Chapter 3

Sofia didn't throw the tea at me.

She was too smart for that.

Instead, she hurled the cup at the floor directly between us. The porcelain struck the marble with a sharp report, like a bone snapping, and flew apart into jagged splinters.

Then, in a fluid motion, she threw herself onto the ground, landing on her hands and knees amidst the wreckage.

"Ah!" she screamed.

She gripped her own hand, squeezing a microscopic cut on her palm until she forced a single, dramatic drop of blood to the surface.

The heavy oak doors of the conference room burst open.

Dante Cavallaro stepped out.

A giant of a man, he wore a bespoke black suit that likely cost more than most families earned in a decade.

His dark hair was slicked back, severe and sharp, revealing a face hewn from granite.

His pupils were black, like chips of obsidian that absorbed all light and reflected nothing.

He took in the scene in a heartbeat. The broken cup. Me, seated on the sofa, a study in stillness. And Sofia, arranged in a tableau of manufactured distress upon the floor.

"Dante!" she wailed.

Dante did not so much as spare me a glance.

He crossed the room in two long strides, rushing to Sofia. This man, who they called the Reaper, now moved with extraordinary tenderness.

"Let me see," he murmured.

He took her hand. It was a scratch. A papercut. But he treated it like a bullet wound.

"Who did this?" he growled.

He looked at Enzo.

Enzo opened his mouth, his face draining of color.

"I did it," I said coldly.

Dante turned his head slowly to look at me. He did not erupt. Instead, he fixed me with the cool, appraising gaze one might grant a piece of filth stuck to the sole of a shoe.

There was no fire in it, only a heavy, suffocating disgust.

"You threw a cup at her?" he asked. His voice was so low it was nearly a vibration in the air.

"Sure," I said.

Why defend myself? I didn't care.

Sofia buried her face in Dante's chest. "She called me a whore, Dante! She said I was trash!"

Dante stood up, pulling Sofia with him.

He wrapped an arm around her waist, protective and possessive.

"Don't cry, baby." He kissed away her tears.

I thought, maybe she really was different to Dante. Three months and he hadn't replaced her-his longest-kept mistress.

I lowered my eyes, not watching their intimacy.

"I came here for my allowance, Dante," I said.

He laughed.

"Of course," he said. "Greed. You smell money like a shark smells blood."

Gold digger. That's what he meant to say.

"I need fifty thousand," I said.

Fifty thousand dollars. That would buy enough morphine to carry me to the end, to let me drift gently into nothingness.

Dante smirked.

"Fifty thousand?" he repeated. "For what? A new coat to hide those bones?"

"Expenses," I said.

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a checkbook. He scribbled something on a check. Then he ripped it out.

But he didn't hand it to me. He held it out to Sofia instead.

"Here, cara," he said to her. "Go buy yourself something nice to make up for this distress."

It was a check for two hundred thousand dollars.

Sofia took the money, her tears instantly drying. She looked at me and smirked.

Dante turned back to me.

"You want money, Elena?" he asked.

"Yes," I whispered.

"Then apologize to her," he said, pointing at his mistress. "Lower your high-born head and say you're sorry. Then maybe I'll give you enough for a cab ride home."

I looked at him.

I looked at the man I had saved.

The man for whom I had destroyed my own soul to protect.

He was selling my dignity for cash. And he was enjoying it.

A current of pain, sharp and electric, shot through my body. I didn't have time for pride. But I still had limits.

I looked Dante in the eye.

"Then so be it, Dante," I said.

I didn't apologize. I turned around.

"Wait!" he barked.

I didn't stop.

I could feel his gaze upon my back, a palpable, burning weight between my shoulder blades.

I was suddenly curious.

If someday Dante found out that this money could have let me live longer, suffer less pain-

What would he feel then?