Chapter 3

I was no longer Elena Vitiello.

I was simply Jeanette.

I lived in a studio apartment in Queens that reeked of boiled cabbage and damp plaster.

The ceiling wept gray water when it rained, and the neighbors argued in Russian until 3 AM.

To me, it was paradise.

I worked two jobs.

By day, I scoured floors in a diner. By night, I sketched portraits for tourists in Times Square for twenty dollars a pop.

My hands, once manicured and soft, were now red and calloused.

My back ached constantly.

But every dollar I earned was mine.

It reminded me of the before times.

Before Dante.

When I was eighteen, working three shifts to pay for Mom's chemo.

I was tough then. I had forgotten that.

Dante had wrapped me in silk until I suffocated. Now, the cold air of reality was filling my lungs, and it felt like life.

It had been a week since the banquet.

I was packing up my easel. It was raining, a cold, miserable drizzle that soaked through my jacket.

A black Maybach pulled up to the curb.

My heart stopped.

I knew that car.

The window rolled down.

Dante.

He looked impeccable, dry, and annoyed.

"Get in," he said.

I didn't move. "I'm working, sir. Do you want a portrait?"

He got out.

He snapped open an umbrella, shielding himself, but leaving me exposed to the elements.

"Stop this nonsense, Elena. You've made your point. It's been a week. You're living in squalor. It's embarrassing."

"I'm living," I corrected.

He sighed, reaching into his pocket.

He pulled out a velvet box.

He snapped it open.

Inside was a blue sapphire ring.

My mother's ring. The one that had gone missing from her hospital room the day she died.

I stared at it. The rain mixed with the tears I refused to shed.

"I found it," he said, his voice taking on that soft, manipulative tone he used so well. "I know how much it means to you. Come home, Elena. I'll give it to you."

He was dangling my mother's memory in front of me like a treat for a starving dog.

I looked at him.

I remembered our wedding night.

He had held my face and sworn he would protect me from the world.

He had saved me from debt collectors. He had paid off the hospital bills.

I had thought he was a hero.

I had given up Parsons for him. I had become his shadow for him.

And he didn't even know what he had broken.

"Thank you, Dante," I said, taking the box.

My voice was hollow.

"Good," he said, checking his watch. "Now get in. We have a flight to Rome tomorrow. The talks with the French syndicate are happening. I need you there. You speak French."

"Rome," I repeated.

"Yes. Remember? You always wanted to see the Colosseum."

I looked at him, stunned by his ignorance.

"I wanted to take my mother to Italy," I said quietly. "Before she got too sick. I wanted her to see the Vatican. I never cared about the Colosseum."

Dante frowned. "Same thing. You'll get a trip. You can shop."

He didn't remember.

He had never listened.

I had begged him for months to let us go, and he was always 'too busy'.

"You really don't know me at all, do you?" I whispered.

"Elena, get in the car. I don't have time for this melodra-"

His phone rang.

He answered it immediately.

His face went pale.

"What? Is she bleeding? How much?"

He listened, his eyes widening in genuine panic.

A panic I had never seen him feel for me.

"I'm coming. Tell the doctors to prep the OR. If she dies, I kill everyone in that hospital."

He hung up.

He looked at me, then at the car.

"Sofia," he said. "She... there was an accident. At the estate."

"And?" I asked, clutching the ring box.

"I have to go."

"We're discussing my return," I said, testing him. "You're leaving me on a street corner in the rain?"

"It's Sofia!" he roared, his mask slipping. "She might lose the... she's hurt. Go to the apartment. Wait for me."

He jumped into the car.

"Drive!" he barked at the driver.

The Maybach screeched away, splashing dirty sludge all over my jeans.

I stood there.

I watched the taillights disappear.

He had left me. Again.

For her.

Always for her.

I opened the velvet box.

The ring was beautiful.

But it felt heavy.

I looked down the street.

A pawn shop sign flickered in neon pink through the drizzle.

I closed the box.

I wasn't going to the apartment.

I wasn't waiting.

Dante had just made his choice.

Now I was making mine.