My Husband Asked For A Second Wife

CHAPTER 33

Serafina

We didn't talk about the Council, the Verrelli ledger, or Adrian’s position after the screen went black.

The political and legal threats suddenly seemed distant, secondary to the sheer, violating intimacy of the video Matteo had sent. He hadn't used the flash drive to deliver a physical threat, but something far worse: a simple, insidious message to our son.

The message was brief—barely two minutes long—a monologue addressed to infant Leonel, promising the child he would be rescued from the "violent hands" of his mother and the "mercenary greed" of Adrian. It was a manipulative, poisonous fairy tale where Matteo was the hero and we were the villains. It was pure psychological warfare, and it had left a residue of moral filth on the air.

Adrian had been furious, but he had merely tossed the drive onto the mahogany table next to the murder evidence. We left the library and retreated upstairs, seeking the only true solace we knew: the quiet certainty of our own space.

The exhaustion of the long night, fueled by adrenaline and rage, finally overtook me the moment I settled into our bed. Sleep came, but it was not restorative. It was a plunge into the cold, familiar terror that had haunted me since my first, unwanted marriage.

I was back in the "blue room," the guest suite in the Verrelli mansion where I had been confined during my final, humiliating months as Matteo’s wife. The walls were the color of cold, dusty ice, and the air was thin with disdain. I wasn’t a guest; I was a hostage.

The nightmare was always the same: I was standing by the door, pregnant and terrified, listening to the muffled, mocking voices of Matteo and Anastasia Ruffo from the drawing-room below.

“She’s too wild, Matteo. A brute. She’ll never make a suitable Dona. But she’s Dorian, isn’t she? Keep her chained just long enough for the inheritance.”

“Chained, yes. My father insists on the alliance. But as soon as the Dorian health fails, she goes back. She’s served her purpose. You, my beautiful Anastasia, are the one I want at my side when I rule.”

The words were a hammer blow of betrayal, not because they hurt me personally, but because they reduced my life, my heart, my very identity, to a transactional asset. I had been a tool to be used, then discarded.

In the dream, the ice-blue walls closed in, and I started to choke. The silence of the house became a roar, amplifying Anastasia’s laughter, turning it into a high-pitched, mocking shriek.

I awoke violently, my chest heaving, fighting against the invisible chains of the memory. I was instantly bathed in a cold sweat, adrenaline flooding my system. My breath caught in a silent, agonizing sob.

“Serafina.”

Adrian’s voice was the only lifeline. He was awake instantly, not startled, but utterly grounded. He pulled me immediately to his chest, his large, warm hands smoothing the frantic clench of my shoulders. He didn’t ask what was wrong; he simply held me, letting the steady, deep rhythm of his heart replace the hysterical drumming of mine.

“The blue room,” I choked out, unable to articulate more. “Their voices. The betrayal.”

He tightened his embrace, burying his face in my hair, his familiar scent—cedar and clean linen—a fierce anchor in the storm. “He used you as a shield, mia cara. He never saw the weapon you were, or the woman you are. He only saw a name. He is the weak one. You are safe now.”

He kept talking, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that slowly calmed the tremors in my body. He didn’t dismiss the pain; he absorbed it, making it his own.

“I hate that man for every shadow he cast on your life,” Adrian confessed, pulling back slightly to look into my eyes, the silver in his gaze reflecting the bedside lamp’s soft glow. His hand, strong and capable, reached up to tenderly brush a tear from my temple. “Every scar he left on your soul, I will dismantle. Every time you remember that coldness, I will replace it with warmth. Every memory of humiliation, I will erase with respect.”

We lay like that for a long time, the remnants of the nightmare receding under the shield of his promise. Adrian didn't talk about the financial world or the Council. He talked about our future: teaching Leonel Spanish, the gardens we would build in the country, the simple, quiet life they would live when the wars were done. He showed me the vulnerable core of his desire—a desire for peace, not power—a home built on choice, not obligation.

I reached up, tracing the sharp, powerful lines of his face. “You never left me, did you? Even when you thought I was his wife, you watched over me.”

“I couldn’t abandon you to that coldness,” he admitted, his voice rough with remembered pain. “You were fire, trapped in ice. I knew I was in love with you the day I saw you shoot a man in the shoulder and not flinch. You were more than a woman; you were a warrior. And I decided then I would steal you, if necessary, just to see you smile once.”

His honesty was intoxicating. It was a commitment forged in violence and validated by love. We were two broken pieces that fit together perfectly, stronger and sharper as a unit. Our intimacy that night was a desperate, passionate reaffirmation of that bond, a cleansing fire that burned away the last vestiges of the Verrelli poison.

As the first faint light of dawn touched the curtains, we finally found a fragile, shared peace. Adrian held me securely, his breathing even. I felt utterly safe, powerful, and ready for the impending battle. Matteo might have the law on his side, but we had truth, murder evidence, and a terrifying, unbreakable bond.

I was just drifting back to sleep, the peace complete, when the secure line on Adrian's dedicated encryption phone, tucked away in the nightstand, began to vibrate. It was a code only used for immediate, high-priority communication with the legal team.

Adrian sighed, already knowing the peace was over. He reached for the phone. I watched his eyes narrow as he read the incoming text.

He looked at me, his gaze suddenly hard, all the tenderness replaced by focused, predatory steel. "It seems we didn't have as much time as we thought, Serafina. Castellano just got his aligned judge to move the hearing."

He slid the phone toward me. The message was stark, a single line of unforgiving legal text that punched the air from my lungs: EX PARTE ORDER GRANTED. MANDATORY PATERNITY TEST AND TEMPORARY SUPERVISED CUSTODY PENDING RESULTS. ORDER EXECUTES IN 12 HOURS.

Matteo hadn't waited for the preliminary hearing. He had weaponized the court immediately, and now they were coming for Leonel.