Chapter 2

Elena Vitiello POV:

The rigid panic in Dante's shoulders dissolved instantly. He possessed a terrifying ability to control his facial expressions, and right now, he smoothed his features into a mask of pure, devoted exhaustion.

He reached out and tucked the edge of the thin hospital blanket around my shoulders. "Leo is safe," he said, his voice dripping with a gentle, soothing cadence. "He's at the Long Island estate. He's perfectly fine, Elena."

I forced my vocal cords to work again, ignoring the tearing sensation in my throat. "Why didn't... you bring him?"

Dante offered a sad, completely reasonable smile. "The hospital environment is full of infections. It's no place for a five-year-old boy. I wanted to make sure you were stable before I brought him into this sterile nightmare."

The excuse was flawless. It was so perfectly logical that it made the hairs on my arms stand up.

"Yes, exactly!" my mother chimed in from the doorway, her voice way too loud for the quiet room. "The boy needs to be protected, Elena. Dante is just being a good father."

Their frantic eagerness to back up his story made the atmosphere in the room thick and suffocating.

Suddenly, the burner phone inside Dante's suit jacket vibrated. He pulled it out, glancing at the screen. A flash of deep irritation crossed his dark eyes.

He leaned over and pressed his lips to my forehead. The kiss felt like a spider crawling across my skin. "I have to step out," he whispered. "An urgent weapons shipment at the port. I'll be back before you even miss me."

He turned on his heel and strode out of the room. My parents immediately took the cue.

"We shouldn't crowd you," my father said quickly, already backing into the hallway. "Rest, Elena." They practically fled the scene, looking relieved to escape.

The heavy door clicked shut. The room fell dead silent. I stared at the white ceiling tiles, forcing my erratic breathing to slow down. My brain shifted into overdrive. I closed my eyes and let my face go completely slack, faking a deep sleep. I just needed to wait.

Half an hour later, the door handle clicked. A nurse in pink scrubs pushed a medical cart into the room for a routine check.

I kept my breathing steady and shallow. I listened as the rubber wheels stopped near the foot of my bed. The nurse set a standard hospital iPad-used for electronic charting-onto the plastic tray at the end of the mattress.

She turned her back to me, reaching up to check the drip rate on my IV bag.

My eyes snapped open. I locked my gaze onto the silver edge of the iPad.

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper. Fighting the agonizing burning in my atrophied muscles, I began to slide my right hand down my thigh, inching toward the foot of the bed. Every centimeter felt like I was scaling a vertical cliff face with bare hands. Sweat broke out on my forehead.

My fingertips finally brushed the cold metal casing. I inhaled sharply through my nose and hooked my fingers over the edge, dragging the tablet under the thick blanket.

The nurse turned around, completely oblivious. She jotted something down on her clipboard and pushed the cart out of the room.

The moment the door locked, I pulled the blanket over my head and tapped the screen. The harsh light illuminated my makeshift tent.

The screen displayed a standard login portal requiring a staff ID and password. A weak, cold smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth. Before I was forced to become the ornamental Vitiello wife, I was known on the dark web as 'K'. This basic firewall was an insult.

I tapped the emergency dial pad at the bottom of the screen. My fingers were clumsy, but my muscle memory took over. I punched in a specific sixteen-digit engineering override code. The hospital interface vanished, dumping me straight into the tablet's root operating system.

I connected to the hospital's guest Wi-Fi, opened a secure browser, and typed in the URL for Chase Bank's highest-tier private banking portal.

I carefully typed in my Social Security Number and the complex sixteen-character password I had memorized six years ago.

The loading circle began to spin. My breathing hitched. This was a secret trust account I had set up before my wedding, hiding ten million dollars in liquid assets for Leo. Growing up, I watched my mother cower because she had no financial independence in the mafia. I swore I would never be that vulnerable.

The page froze. A harsh, bright red warning box popped up in the center of the screen.

My pupils dilated. I stared at the English text, my heart slamming against my ribs.

Heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway-the guards changing shifts right outside my door.

My hands shook violently as I hit the refresh button, praying to a God I didn't believe in that it was just a server error.

The page reloaded. The red text remained, glaring at me in the dark.

I bit down on my lower lip so hard the skin broke. The metallic taste of blood flooded my tongue, keeping me from screaming out loud.

"Error. The social security number associated with this user was registered as deceased five years ago. Account legally closed."