The so-called investigation was a farce, a theater of cruelty designed to appease, not to uncover the truth.

Two days later, Dante's Capo hauled a sobbing maid into the courtyard.

They claimed she had stolen the cello to pawn it, only to damage the instrument in a panic when confronted.

It was a lie. I knew it, and they knew it.

Dante didn't blink as he ordered her hands crushed with a hammer.

I watched from the balcony, nausea roiling in my stomach, acid climbing my throat.

I knew the maid was innocent.

I knew with absolute certainty that Sofia had either paid her off or threatened her family into silence.

But Dante didn't care about the truth. He cared about order. He cared about the sanctity of Sofia's reputation.

"Are you satisfied?" Dante asked, his voice materializing directly behind me.

I didn't turn around. I couldn't bear to look at him.

"You punished the wrong person," I said, my voice trembling with suppressed rage.

"The matter is settled," he stated cold and final. "Tonight is the Gala aboard the Lady Anastasia. You will wear the red dress I selected. And you will apologize to Sofia for striking her."

I turned slowly, meeting his gaze.

"I will not."

"You will," Dante countered.

He stepped close, looming over me, sucking the air out of the space between us.

"Because if you don't, I will deploy Mia to the front lines of the territory dispute in the South Side."

He knew exactly where to strike. He knew my sister was my only weakness.

"You are a monster," I whispered.

"I am a husband who expects obedience."

The Gala was a display of grotesque excess.

Champagne flowed like water, diamonds sparked under the chandeliers, and men discussed murder with polite smiles plastered on their faces.

I wore the red dress.

It clung to my skin, heavy and suffocating. It felt like I was wearing blood.

I found Sofia near the railing on the upper deck, holding court amidst a circle of admirers.

Dante stood nearby, watching her like a hawk guarding its prey.

I approached them, my stomach twisting into a knot.

"Sofia," I said.

The circle parted.

Sofia looked at me, her eyes gleaming with triumph.

"Gianna," she smiled, a predator baring its teeth. "Dante said you had something to say."

"I apologize," I said, the words tasting like ash and bile. "For my behavior."

"It's okay," Sofia said sweetly.

She reached out to hug me, a performance for the audience.

As she leaned in, her lips brushed my ear.

"He will never love you," she whispered, her voice a venomous hiss. "You are just the bank account he uses to buy me pretty things."

She pulled back abruptly and stumbled.

It was theatrical, a poorly acted swoon.

She threw her weight backward, tipping over the low railing.

"Gianna!" she screamed.

But as she fell, her fingers locked onto my arm.

I lost my balance. The world tilted violently.

We both went over the side.

The water was freezing. It hit me like a concrete wall, knocking the breath from my lungs.

The dark waves swallowed me whole.

I kicked, fighting the heavy, waterlogged fabric of my gown.

The cold paralyzed my limbs, turning my blood to ice.

I broke the surface, gasping for air.

"Dante!" I screamed.

I saw him.

He had dived in from the deck above, a dark shape cutting through the night.

He was swimming.

He was strong, slicing through the water with terrifying speed.

He was coming toward us.

I reached out my hand, desperation clawing at my throat.

He looked at me.

For a split second, our eyes locked.

He saw me. He saw my terror.

Then he swam past me.

He swam to Sofia.

He grabbed her, pulling her head above water, holding her close against his chest to shield her from the waves.

He didn't look back.

I stopped kicking.

The cold seeped into my bones, but the realization was colder.

He chose.

In the moment between life and death, he chose.

I let the water pull me down.

I didn't want to fight anymore.

A rough hand grabbed the back of my dress.

A crew member. One of the boat's security staff hauled me onto a rescue skiff like a sack of wet laundry.

I lay on the bottom of the boat, shivering violently, vomiting salt water onto the floorboards.

I watched Dante climb onto the ladder of the yacht, holding Sofia in his arms like she was the most precious thing in the world.

He was checking her pulse. He was kissing her forehead.

He hadn't even asked if I was out of the water.

I sat up, wiping the brine from my lips.

"Give me a phone," I rasped to the security guard.

He hesitated, then handed me a satellite phone.

My fingers were numb, clumsy, but I dialed the number I knew by heart.

"Luca," I said when my brother answered.

"Gianna?" His voice was sharp, instantly alert. "Why are you calling on an insecure line?"

"I'm done," I said. My voice was flat. Dead.

"The alliance is over."

"What did he do?" Luca's voice dropped an octave, shifting into the lethal tone of the Capo dei Capi.

