Chapter 5

Elena Rossi POV

The elevator ride to the penthouse felt like being sealed in a vertical coffin.

When the doors slid open, I hesitated, convinced I had stepped off on the wrong floor.

The warmth had been surgically removed.

The beige walls, the plush rugs, the paintings I had meticulously chosen to make this stone fortress mimic a home-all of it had been erased.

The walls were stripped down to skeletal concrete.

The furniture was shrouded in plastic sheets, like bodies in a morgue.

Construction crews were hauling out debris in heavy canvas sacks.

And there, in the center of the living room, sitting in black trash bags like common refuse, were my things.

Dante stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, silhouetted against the city, nursing a cigarette.

He hated smoking indoors.

It was one of his cardinal rules.

But rules, apparently, were shackles designed only for me.

"What is this?" I asked, my voice echoing in the hollowed-out space.

He turned slowly.

"Renovations," he said, his voice flat. "Sofia prefers minimalism. Industrial chic."

"My books," I said, pointing to a bag that had split open, spilling my medical textbooks onto the dusty concrete.

I looked at the fabric peeking out of another bag. "My mother's quilts."

"They were in the way," he said, flicking ash onto the floor with deliberate indifference. "The crew needs the space clear by Monday."

He walked over to the kitchen island, the only structure left untouched in the demolition.

He picked up a small velvet box and slid it across the marble toward me.

It stopped inches from my hand.

"A severance package," he said.

I stared at the box.

I didn't open it.

I knew it would be diamonds.

Cold, hard carbon meant to purchase three years of my soul.

"Is she moving in?" I asked, the words tasting like ash.

"Eventually. The engagement will be announced next month."

He took a long drag of the cigarette, his eyes narrowing through the plume of smoke.

"You have until the end of the week to find a new place. I've arranged an apartment for you in Santa Monica. The lease is paid for a year."

He was evicting me.

Like a tenant who had fallen behind on rent.

"I don't want the apartment," I said.

"Take it, Elena. Don't be difficult."

"I'm not being difficult," I whispered, the fight draining out of me. "I'm being done."

I walked past him to the trash bags.

I didn't take the designer gowns.

I didn't take the emeralds.

I grabbed the bag heavy with my books and the one holding the quilt.

"Where are you going?" he asked, his voice sharpening.

"Out."

"You don't have anywhere to go."

"I'll figure it out."

I dragged the bags to the elevator.

He didn't stop me.

He watched me with a mix of annoyance and something else-maybe confusion.

He wasn't used to his property walking away on its own two legs.

I checked into a motel near the university that charged by the hour.

The room smelled of stale smoke and desperation, but for tonight, it was mine.

The next morning, I went to the Dean's office to finalize my transfer paperwork.

"Are you sure, Ms. Rossi?" the Dean asked, peering over his spectacles. "We were prepared to offer you a tenure-track position here. Caltech doesn't like losing its brightest."

"I'm sure," I said, signing the final line. "I need... a change of scenery."

As I walked out, clutching my file, I collided with a chest as unyielding as a brick wall.

"Whoa, steady there," a deep voice rumbled.

I looked up.

Julian Cavalli.

The golden boy of the surgery department.

Top of the class, son of a Senator, and the only man in this city who had ever looked at me without undressing me with his eyes.

"Elena?" He frowned, leaning down to inspect my red-rimmed eyes. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Julian. Just... allergies."

He didn't buy it.

He shifted his gym bag, his gaze intense but kind. "If you need anything... coffee, a scalpel to stab someone with... I'm around."

I managed a weak, fractured smile. "I might take you up on the scalpel."

"I'm serious," he said, his voice dropping to a murmur. "I saw the news about the Vitiello engagement. I know you... knew him."

He was being polite.

Everyone knew I was the *Comare*. The mistress.

"I didn't know him," I said softly. "I just owed him."

My phone rang.

The screen flashed *Owner*.

I hadn't changed the contact name yet.

I ignored it.

It rang again.

And again.

Finally, I answered, my grip on the phone white-knuckled. "What?"

"Come get me," Dante's voice slurred.

He was drunk.

He never got drunk.

"Call your driver."

"I fired him. Come get me. The Penthouse."

"I don't live there anymore, remember?"

"Elena," he growled, the sound vibrating with a terrifying mix of menace and need. "Come. Now."

I hung up.

I looked at Julian, who was watching me with concern.

"Do you need a ride?" Julian asked.

"No," I said, a bitter taste flooding my mouth. "I have one last debt to pay."

I took a cab to the penthouse.

The door was unlocked.

Dante was sitting on the floor amidst the construction debris, a half-empty bottle of scotch loosely gripped in his hand.

He looked wrecked.

His tie was gone, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his torso.

When he saw me, he tried to stand but stumbled.

I caught him.

He was heavy, a dead weight of muscle and sinew.

I dragged him to the only piece of furniture left-the leather sofa in the den.

"Sofia," he muttered, his eyes squeezed shut against the light.

"She's not ready."

I froze.

My hands hovered over his chest, midway through unbuttoning his shirt so he wouldn't suffocate.

"What?"

He opened his eyes.

They were glassy, unfocused.

He looked directly at me, but he saw her.

"She said she's not ready," he whispered, a cruel, drunken smirk twisting his lips. "So I have to wait. I have to... practice."

He reached up and grabbed the back of my neck, pulling me down.

It wasn't a kiss.

It was a collision.

He kissed me with a hunger that was terrifying, desperate, and completely devoid of affection.

"Practice," he murmured against my lips.

I shoved him off.

I scrambled back, my chest heaving, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

I wasn't a person to him.

I was a training dummy.

I was the warm body he used to perfect his technique for the woman he actually respected.

I stood up, trembling.

"Practice is over, Dante," I said to the unconscious man.

I walked to the window and looked out at the city lights.

They blurred through my tears into streaks of gold and red.

I sat there all night, watching over him one last time.

Not because I loved him.

But because I needed to watch the sun rise on a world where I no longer belonged to him.