Chapter 10

Dante Moretti POV

The needle trembled at one hundred and forty. The engine of the Ferrari screamed, a mechanical echo of the panic clawing at my throat.

I wove through the traffic on the bridge, deaf to the blare of horns. Every second that ticked by was a hammer blow to my chest.

She couldn't do this.

Elena was mine. She had been mine for five years. She was the quiet shadow in my life, the soft place I landed when the blood and the business became too much. She wouldn't marry Matteo. She was just trying to scare me. It was a bluff. She was trying to force my hand.

I gripped the leather steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.

I'm coming, El. Just wait.

I drifted around the corner onto Fifth Avenue, the tires smoking against the asphalt. The Gothic spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral loomed ahead, piercing the grey sky like judgment itself.

Matteo's security detail was swarming the entrance.

I didn't stop. I slammed the car onto the curb, the metal screeching against concrete. I threw the door open before the engine even died and ran.

"Capo!" one of the guards shouted, stepping in my path. "You can't go in there."

"Move," I snarled. I didn't slow down. I slammed a shoulder into his chest, sending him stumbling, and burst through the heavy oak doors.

The organ music hit me first. A deep, resonant chord that vibrated in my marrow.

Then the smell. Frankincense and thousands of black roses.

I skidded to a halt at the back of the nave. My breath came in ragged gasps.

The church was full. The entire New York Outfit was here. The bosses, the soldiers, the politicians we owned.

And there, at the end of the long aisle, stood Matteo.

He looked like death in a bespoke suit. Tall, broad, radiating a cold power that sucked the air from the room.

And walking toward him was Elena.

She was a vision in white silk. The dress was backless, plunging low, exposing the creamy skin I used to trace with my fingertips.

But my eyes snagged on something else.

A black mark on her shoulder blade. The tattoo. The M.

It wasn't hidden. It was framed by the lace, displayed like a brand. Property.

A murmur ran through the pews as I stood there, panting.

"I thought Dante said she was Matteo's mistress all along," a soldier whispered near me.

"Guess he wasn't lying," another chuckled. "Look at her. She's walking to the Don like she was born for it."

My own lies. They were twisting around my neck, choking me.

I watched her take another step. She didn't look back. She didn't look for me.

"Elena!" I screamed.

The sound tore through the sacred silence. The organist faltered and stopped.

Heads turned. Hundreds of eyes fixed on me.

Elena stopped.

She didn't turn around. She just paused, her back rigid.

"Stop!" I roared, sprinting down the aisle. "You can't do this! Elena!"

I was halfway to the altar when a wall of muscle blocked me.

My father. And behind him, Matteo's top enforcers.

"Enough," my father hissed, grabbing my lapels. His face was purple with rage. "You have shamed this family enough, Dante."

"She's mine," I gasped, trying to shove past him. "She's making a mistake. She loves me."

"She is the Don's bride," my mother said, stepping out from the front pew. Her eyes were chips of ice. "And you are making a scene."

"I don't care!" I yelled, looking past them at Elena's back. "Elena, look at me!"

My mother leaned in, her voice a venomous whisper. "If you take one more step, Dante, I will have Sofia removed from the hospital. Permanently."

I froze.

The threat landed like a bullet. It was the only thing that could pierce the red haze of my adrenaline.

I looked at Elena. She was standing next to Matteo now. She hadn't turned. Not once.

Matteo looked at me. His expression was utterly bored.

"Proceed," Matteo said to the priest.

My knees felt weak. I stood there, held back by my father's grip, and watched the woman I loved take the hand of the monster I called brother.