Chapter 2

The clinic was blindingly white.

It smelled of antiseptic and cold money.

When I woke up, I knew immediately that I was hollow.

The connection was gone.

The little flutter I had felt for weeks was now silent.

The door opened.

Dante walked in.

He did not look like a grieving father.

He looked like a businessman dealing with a failed asset.

Sofia walked in behind him, clinging to his arm like a parasitic vine.

She wore a soft pink dress and looked perfectly fragile.

She squinted, playing up her fake partial blindness for his benefit.

"Elena," Sofia said, her voice trembling with false sympathy. "I heard what happened. I am so sorry."

I looked at Dante.

"Why?" I asked, my voice cracking. "Why did you let our child die?"

Dante adjusted his cufflinks, his expression bored.

"A disobedient wife earns no right to an heir," he said.

His words were simple.

They were facts to him.

My heart, which I thought had already broken in the snow, disintegrated into dust.

Sofia squeezed his arm.

"Dante," she whispered, glancing at me with feigned terror. "She threatened my parents too. I am scared of her."

Dante looked at me coldly.

"Apologize to her," he commanded.

I stared at him in disbelief.

"You want me to apologize to your whore after I just lost your child?"

Dante snapped his fingers.

Two soldiers detached themselves from the wall.

They seized my shoulders.

They forced my head down toward the bedsheet.

My stitches pulled violently, sending fire through my abdomen.

I cried out in pain, but they did not stop until my forehead touched the mattress.

"Say it," Dante said.

"I apologize," I sobbed into the sheets, humiliated. "I am sorry."

The soldiers released me.

Sofia smirked.

I saw it flash across her face before she buried her expression in Dante's chest.

Dante pulled a folder from his jacket.

The lawyer stepped forward.

"Sign these," Dante said.

Severance of Protection.

Divorce papers.

"One hundred million dollars," he said.

Hush money.

"Sign it, leave New York, and never come back."

He looked down at Sofia.

"Once you are gone, Sofia becomes the Vitiello Queen."

He paused, looking at my pale face.

"Maybe, if you learn your place, I will take you back as a mistress one day."

Something inside me snapped.

It was a loud, violent crack in my psyche.

I started to laugh.

It was a dry, raspy sound, devoid of humor.

Tears streamed down my face, but I laughed until my ribs hurt.

"Give me the pen," I said.

Dante narrowed his eyes.

He expected begging.

He expected me to fight for him.

I signed the paper.

I signed away ten years of my life.

I signed away the man I saved.

I signed away the man who killed my child.

I handed the paper back.

"Done," I said.

Dante looked at the signature, a flicker of confusion in his dark eyes.

He took Sofia's hand.

"Get out of my city, Elena."

He left.

I held the check.

It was just paper.

But it was enough to buy a ghost life.