Chapter 9

Dante Vitiello POV

They say fire is supposed to be cleansing. They are wrong.

I stood outside the retort room, paralyzed. The hum of the furnace was a low, hungry vibration that rattled through the soles of my shoes.

They were burning her.

My Elena. The girl who had stitched my bullet wounds with trembling hands. The woman who had waited up for me every night until I simply stopped coming home.

I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold tile floor. I put my head in my hands, the darkness behind my eyelids offering no relief.

"How long?" I asked Giulia. She was leaning against the opposite wall, smoking a cigarette she wasn't supposed to have, the smoke curling around her like a shroud.

"Diagnosed a month ago," she said, her voice flat. "Sick for six."

Six months.

I replayed the last six months in my mind, and the memories were daggers.

I had bought Sienna a car. I had missed our anniversary. I had looked Elena in the eye and told her she was barren and useless.

I had told her to die quietly.

A sob ripped out of my chest. It was an ugly, guttural sound, something animalistic and broken.

"I told her to die," I choked out.

Giulia didn't comfort me. She just watched me with cold, unforgiving eyes.

"She listened to you," she said.

"Why didn't she tell me?" I asked, desperation clawing at my throat. "I would have saved her. I would have flown in the best doctors money could buy."

"She didn't want your money, Dante. She didn't want your pity. She wanted your love. And you gave it to a whore."

The heavy door to the furnace room groaned open. The director came out, carrying a simple bronze urn.

I scrambled to my feet. I reached for it instinctively.

"That's my wife," I said.

Giulia stepped forward and intercepted the urn before I could touch it. She held it to her chest possessively.

"No," she said.

"Give her to me, Giulia. I am her husband."

"Not anymore," she said. She pulled a folded document from her purse with her free hand.

Elena's Will.

"I appoint Giulia Moretti as the sole custodian of my remains," I read, my vision blurring. "I explicitly forbid Dante Vitiello from possessing my ashes or attending my burial."

I stared at the paper. The words swam before my eyes, mocking me.

"She... she forbade me?"

"She didn't want to see you in Hell, Dante," Giulia said.

She turned on her heel and walked toward the exit.

"Giulia!" I shouted, stumbling after her. "Where are you taking her?"

"To a place you can't find," she said without looking back.

I followed her to the parking lot, the rain beginning to slick the asphalt. I grabbed her arm.

"Please," I begged. I have never begged for anything in my life. "Please, let me say goodbye."

Giulia stopped. She looked at my hand on her arm, then up at my tear-streaked face with distinct disgust.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a phone. Elena's phone.

She threw it hard at my chest. I fumbled to catch it against my ribs.

"You want to say goodbye?" Giulia said, opening her car door. "Read the texts. See exactly what your mistress did to her while she was dying."

She got into her car, slammed the door, and drove away.

I was left standing in the rain, holding a dead phone and a heart full of ash.