The Canary Who Learned To Fly

Seraphina Vitiello POV

The hospital room was blindingly white.

Everything was always white.

I had lost my spleen to internal bleeding.

Three cracked ribs had been added to the collection.

My previously fractured shinbone was now severely re-injured, threatening to set back my recovery by months.

The doctor told me I was lucky.

Lucky.

That word had lost all meaning.

My father loomed at the foot of the bed.

He looked annoyed that I had survived. My breathing complicated things.

"The flight to London has been rescheduled," he said, his voice devoid of warmth. "You leave in three weeks. No more delays."

He didn't ask how I was.

He didn't apologize for leaving me to die in a burning car.

"Dante is handling the retaliation against the Russians," he added, checking his watch. "He is very busy. Do not expect a visit."

I didn't expect anything.

I just nodded.

When he left, I waited for the nurse to change my IV and leave the room.

Then, I moved.

My body screamed in protest, but my mind was clear. Cold and sharp as a scalpel.

I retrieved the go-bag I had hidden in the ventilation shaft of the hospital bathroom during my last visit.

I had been planning this for months. Long before the gala.

I pulled out the burner phone.

I logged into the offshore account.

The money I had siphoned off from the family's charity fund over the last three years sat there, waiting.

It wasn't a fortune, but it was enough.

I booked a ticket.

Not to London.

To Sydney.

One way.

I printed the boarding pass in the business center down the hall, using a stolen hospital ID, ignoring the agony in my ribs with every step. My leg, though still weak, could bear my weight with careful effort, thanks to weeks of secret, painful exercises in my room.

Then I went back to the room.

I took out the legal documents I had prepared.

Emancipation papers.

Name change forms.

I signed them. The ink looked black and final.

*Seraphina Vitiello* ceased to exist on that paper.

Then I took out the flash drive.

The recordings.

The hours of audio from the safe house.

Me reading to Dante.

Me singing to him.

Him whispering his secrets. Him telling me he loved *Sette*.

I put the papers and the drive into a small gift box.

I tied it with a pristine white ribbon.

It looked like a wedding gift.

In a way, it was.

It was the gift of truth.

And truth was the most destructive weapon I possessed.

I dressed in the clothes from my bag. Jeans. A hoodie.

I looked like a nobody.

I looked like a ghost.

I walked out of the hospital.

No one stopped me.

The guards were posted at the main entrance, watching for Russians.

They weren't watching for the girl who didn't matter.

I slid into a taxi.

"Take me to the Vitiello estate," I said.

The driver looked at me in the mirror.

"You sure, miss? That's a rough neighborhood."

"I'm just dropping off a package," I said.

"And then I'm gone."