I booked a one-way ticket to Aspen for the morning of the wedding, a futile gesture of hope I didn't truly feel. I packed a single bag, lightweight and efficient. I burned the few photos I had kept hidden in the lining of my mattress, watching the faces curl and blacken in the sink.

I was ready.

The pain in my abdomen was a constant, screaming companion now, a sharp reminder that my timeline was far shorter than Dante's threats.

The night before the wedding, I was summoned.

Not to the estate, but to the private hospital wing the Vitiello family owned.

Two soldiers burst into my apartment while I was sleeping, kicking the door open with unnecessary force. They didn't speak. They simply grabbed me, dragging me out of bed in my thin pajamas.

"What is happening?" I gasped, stumbling as they threw me into the back of a waiting car.

"Shut up," one barked, not looking back. "The Boss needs you."

When we arrived at the hospital, chaos reigned.

Nurses sprinted down the corridors. Doctors were shouting conflicting orders. Amidst the bedlam, I saw Matteo standing by the nurses' station, his face ashen.

"What is it?" I asked him, my legs trembling beneath me.

"It's Sofia," Matteo said, refusing to meet my eyes. "There was an accident at the rehearsal dinner. A chandelier fell. She's... she's lost a lot of blood."

I stared at him.

*Karma*, I thought, the word tasting like bile. But I kept my silence.

"She has a rare blood type," Matteo continued, his voice tight. "AB negative. We don't have enough on hand."

I knew what was coming before the words left his mouth. I was AB negative. It was one of the few things Dante and I didn't share, but Sofia and I did.

Suddenly, Dante appeared from the trauma room.

He was covered in blood-her blood. His crisp white shirt was soaked crimson, clinging to his chest. He looked wild, desperate, a man unraveled. He saw me and stormed over, gripping my shoulders so hard I thought my brittle bones would shatter under his touch.

"You," he breathed, his eyes manic. "You have her blood."

I looked up at him. He was terrified. Not for me. For her.

"Dante," I said softly, my voice barely a whisper. "I can't."

"You will," he snarled, shaking me. "You owe us this. You took my mother. You won't take my wife."

He didn't know.

He didn't know that my blood was poisoned with cancer markers and heavy medication. He didn't know that draining me now, in my fragile condition, was nothing less than an execution.

"It's not safe," I tried to say, my breath hitching.

"Hook her up!" Dante roared at the doctors, ignoring me. "Take it all if you have to! Just save her!"

The doctors hesitated, looking at my frail frame, my translucent skin.

But no one said no to the *Capo dei Capi*.

They dragged me into a room adjacent to Sofia's. They pushed me onto a gurney, the sterile paper crinkling beneath me.

A nurse rolled up my sleeve. Her eyes widened in horror at the tapestry of bruises, the fresh needle marks from my own treatments, the sheer wasting of my arm.

"Sir," she whispered, turning to Dante. "She looks..."

"Do it!" Dante slammed his hand against the wall, the sound echoing like a gunshot.

I looked at him one last time.

He wasn't looking at me. He was staring through the glass partition at Sofia, his hand pressed flat against the pane. He loved her. Or he thought he did. He wanted her to live so badly he was willing to kill me to ensure it.

"Fine," I whispered into the silence.

I closed my eyes. I nodded at the trembling nurse.

"Take it."

The needle slid in. It was a sharp pinch, followed immediately by the sickening warmth of life being siphoned from my body. I turned my head and watched the tube turn red. My red blood. Going into her.

I felt the cold creeping in at the edges of my vision, a gray fog rolling over me. The rhythmic beeping of the monitor slowed. My heart fluttered, a tired bird beating its wings against a cage.

*I am paying my debt, Dante*, I thought as the darkness rose up to meet me. *I am giving you a clean future.*

The room began to spin violently. The sounds of the hospital-the shouting, the alarms-faded into a dull, underwater roar.

"Save my wife," Dante's voice echoed, distant and distorted.

I let go.

Chapter 7

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