Seraphina stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
The confrontation unfolded quickly. Not messy. Not chaotic. Terrifying precisely because it was restrained.
Seraphina did not shout. She did not threaten. She did not ask questions she already knew the answers to. She reached forward, took the woman by the hair, and dragged her across the room with efficient force. She forced her down—not in punishment, but in placement. Position mattered.
"You mistook access for immunity," Seraphina said quietly. Her voice did not rise. "That's common."
The woman cried. Promised. Explained. Words tumbled out—misunderstandings, affection, entitlement disguised as devotion. None of it mattered.
Seraphina released her and stepped back, smoothing her sleeve, breath perfectly even.
And then—without warning—she felt it.
The heat behind her ribs. The tremor in her hands. The thin, sharp surge of rage she had spent years mastering.
It weakened her hold on the moment.
Seraphina noticed immediately.
That was the danger.
Rage blurred edges. Rage invited mistakes. Rage required proximity.
She turned away at once.
She adjusted her cuff. Picked up her phone from the side table where it had been knocked aside. Walked out without another word.
In the elevator, her reflection stared back at her from the mirrored wall—cheeks faintly flushed, eyes sharp, human in a way she did not permit often.
She did not like it.
By the time she reached the car, the emotion had already begun to cool, compressing into something denser. Cleaner.
Strategy.
Emotion bruised. Silence endured.
This would be the last time she used her hands.
From now on, she would move things—people, reputations, futures—without ever touching them again.