Page 23 of Torn By Fate

The need to ensure that if anyone was going to hurt her, it would be me.

Yeah, I hated her, and she would pay for what she had done to me.

But…

She belonged with me. To me.

My fucking wife.

CHAPTER FIVE

SERAFINA

The cursor blinked on my screen, and all I could think about was the hours I’d spent not writing.

The words used to flow so easily.

Now, I have been smacked in the face with writer’s block. Day after day. Over and over again. Maybe I should put the pen down and stop writing. I had been sitting cross-legged on the hotel bed for nearly two hours, the yellow glow of my laptop the only light I’d allowed myself in the darkness of my room.

The document opened before me contained exactly six hundred and twelve words.

And I loathed every single six hundred and twelve words.

The chapter refused to cooperate. I deleted the last sentence for the third time and pressed my thumb against the bridge of my nose.

Maybe I wasn’t meant to be an author, after all.

My phone buzzed against the mattress beside me.

I glanced at it. The tightness in my chest eased at the sight of the name on the screen. A slow breath released from between my parted lips, my lungs unclenching after they had been coiled with tension for too long.

Arabella: Are you alive? You’ve been ignoring my calls.

I smiled despite myself.

Me: Hotel wifi is terrible. The walls are a boring beige. The mini-fridge is empty. I’m living my best life.

Arabella: Don’t be funny.

Arabella: I’m serious. Are you safe?

My thumbs hovered over the phone. Arabella deserved an honest answer to her question. She cared about me and my safety, but I didn’t know how much I could share without it threatening my life.

Me: I think so. No one’s tried to kill me yet.

It was true. It had been two months since I shot Adrian and disappeared. I knew by now that word had spread; the rest of the Cosa Nostra probably knew I tried to kill my husband.

My father was probably enraged.

Damon, my brother, was probably trying to get Salvatore to forgive me. Maybe he was planning to come after me himself. But I knew my father cared too much about his heir to let him risk his life and reputation by protecting me.

Once I was married into the Salvatore family… I was no longer a Morelli concern. Not really. I had failed at my duty, after all. I was meant to marry Matteo, to carry the heir in my womb.

But then I married Adrian, the second son.

I was no longer important to my father. I lost credibility.

I lost the one thing that he needed. I was meant to give birth to the heir, but now I was nothing but… a castaway.