Chapter 3

Alessia POV:

Two days. I needed to survive for two days.

I found a job washing dishes at a greasy spoon diner a few miles from the estate. The hot water and harsh soap felt cleansing, a penance for a sin I never committed. The work was mindless, grueling. And in the quiet hum of the diner, for the first time in seven years, I felt a flicker of something that might have been freedom.

The emptiness allowed the memories to rush in. My father, giving Chiara a new sports car for her sixteenth birthday while I worked after school just to afford my own art supplies. My mother, buying her designer gowns for galas I was never invited to. The favoritism wasn't new, but distance gave it a grotesque clarity.

On the second night, just as my shift was ending, the bell above the diner door chimed.

Dante stood there, holding a small, white box. He looked achingly out of place amongst the cracked vinyl booths and sticky floors.

"Happy birthday, Alia," he said, his voice so low it was nearly lost to the sizzle of the grill. He placed the box on the counter. It was a coconut cake, my childhood favorite.

I stared at it, and another memory surfaced, sharp and bitter. The memory of selling my grandmother's priceless heirloom painting-a piece of my own dowry-to anonymously provide the seed money for Dante's first legitimate enterprise. It was the venture that solidified his power, that made him the Don he was today.

Chiara had taken the credit for that, too. She had presented him with the "investment" as a gift, positioning herself as his partner in his ascent. Another lie he had swallowed whole.

"I don't like coconut anymore," I said, my voice level and empty. I pushed the box back toward him.

His jaw tightened. Before he could speak, his phone rang, a shrill, demanding sound. He answered, and the blood seemed to drain from his face, leaving it a stark, pale mask.

"What do you mean she's on the roof?" he growled into the phone.

He looked at me, his eyes pleading for something I no longer had to give. "Alia, I-"

"Go," I said, turning back to the sink full of dirty dishes. "She needs you."

He hesitated, his gaze flicking between me and the door. Torn. Then, as always, he chose her. He rushed out of the diner, leaving the cake abandoned on the counter.

I knew Chiara wasn't going to jump. It was just a performance. Another calculated act in the long-running drama of her life, a maneuver designed to pull him back on his leash and remind him of her supposed fragility.

I picked up another plate and submerged it in the soapy water. The chaos of their world felt a million miles away. All that was left was a profound, hollow exhaustion.