Chapter 8

Seraphina Vitiello POV

Pain and silence defined the next forty-eight hours.

I remained in the basement, subsisting on stale bread and tepid water because I refused to crawl to the kitchen and beg.

On the morning of my departure, my mother descended the stairs.

"We're going to dinner," she said, her voice void of warmth. "A show of unity before the wedding. You're coming."

"I can barely walk," I rasped.

"I don't care if you have to drag yourself across the pavement," she snapped. "Dante insists. He wants to make sure you understand your place before you go."

They forced me into a dress with a high back to conceal the bandages.

We took the convoy. Three black SUVs.

Dante and Isabella were in the lead car. My parents were in the second. I was relegated to the third, flanked by two bodyguards who looked at me like I was contagious.

The convoy cut a path toward a steakhouse downtown.

I stared out the window. The city passed by in streaks of grey and neon.

I closed my eyes and allowed myself a dangerous luxury: hope.

In the dream, the car stopped. Dante opened my door. He saw the blood seeping through my dress. He picked me up. He apologized. He said he knew.

*BOOM.*

The world disintegrated.

Metal screamed. Glass exploded inward like shrapnel.

My head slammed against the window.

Our SUV spun out of control, slamming into the median with bone-jarring force.

I was thrown against the seatbelt, the strap digging into my fresh wounds. I screamed, but the sound was lost in the chaos.

Gunfire.

We were being ambushed.

I looked through the shattered windshield, vision swimming.

The lead car-Dante's car-had been rammed by a heavy truck. It was crumpled on the passenger side.

Dante kicked his door open.

He stumbled out, blood trickling down his forehead.

He ran around the car.

He ripped the passenger door open with his bare hands, muscles straining against the steel.

He pulled Isabella out.

She was screaming, thrashing, perfectly alive.

"I've got you!" he roared. "Cover me!"

He carried her toward the safety of the arriving backup vehicles.

He ran past my car.

My window was gone. I was hanging sideways, trapped by the crushed metal of the door.

I reached out a hand, fingers trembling.

"Dante," I choked out.

He looked at me.

For a second, our eyes met.

He saw me trapped. He saw the smoke rising from the engine block of my car.

He looked down at Isabella in his arms. She had a mere scratch on her cheek.

He set his jaw, turned his head forward, and kept running.

He left me.

Again.

The heat from the engine was becoming unbearable.

"Get the girl!" a bodyguard shouted from outside.

Not Dante. Just a paid employee.

The guard dragged me out seconds before the fuel tank ignited.

The blast threw us to the ground.

I lay on the asphalt, watching the flames lick the sky.

Ambulances screamed in the distance.

Paramedics swarmed the scene.

"This one is critical!" a medic shouted, kneeling beside me. "BP is dropping fast. Internal bleeding."

"Wait!" my father's voice cut through the noise.

He was standing over Isabella, who was sitting on a gurney, hysterically crying about a broken nail.

"Check my daughter first," he ordered the medics. "She's the bride. She needs to be perfect."

"Sir, this woman is dying," the medic argued.

"I said check Isabella!" Dante barked. "Do as he says."

The medic hesitated, then stood up and walked away from me.

I watched them fuss over Isabella.

I watched Dante stroke her hair.

The darkness crept in at the edges of my vision.

It was peaceful this time.

I welcomed the void.