Chapter 8

Dante Vitiello POV

My first thought was that it was a wax doll.

It had to be. It couldn't be Elena. Elena was soft. Elena was warm. Elena had cheeks that flushed pink when I kissed her.

But this thing on the table was grey. It was skeletal. The skin was stretched too tight over sharp cheekbones, and the lips were a bruised shade of blue.

I stumbled back, hitting the wall hard.

"It's a trick," I said. My voice sounded like it was coming from underwater, distant and distorted.

"It's not a trick, Dante."

Giulia was standing in the doorway. She wasn't screaming anymore. The hysteria had been replaced by a terrifying, hollow calm.

"Look at her," she said. "Really look at her."

I forced myself to look.

I saw the faint scar on her chin from when she fell off a bike at twenty. I saw the small mole on the curve of her neck.

It was Elena.

But she looked... starved.

She looked like she had been dying for a long time.

"Why is she so thin?" I asked, the words scraping against the bile rising in my throat.

"Cancer," Giulia said. "Pancreatic. Stage four."

"No," I said, shaking my head. "She was fine. She was just... tired. She was jealous of Sienna."

"She has been dying in your house for months," Giulia spat, her voice cracking the air. "And you were too busy fucking your mistress to notice she couldn't eat. You were too busy building a nursery to notice your wife was fading away."

I fell to my knees. The impact cracked against the tile floor, but I didn't feel it.

I crawled to the table. I took her hand.

It was ice cold.

"Elena," I whispered. "Wake up."

Silence.

"Elena, please. I'm here. I'm home."

Nothing.

I tried to lift her. I needed to warm her up. If I just warmed her up, she would wake up.

"Sir, you can't do that."

A man in a suit tried to pull me away.

"Get off me!" I roared. I shoved him across the room with a burst of frantic strength.

I wrapped my arms around her body. She was so light. Too light. Like a bird with hollow bones.

Giulia walked over. She didn't try to pull me away.

Instead, she raised her hand and slapped me.

The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet room. My head snapped to the side.

"She is gone!" Giulia screamed, the hollowness shattering. "You killed her! You killed her with your indifference! Now let her go!"

I looked at Elena's face. Her eyes were closed. She looked peaceful. More peaceful than she had looked in years.

The funeral director approached cautiously, holding a clipboard like a shield.

"Mr. Vitiello," he said, his voice trembling. "We need a signature for the death certificate. And the release for cremation."

"Cremation?" I asked. "No. She goes in the family mausoleum."

Giulia snatched the clipboard.

"She didn't want the mausoleum," she hissed. "She didn't want to be near you."

I looked at the paper. Cause of Death: Pancreatic Cancer. Cardiac Arrest.

I picked up the pen. My hand was shaking so hard the ink blotted against the page.

I signed my name.

It felt like signing my own death warrant.