Seven days of white noise and the stinging scent of antiseptic. Seven days of watching the door, waiting for a shadow that never darkened the threshold.

Dante didn't come.

His assistant, a skittish man named Steven who looked afraid of his own reflection, arrived on day three. He carried a vase of lilies that likely cost more than a mid-sized sedan.

"Mr. Moretti sends his regards," Steven stammered, placing the vase on the bedside table with trembling hands. "He is... detained. With matters of security."

"Security," I repeated. The word tasted like copper on my tongue. "Is that what we're calling her now?"

Steven didn't answer. He simply adjusted his glasses and fled the room as if it were on fire.

I stared at the lilies. Stark white. Funeral flowers.

"Nurse," I called out, my voice raspy.

A young woman in blue scrubs poked her head in.

"Take these," I commanded. "And the fruit basket. And the chocolates. Get them out."

"Are you sure, Mrs. Moretti?"

"I don't want anything in this room that I didn't pay for myself."

By day five, my phone began to buzz. Anonymous numbers. No text, just images.

Dante and Isabella at a café. Dante pushing Isabella in a wheelchair through a private park, despite the fact she could walk perfectly fine. Dante hand-feeding her a pastry.

The caption on the final image was simple: *Reclaiming what is ours.*

I didn't block the number. I needed to see it. I needed the evidence to cauterize the wound, to burn the hope out of my system.

When the doctor finally cleared me for discharge, I stood on the curb outside the hospital entrance. I had called the car service myself. The Family driver was supposed to be there, but I didn't bother checking the schedule.

A black SUV screeched to a halt. It was a Family car, but not Dante's. It was a generic fleet transport.

The driver didn't exit to open the door for me. I climbed in, wincing as my healing ribs protested the movement.

The estate was silent when I arrived. It felt less like a home and more like a mausoleum of marble and velvet.

I walked up the grand staircase, my breath hitching with every step. I needed painkillers, but I refused to dull the edges of reality. Not tonight.

I reached the landing and saw light spilling from the cracks of the library door.

Voices drifted out.

"You need to go home, Boss. You've been awake for three days."

It was Marco.

"I can't." Dante's voice was slurred. Thick with whiskey and exhaustion. "She needs me, Marco. She wakes up screaming."

"Mrs. Moretti was discharged today," Marco said. His voice was quiet, respectful, but firm. "She came home alone."

There was a heavy pause. The clink of glass against crystal.

"Elara is strong," Dante muttered. "She's built for this life. Her father raised a soldier in a dress."

"She's your wife, Dante. She took a bullet meant for you."

"I know!" Dante roared. The sound vibrated through the wood, making me flinch. "I know what she is. She is duty. She is honor. She is the promise I made to a dying man."

"She is a good woman," Marco insisted.

I leaned against the wall, closing my eyes against the sting.

"She is a saint," Dante whispered, the anger draining out of him, replaced by a bleak, drunken honesty. "She does everything right. She never complains. She never asks for more than I give."

He laughed, a dark, humorless sound that scraped against the silence.

"But Marco... you can admire a statue. You can respect a monument. But you don't fuck the monument. You don't bleed for stone."

I heard the sound of liquid pouring.

"She can be a saint," Dante said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper that carried through the door. "But she will never be *her*."

I looked down at my left hand. The diamond on my finger felt heavy, like a shackle forged in cold blood.

He didn't hate me. That would have been easier. He just didn't see me as a living, breathing creature. I was a contract he honored. A bill he paid on time.

I pushed away from the wall. I didn't enter the library. I didn't confront him.

I walked down the hall to the guest room I had been sleeping in for months.

I opened the ledger lying on the desk.

*Minus ten.*

Thirty-five points.

I stared at the number. It felt too high.

Chapter 6

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