"He let me drown," I said, staring at the yacht.

"I want to come home, Luca. Take me back to the Hamptons."

"I'm sending the jet," Luca said, the promise of violence lingering in his silence. "Pack your bags."

"I have nothing to pack," I said, watching my husband fawn over his mistress.

"I have nothing left here."

I didn't wait for the jet. I couldn't.

Instead, I hailed a cab, demanding the driver take me back to the estate. I had to get my papers, but more importantly, I had to get to the only thing that mattered-Mia.

I was shivering violently, my dress still sodden and plastering to my skin like a second, freezing layer.

I burst into the main hall.

It was silent. The kind of heavy, suffocating silence that precedes a funeral.

"Mia!" I screamed, my voice echoing off the marble.

No answer.

I sprinted to her quarters. Empty. The bed was unmade, sheets torn. A lamp lay shattered on the floor-signs of a struggle.

Fear, primal and terrifying, clawed its way up my throat.

I ran. Down the hall, past the kitchen, to the heavy door that led to the basement. To the cells.

The steel door was ajar.

I shoved it open.

The smell hit me first. The metallic tang of copper mixed with the stinging scent of bleach.

Dante stood in the center of the room. He had discarded his jacket. His crisp white shirt was rolled up to the elbows, revealing forearms tense with muscle.

In his hand, he held a whip. A thick, braided leather lash that looked heavy with cruelty.

And chained to the wall, her head hanging low, was Mia.

She was unconscious. Her face was swollen, unrecognizable. A thin stream of blood trickled from her split lip.

"No," I gasped, the air leaving my lungs. I fell to my knees, the stone floor biting into my skin. "No!"

Dante turned slowly to look at me. His face was a mask of cold, unyielding stone.

"You called Luca," he stated.

It wasn't a question. It was a sentence.

"You called the Don of New York and told him the alliance was over."

"You let me drown!" I screamed, scrambling to my feet, adrenaline overriding my terror. "You chose her!"

"Sofia cannot swim," Dante said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "You can. It was a tactical decision."

"Tactical?" I laughed-a hysterical, broken sound that scraped my throat. "It was a choice, Dante! You love her!"

"I protect what is mine," he countered coldly. "And you risked the safety of this family by calling your brother. You broke Omertà. You brought outside eyes into our internal affairs."

"I am leaving you!"

"You are not leaving," Dante said, stepping toward me. The air around him crackled with violence. "You are my wife. And you need to learn your place."

He gestured to the Enforcer standing in the shadows of the corner. "Chain her up."

The Enforcer hesitated, his eyes darting between me and his Boss. "Boss... she's a Vitiello."

"Do it!" Dante roared.

The sound slammed against the concrete walls like a physical blow.

Two men grabbed me. I fought. I kicked, I clawed, I screamed until my throat was raw. But they were too strong.

They dragged me to the wooden post in the center of the room. Rough hands shackled my wrists, chaining my hands high above my head.

The back of my dress was torn open. My skin was exposed to the damp, cold air.

"This is for the betrayal," Dante said. His footsteps echoed as he walked behind me.

"Dante, please," I begged. Not for my life. But for us. For the last, fraying thread of love I still held for him. "Don't do this. If you do this... there is no going back."

"Good," he said.

The first lash hit me.

It felt like a rod of molten iron searing through my flesh.

I screamed.

The pain was blinding. It stole my breath, shattered my reality, and turned the world white.

Crack.

The second lash.

I bit my lip so hard I tasted warm, metallic blood.

Crack.

I forced my eyes open, focusing on Mia's unconscious form through my tears.

Crack.

With every strike, something inside me fractured.

Not my bones.

But the girl who had sung in a cave all those years ago. The girl who had dreamed of a dark prince coming to save her. The girl who was foolish enough to believe in love.

She died.

She died right there, on the cold concrete floor of a Chicago dungeon.

Dante didn't stop. He was breathing hard, his rage fueling every strike.

"Boss, that's enough!" the Enforcer shouted, stepping forward. "She's passing out! You'll kill her!"

Dante froze.

The silence that followed was deafening.

My back was on fire. I couldn't feel my legs anymore.

I sagged against the chains, the metal biting into my wrists.

Dante walked around to face me. He looked at my tear-stained, pale face. He looked down at the blood pooling at my bare feet.

For a second, his eyes widened. As if he was waking up from a trance.

"Gianna," he whispered. He reached out a trembling hand.

I looked at him.

My vision was blurring, darkness creeping in at the edges like a vignette.

