Chapter 7

Elena Vitiello POV

The diamond was a pear-shaped monstrosity that caught the sunlight, fracturing it into a thousand mocking rainbows.

"Sofia," Dante said, his voice trembling with a depth of emotion I had never heard directed at me. "You are my life. My breath. Marry me."

Sofia burst into tears. "Yes! Yes!"

She threw her arms around him, sobbing into his neck.

Then, she pulled back, looking at me with wide, expectant eyes. "Elena! Give us your blessing! Please!"

Dante looked at me over her shoulder. His eyes were pleading. Just say it. End the scene.

"I wish you eternity," I said.

The words tasted like ash.

Then the world turned orange.

A boom shook the ground, vibrating through the soles of my shoes.

Someone had rigged the gazebo. Or maybe it was a gas line. It didn't matter what the cause was; the effect was immediate devastation.

Fire erupted from the base of the structure. The dry vines caught instantly, turning the romantic archway into a cage of flame.

Heat blasted my face, singeing my eyelashes.

Panic erupted. The guests screamed, a collective wail of terror.

I was standing right next to Dante.

The fire roared, a living beast consuming the oxygen. A beam from the gazebo roof cracked and swung down with a groan of splintering wood.

Dante lunged.

He grabbed the arm of the woman next to him.

Me.

He pulled me hard, dragging me two steps toward the exit, his grip bruisingly tight.

Then Sofia screamed. "Dante!"

He froze.

He looked at me. He looked at his hand gripping my arm.

Realization dawned in his eyes-a flicker of horror. He had grabbed me by instinct.

But instinct wasn't love.

He shoved me.

It wasn't a gentle push. He planted his hands on my chest and thrown me backward, away from safety, back toward the collapsing structure as if my touch burned him.

"Sofia!" he roared, diving back into the smoke.

I stumbled. My heel caught on a root. I fell hard.

My ankle twisted with a sickening pop.

I tried to crawl, clawing at the dirt.

The crowd was stampeding. Panicked guests trampled my legs, my back, their shoes digging into my flesh.

A piece of burning wood fell from the ceiling. It struck my left shoulder blade.

I screamed, but the sound was lost in the roar of the fire.

The smell of burning fabric choked me. The smell of burning skin followed.

I looked up through the smoke, tears streaming down my face from the heat.

I saw Dante. He had Sofia in his arms. He was shielding her face with his jacket, carrying her through the wall of fire, running toward the light.

He didn't look back.

He left me to burn.

I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, the light was blindingly white and the air smelled of antiseptic.

I was moving. A gurney.

"Trauma One is prepped!" a nurse shouted. "We have two victims from the fire."

"We only have one sterile suite available for immediate grafting!" a doctor yelled back. "The other is occupied."

I turned my head. It was agony, a spike of white-hot pain shooting down my neck.

Dante was running alongside the other gurney. Sofia was crying, holding her hand. A small burn marred her forearm.

"She needs the suite!" Dante screamed at the doctor. "She's an actress! Her skin is her life! No scars! Do you hear me? No scars!"

"Sir, the other patient-" the doctor pointed at me, his expression frantic. "She has third-degree burns on her back. She needs the sterile environment more or she could go into shock."

Dante looked at me.

I met his gaze.

I saw the hesitation. I saw the guilt.

But I also saw the decision.

"Save Sofia first," he said. His voice broke, but the order stood. "Fix her."

The doctor hesitated, cursed under his breath, then nodded. They wheeled Sofia into the main trauma room.

They pushed me into a curtained bay.

I didn't scream. I didn't fight.

A single tear leaked from the corner of my eye. It tracked through the soot on my face.

It was the last tear I would ever shed for Dante Moretti.

I let the darkness take me.