Chapter 3

Elena Vitiello POV

I stumbled into my apartment, a small, converted carriage house on the edge of the Moretti estate, my breath hitching in my throat.

Desperate to stop the burning, I tore the dissolving blouse from my body.

Skin came with it.

I bit through my lip to keep from passing out, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth.

I scrambled into the shower and turned the water to cold. The shock made me gasp, but the icy deluge helped neutralize the acid.

I watched a swirl of pink water spiral down the drain.

My chest was a ruin. Angry red welts and blisters mapped the path of the liquid. It would scar. I would carry the hate of the Moretti family branded on my skin forever.

I stepped out of the shower, shivering violently, and wrapped myself in a towel before heading to the living room.

I couldn't go to the hospital. Dante controlled the doctors; they would simply report it as a clumsy accident, burying the truth under layers of money and fear.

I grabbed the first aid kit I kept hidden under the floorboards, retrieving the essentials: burn cream, gauze, painkillers.

I worked mechanically. I was a soldier patching herself up in the trenches, numb to everything but the mission of survival.

Once the bandages were secure, I went to the bookshelf and pulled out a heavy leather album.

Our wedding album.

I carried it to the metal basin I used for laundry and struck a match. The flame wavered, small and yellow, fragile against the encroaching dark.

I dropped it onto the glossy photo of Dante sliding the ring onto my finger.

The paper curled and blackened. His face melted, warping into a grotesque smear. The fire grew, consuming the lie of our happiness.

Suddenly, the front door exploded inward, sending splinters of wood flying across the room.

Dante stood in the doorway.

He was breathing hard, his chest heaving. He saw me. He saw the bandages on my chest. He saw the fire in the basin.

His eyes darted between the two. For a second, I saw concern-a flicker of the man he pretended to be.

But then he saw the photo burning. He saw his own face being eaten by flames.

He kicked the basin over. Ash and half-burnt photos scattered across the floor. He stomped on the fire, extinguishing it with his expensive Italian leather shoes.

He reached down and picked up a charred remnant. It was a picture of us kissing on the altar.

He looked at it, then at me.

"You did this," he said, his voice dangerously calm.

"You staged this."

"What?" I whispered.

"The acid," he said, pointing at my chest. "You did it to yourself. To frame my nephews. To frame Carla."

I laughed. It was a dry, broken sound.

"You think I poured acid on myself?"

"You're desperate, Elena," he said, stepping closer. "You're losing your grip on the family money, and you'll do anything to stay relevant."

He grabbed my wrist.

The broken one.

I screamed. The pain was blinding, white-hot and immediate.

He didn't let go. He dragged me out of the house, throwing me over his shoulder like a sack of flour.

I pounded on his back with my good hand. "Let me go!" I shrieked.

He ignored me. He carried me across the lawn to the main house, but he didn't take me inside the front door. He went around the back, to the cellar doors.

"No," I begged. "Dante, please. Not there."

The cellar was where he did his "work." It was soundproof. It smelled of rust and bleach-the scent of old blood and sterile death.

He carried me down the concrete steps and threw me onto the metal table in the center of the room. The cold steel bit into my back.

He strapped my ankles. He strapped my wrists.

I lay there, spread-eagled, staring up at the single lightbulb swinging from the ceiling.

"You are my wife," he said.

He walked to the wall and pulled a lever. A hydraulic hum filled the room.

The "Press."

It was a device designed to crush fingers, to extract information from stubborn rivals.

"You are property," he continued. "You don't get to burn my face. You don't get to leave."

He placed a heavy metal plate over my midsection. He wasn't going to crush my hands. He was going to squeeze the breath out of me.

He turned a dial. The plate descended.

It pressed against my ribs.

Pressure. Immense, crushing pressure.

My ribs groaned under the strain. I couldn't inhale. Panic flared in my chest.

"Admit it," he demanded. "Admit you staged the attack."

I couldn't speak. I could only gasp. The room started to spin, and black spots danced in my vision.

I was going to die here. Killed by the man I had loved for a lifetime.

My mind drifted. I thought of the only person who had ever offered me a way out. The rival. The enemy.

"Luca," I wheezed.

It was barely a whisper. But in the silence of the torture chamber, it was a scream.

Dante froze. His hand hovered over the dial.

"Luca?" he repeated.

The name seemed to confuse him. He flinched, rubbing his temple as if the name itself had physically struck him.

Why would his wife call out the name of the Chicago Underboss?

He looked at me, really looked at me, and for the first time, he saw fear. Not the fear of a liar caught in the act. The fear of a victim.

He stopped the machine.

The pressure eased. I sucked in a ragged breath, coughing as air rushed back into my starved lungs.

Dante stepped back, staring at his hands as if they were foreign objects covered in invisible blood.