It wasn't a mansion. It was a two-bedroom cottage we had purchased when Dante was just a soldier. It was where we hid when the feds were raiding the city. It was where we had painted the nursery pink three years ago, before the miscarriages, before the doctors told us "never."

It was the only place that was truly ours.

I drove there, breaking every speed limit.

When I skidded into the driveway, I saw the dumpster.

It was full of drywall. Pink drywall.

No.

I ran inside. The front door was wide open, hanging off its hinges. A crew of contractors was tearing down the walls. The living room was gutted. The window seat, where we used to sit and dream about the future, was smashed to pieces.

"Stop!" I screamed. "Stop it!"

The foreman looked at me, bored. "Orders from the Don, lady. Full gut renovation."

I called Dante. He answered on the first ring.

"Why?" I screamed into the phone. "Why the house? You have five estates!"

"Sienna likes the location," he said calmly. "It's secluded. Good for the baby."

"It's my house! It's our memories!"

"It's a building, Elena. And it's in my name."

He hung up.

I sat in the rubble for five hours. I watched the shadows lengthen until the sun died.

Night fell. Headlights swept across the driveway. Dante's black SUV pulled up.

He got out, looking impeccable in a tailored suit that contrasted sharply with the dust and debris. Sienna followed, wrapping a coat protectively around her belly.

She looked at the gutted house and smiled. It was a smile of pure malice.

"It's a bit of a fixer-upper," she said, stepping delicately over a piece of broken trim. "But the nursery will be huge once we knock down that wall."

She pointed to the wall of the room that was supposed to be mine.

Dante stood there, watching me sitting on a pile of debris.

"You look insane, Elena," he said. "Go home."

"You are erasing me," I said, my voice hollow.

"I am renovating a property," he corrected coldly.

I stood up. I walked over to Sienna. She flinched, hiding behind Dante.

"You are trash," I told her. "You are living in my leftovers."

Sienna gasped. "Dante, she's scaring me."

Dante stepped forward, his chest hitting mine. He was a wall of muscle and heat.

"Get in your car, Elena. Or I will have my men drag you."

I looked up at him. I looked for the boy I loved. He wasn't there.

"Is the house just trash to you?" I asked. "Like me?"

He looked at the ruins of our first home. He didn't blink.

"It's just wood and brick," he said. "Stop being sentimental. It's weak."

Sienna pulled a checkbook from her bag.

"I can pay you for the furniture we threw out," she offered. "If you need the money."

I lunged.

Dante caught me easily. He twisted my arm behind my back with practiced efficiency.

"Enough!" he roared.

He shoved me toward my car.

"Go back to the estate. Wait for the divorce papers. I'm done with this."

He turned back to Sienna, checking her hands, checking her face, treating her like fine china while treating me like the garbage on the floor.

Every piece of you will be erased, Sienna texted me as I drove away.

I returned to the main estate, where the silence was deafening.

I called a removal company.

"I want it all gone," I told them. "The clothes. The furniture. The photos. Everything that proves I lived here."

They worked through the night. By dawn, the master bedroom was empty. The closet was bare.

I took the photo albums from the safe. Our wedding. Our trips to Italy. The candid shots of him sleeping.

I threw them into the fireplace.

I lit the match.

I watched our history curl up, blacken, and turn to ash.

I lay down on the bare wooden floor. The house was as empty as my marriage. The pain in my body was sharp, but the pain in my soul was gone.

There was nothing left to break.

Elena Vitiello was dead. I was simply waiting for my body to catch up.

Chapter 5

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