Chapter 6

Elara POV:

I remember a time, years ago, when Caterina Moretti told Dante I was a liability, a low-born distraction. He had turned to his mother, his voice quiet but laced with a terrifying stillness. "She is mine. And if you ever speak to her that way again, I will forget you are my mother." He had defied the Matriarch for me. It was a promise etched in the defiance of a son against his queen. A promise I thought unbreakable.

Now, as Dante tried to stammer out an explanation for his behavior at the restaurant, Isabella let out a soft cry and crumpled to the floor.

His reaction was instantaneous. He didn't spare me a single glance-me, dripping and shivering from the river-as he scooped Isabella into his arms. His face, once my sanctuary, was now a mask of glacial indifference.

He walked right past me.

"Wait here," he commanded, his voice devoid of any warmth.

Just before her eyes fluttered shut, I saw it. A faint, triumphant smirk curled Isabella's lips.

I woke up to the smell of disinfectant and the steady beep of a heart monitor. An IV was taped to the back of my hand.

Dante was sitting in a chair by the window, his expression grim. He didn't ask if I was okay. He didn't mention the river, or my father's medallion.

"Your mental state is unstable," he said, his voice flat and clinical. "I'm sending you back to the clinic in Switzerland. It's for the best."

The words hollowed me out, a phantom fist to the gut. He was twisting the trauma he had inflicted into a weapon, branding me as unstable.

"Are you ever going to divorce her?" I asked, my voice a raw whisper.

He looked away, staring out the window at the city lights. "There are... complications."

I pulled the simple silver ring from my finger. The one he'd given me years ago, a promise of a future that had been stolen. With a flick of my wrist, I threw it. It sailed through the open window and disappeared into the night.

His jaw tightened. He looked like he was about to say something, but a nurse appeared in the doorway, her presence a sharp intrusion.

"Mr. Moretti, your wife has a headache. She's asking for you."

He stood up immediately. "Call if you need anything," he said to me over his shoulder, already walking out the door to tend to her.

He never came back. Not for the next three days. He sent his men, of course. They brought food in sterile containers and bottles of nutritional supplements, leaving them on the table like offerings to a ghost. I was a problem to be managed, not a person to be cared for.

On the day of my discharge, my phone buzzed. It was a message from a friend from art school.

Is this you? What is going on?

It was a link. I clicked it.

My breath hitched. It was my art. My portfolio. The pieces I had poured my soul into for my application to the Parisian academy. They were splashed across a popular art blog, showcased in a digital gallery.

But the name under the collection wasn't mine.

It was Isabella Rossi Moretti.

The accompanying article accused an unnamed student-me-of blatant plagiarism, of trying to steal the work of the Don's talented wife.

My blood ran cold. Only one person in the world had access to that portfolio. Only one person could have given it to her.

Dante.

I fled the hospital, my hand trembling as I hailed a cab. I had to see him. I had to hear him deny it.

The cab dropped me in front of the towering Moretti Corporation building. As I stumbled from the cab toward the entrance, my gaze was snagged by the massive news ticker scrolling across the building's facade.

MORETTI CORPORATION RELEASES STATEMENT CONFIRMING ISABELLA MORETTI AS THE ARTIST BEHIND THE 'ECHOES OF WINTER' COLLECTION, CONDEMNS PLAGIARISM ATTEMPT.