Chapter 10

Dante POV

One hour bled into two.

Two stretched into an agonizing four.

The bedroom was a ruin of my own making.

The vanity mirror was shattered, a spiderweb of cracks reflecting my fractured composure. The anniversary lilies lay shredded on the floor, their white petals trampled into the expensive rug.

I sat amidst the debris in the armchair, lighting my twentieth cigarette with a trembling hand.

My knuckles were split and bleeding where I had punched the wall.

Why wasn't she answering?

She would never risk Luca. Never.

She was the most predictable creature on earth. Her love for that brother was her fatal weakness, and I held the knife against his throat.

When my phone finally vibrated against the armrest, I snatched it up before the first ring could finish.

Matteo.

"Where is she?" I demanded, my voice a low growl.

"Don Vitiello..." Matteo's voice was thready, shaking.

"Speak!"

"We checked the hospitals. We checked the morgues. We checked the flight manifests."

"And?"

"Her digital footprint... it's gone, sir. It's like she was never here. Like she was erased."

I laughed-a dark, humorless sound that scraped against my throat.

"She's a street rat, Matteo. She can't erase herself. She's hiding."

"Sir, there's something else."

"What?"

"I pulled the logs from the clinic regarding Luca."

I gripped the phone so hard the screen cracked under my thumb.

"Put him on video," I ordered, standing up. "I want to see him. I'll send her a video of me wrapping my hands around his throat. That will bring her out."

"Sir, you can't."

"Why?"

"Because he's dead, Don Vitiello."

The world didn't just stop spinning; it tilted on its axis.

"What did you say?"

"He died three days ago, sir. The night of the... incident with Sofia. The cardiac arrest. You... you blocked the doctors from entering."

"No."

The room swayed violently.

"That's a lie. She would have told me."

"The records show she claimed the body, sir. She had him cremated the next morning."

I dropped the phone.

It hit the floor with a dull, final thud.

She cremated him.

She buried him.

She came home to me.

She let me touch her.

She lied.

The memory of her eyes that night crashed into me.

They hadn't been submissive.

They were dead.

I had killed her brother.

And then I had forced her to kiss me with the same mouth that had just said goodbye to him forever.

A scream built in my chest, a pressurized wave of agony.

It started low, a rumble of absolute denial, before it tore its way out of my throat.

"Elena!"

I overturned the heavy oak table with a roar.

I smashed the remaining lamp against the wall.

I tore the velvet curtains from the windows, ripping them from the rods.

She was gone.

She was really gone.

And I was the one who had opened the door and shoved her out.

I fell to my knees in the wreckage of our anniversary.

The cloying scent of crushed lilies was suffocating now.

It didn't smell like a celebration anymore.

It smelled like a grave.