Chapter 3 3

Alessia POV

The floor rushed up to meet me. I braced for the crushing impact, my hands instinctively flying to my stomach to shield my unborn child.

But the impact never came.

A massive arm wrapped around my waist like a band of steel, jerking me backward with terrifying speed. I crashed into a wall of solid, burning muscle. Dante. His familiar scent-cedar, expensive tobacco, and pure, unadulterated violence-enveloped me.

He didn't just move; he erupted.

Before I could even catch my breath, Dante lunged. His large hand clamped around Bianca's throat. With a guttural snarl, he lifted her entirely off her feet and slammed her against the gray marble wall. The sickening thud echoed down the corridor.

Bianca's eyes bulged in sheer terror. She clawed frantically at his iron grip, her legs kicking at the empty air as her face rapidly turned a mottled purple. Dante's pitch-black eyes held no mercy, only the hellfire of a Don whose bloodline had just been threatened.

I steadied myself, smoothing down my dress. I looked at the pathetic creature dangling from my husband's hand, feeling nothing but absolute ice in my veins.

"Attacking the pregnant wife of a Don..." I said, my voice echoing in the deadly silence. "You just signed your own death warrant, sister."

Dante released his grip. Bianca collapsed to the carpet like a broken doll, gasping greedily for air. Realizing the sheer magnitude of her mistake, she crawled toward Dante, her tears ruining her makeup as she clutched at the hem of his tailored trousers.

"Dante, please! It was an accident! She insulted me first!" she babbled hysterically.

Dante stared down at her as if she were a disease. Seeing that her pathetic pleas were met with a lethal, unblinking glare, Bianca's eyes fluttered shut, and she slumped to the floor in a feigned faint. It was her classic, manipulative pity ploy.

Dante let out a dark, mocking sneer. Leo Falcone, having rushed down the hall, stood at attention.

"Take this trash to the basement cells," Dante ordered, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "I'll deal with her after I've made sure my wife is fine."

Leo didn't hesitate. He grabbed Bianca by the arms and dragged her limp body down the corridor like a sack of garbage. Dante turned to me. The murderous rage in his eyes was still simmering, but beneath it, I saw a raw, undeniable flash of concern.

He escorted me back to my bedroom in heavy silence. Once inside, I sat on the edge of the mattress and raised a trembling hand, stopping him from coming any closer. His jaw clenched, but he respected the boundary, turning on his heel to leave and handle the fallout of the attack.

The moment the heavy door clicked shut, the adrenaline crashed.

The silence of the penthouse deafened me. My breathing turned ragged as the near-death experience tore down the mental walls I had built. Memories I had suppressed-memories of my *past* life-clawed their way to the surface with violent clarity.

I remembered the freezing rain. The filthy alleyway where I had bled out, losing my baby after Dante had ruthlessly banished me. But now, the missing pieces of the puzzle finally snapped into place.

Dante hadn't banished me out of cruelty. He was losing his mind.

The slow-acting neurotoxin. I remembered the whispers that had shaken the New York underworld years later. Dante, completely consumed by the poison's madness, had attacked Salvatore, The Patriarch, during a high-stakes Commission meeting. Dante was executed on the spot like a rabid dog.

And the victors? His brother Lorenzo and my sister Bianca, hailed as the heroes who subdued the mad Don. I saw the phantom image of Isabella Moretti, Dante's adoptive mother, placing the Don's ring on her biological son Lorenzo's finger, while Bianca smiled triumphantly beside him.

They had built their throne on the corpses of my husband and my unborn child.

Dante was never the traitor. He was their first victim.

The bitter hatred I had harbored for him dissolved, replaced by a fierce, bleeding ache in my chest. He was fighting a war inside his own mind, poisoned by the woman he called mother.

I slowly stood up from the bed, wiping away a single, stray tear. The fear was gone, replaced by a cold, calculating fury. I couldn't just wait for the poison to take him. I had to dismantle their network, piece by piece, starting with the weakest link.