Chapter 2

Before I was Mrs. Dante Vitiello, a silent ornament gathering dust on a shelf, I was Elena the artist.

I had a scholarship to Parsons. I had dreams of designing structures that defied gravity, of turning steel and glass into something that could touch the sky. Dante had crushed those dreams on our wedding night with a single, suffocating sentence: "Vitiello women do not work. They inspire."

He thought he had clipped my wings. He didn't know I had learned to fly in the dark.

During the weeks of my confinement, while Dante believed I was weeping into my pillow, I was calculating. I used a burner phone I had lifted from a careless maid. I accessed offshore accounts I had helped Dante set up during the honeymoon phase, back when he trusted me with his secrets because he thought I was too blinded by love to understand the math.

But I always understood the math.

I moved small amounts. Unnoticeable fractions. Rounding errors in a ledger of blood money. Enough to survive. I learned how to disappear by inches.

I set a date. October 15th. My mother's birthday.

I stood in front of the full-length mirror in my dressing room. My dress was emerald green, backless, and deceptive. It clung to me like a second skin.

"Dante," I whispered to my reflection, my eyes dry and cold. "You think you own me. You're about to find out that you can't cage smoke."

Tonight was the Grand Alliance Dinner. The Vitiello and Moretti families were celebrating their new pact in blood and ink.

I walked down the grand staircase. The ballroom was thick with the scent of expensive perfume masking the stench of moral decay. Dante stood in the center of the room, the sun around which this dark universe orbited.

Next to him was Sofia Moretti.

She was wearing red. Of course. She looked like a queen bee surrounded by drones, radiating a poisonous kind of glamour. She was laughing, her hand resting possessively on Dante's forearm. Dante didn't pull away. He leaned in, whispering something that made her throw her head back in performative delight.

I paused at the bottom of the stairs. No one looked at me. I was the wife. The furniture. Sofia was the event.

Family members lined up to greet her, a sickening pilgrimage.

"Sofia, you look magnificent."

"Sofia, thank you for the shipment."

"Sofia, the Vitiellos are lucky to have you."

It was a sickening display of loyalty shifting in real-time. I forced my legs to move, gliding up to them.

Dante saw me. His eyes flickered with annoyance before smoothing into a mask of strained politeness. "Elena," he said. "You're late."

"I was praying," I said softly.

Sofia turned to me. Her eyes were predatory, scanning me for weakness. "Elena, darling," she purred. "I heard you've been... unwell. Nerves, isn't it? So fragile."

She reached out and touched my arm. Her nails dug into my flesh, sharp little crescents of pain. "I have a surprise for you," she said, her voice loud enough to carry over the music. "I've been admiring that brooch you're wearing. The sapphire one."

My hand went to my chest instinctively. It was my mother's brooch. The only thing I had left of her.

"It's beautiful," Sofia continued, her smile not reaching her eyes. "I think it would look better on me. Consider it a gift. A symbol of our new friendship."

The room went silent. Every Vitiello, every Moretti, stopped talking. They watched. This wasn't about jewelry. This was a dominance display. A public execution of my dignity.

Dante looked at me. His eyes were hard, void of any husbandly affection. He nodded, a microscopic movement. *Give it to her.*

"She's right, Elena," Dante said, his voice smooth as oil. "It's just a trinket. Sofia is our guest of honor."

He was stripping me naked in front of everyone. He was telling them I meant nothing.

Sofia smiled, extending her hand. I looked at her manicured palm. Then I looked at Dante.

"No," I said.

The word rang out like a gunshot in a library. Sofia's smile faltered. "Excuse me?"

"It belonged to my mother," I said, my voice steady despite the trembling in my knees. "It is not a trinket. And I will not give it to the woman who..."

Dante's fingers clamped onto my bicep, his grip bruising. He didn't step on my foot; he squeezed the life out of my arm.

"Elena is not feeling well," he announced to the room, his tone brooking no argument. "The medication makes her confused."

Sofia leaned in close to my ear, switching to the Sicilian dialect, a language she thought I was too American to understand.

"Your mother was a useless cow," she hissed. "She died screaming. Just like you will."

Her cousins behind her snickered. "*Puttana*," one muttered. "Ungrateful bitch."

I didn't flinch. I didn't cry. I looked at Sofia, and I memorized the shape of her malice. I looked at Dante, and I memorized the depth of his cowardice.

I felt the weight of the encrypted notebook taped to the underside of my thigh, hidden beneath the silk of my dress. It contained the routing numbers for Dante's entire laundering operation in the Caymans. I had built that network for him. I was the architect of his fortune, and now, I would be the architect of his ruin.

I pulled my arm from Dante's grip.

"You're right, darling," I said to Dante, my voice sweet, terrifyingly calm. "I am confused. I think I need some air. I'll leave you to your... guest."

I turned around.

"Elena," Dante warned, low and dangerous.

I didn't stop. I walked through the crowd. They parted for me, not out of respect, but out of discomfort. They were repelled by the scent of my failure, or so they thought.

I walked out of the ballroom. I walked out of the foyer. I walked out of the front door of the Vitiello estate.

The valet looked at me, confused. "Mrs. Vitiello? Your car?"

I pressed a hand to my forehead, playing the part Dante had written for me. "No," I said, feigning dizziness. "I need to walk. The air..."

He nodded, stepping back. I walked down the long driveway. My heels clicked on the asphalt, a countdown ticking away the seconds of my old life.

I didn't look back at the mansion, glowing with light and lies.

I reached the main road. I took a taxi to a subway station. I took the subway to a locker I had rented three weeks ago. I changed into jeans and a hoodie, shedding the emerald skin of Mrs. Vitiello.

I left the dress in the trash. I walked out into the night.

I passed a newsstand. A calendar hung in the window.

October 15th.

Happy birthday, Mom.

I'm free.