"Don't," I whispered. My voice was nothing more than a rasp. "Don't touch me."

"I had to," he said, his voice shaking for the first time. "You tried to destroy us."

"You destroyed us," I breathed.

I forced myself to look him in the eye.

"The girl in the cave," I whispered. "The one who saved you."

Dante went still.

"It wasn't Sofia," I said, the truth spilling out with my last ounce of strength. "It was me."

His face went pale. All the color drained from his skin, leaving him looking like a ghost.

"What?" he choked out.

"It was me," I repeated softly. "And you just killed her."

The darkness took me then.

And I welcomed it.

Gianna POV

Pain has a taste.

It tastes like copper and bile.

I woke because the burning across my back was louder than the oblivion I craved. It felt as though every inch of skin from my shoulders to my waist had been flayed open, leaving raw nerve endings exposed to the air.

I was lying on my stomach in my bed. Someone had moved me from the dungeon.

I tried to push myself up, but my arms trembled and gave way. I collapsed back into the silk sheets, gasping as the movement stretched the raw wounds on my back like tearing fabric.

"You're awake."

The voice was light. Airy. Like a child who had just found a new toy.

I turned my head.

Sofia was sitting at the vanity. My vanity. She was applying my lipstick, smacking her lips together to test the shade in the mirror.

"Get out," I croaked. My throat felt lined with glass shards.

"Dante said you needed rest," she said, spinning around on the stool. "But I told him I wanted to check on my sister."

"We are not sisters."

"We are now," she smiled. It was a cold, empty smile that didn't reach her eyes. "We share everything. His house. His name. His attention."

She stood up and walked toward the bed. She was holding something in her hand.

A bundle of wire.

No. Not wire.

Strings.

My steel cello strings.

My stomach lurched.

"You know," she said, twirling the metal coils around her fingers. "I always hated the sound of that thing. It was so... mournful. Like a dying cat."

She sat on the edge of the mattress. Her weight pulled the sheets tight against my flayed skin, sending a fresh wave of agony down my spine. I flinched.

"Dante is gone," she whispered. "He went to the Commission meeting. He won't be back for hours."

"What do you want?"

"I want to make sure you understand the hierarchy here."

She reached out and grabbed my left hand. The hand that pressed the strings. The hand that created the music.

"Dante broke your spirit downstairs," she said. "But you still have this arrogance about you. You still think you are better than me because you are a Vitiello."

"I am better than you," I spat. "Because I don't need to steal someone else's life to have one."

Sofia's face twisted.

She coiled the steel A-string around my index finger.

"You saved him in the cave," she said softly.

My heart stopped.

"You know?"

"Of course I know," she laughed, a hollow, tinkling sound. "I found his journal years ago. He wrote about the girl's voice. About the song. I just... adapted the story. I made it mine."

"He will find out."

"He won't. Because he believes what he wants to believe. And he wants to believe I am his destiny."

She pulled the string tight.

The steel bit into my flesh.

"Stop," I gasped.

"You use these fingers to play, don't you?" she asked.

She yanked.

I screamed.

The string sliced through the skin, grinding down to the bone. Blood sprayed onto the white duvet.

"Stop it!" I tried to pull my hand back, but she was strong. Fueled by a manic, jealous strength.

She wrapped the string around my middle finger.

"This is for slapping me," she hissed.

The wire sang.

Slice.

"And this is for trying to take him from me."

Slice.

I was sobbing now, the pain in my hand rivaling the fire on my back. My fingers were mangled, bleeding freely. The nerves were severed. I could feel the loss of sensation, the death of my music.

"Why?" I wept. "You have him. You have everything. Why take this?"

"Because you love it," she said simply. "And you aren't allowed to love anything but pain."

She dropped my bloody hand. She stood up and wiped her palms on her dress as if dusting off crumbs.

"Where is Mia?" I asked. I needed to know. "Is she alive?"

Sofia paused at the door. She looked back over her shoulder.

"Oh, the maid?" she giggled. "She was so noisy in the dungeon. Screaming your name. Begging for mercy."

Ice filled my veins.

"What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," Sofia said innocently. "But Dante's men... they have rules about rats. Rats shouldn't talk."

She tapped her lips.

"So they took her tongue."

The world tilted on its axis.

"And then they realized she was useless without it," she continued. "So they put a bullet in her head and dumped her in the landfill south of the city."

A sound tore out of me. It wasn't human. It was the sound of a wounded animal realizing it was cornered and dying.

Mia. My Mia.

She was dead. Mutilated and discarded like trash because of me.

"Sleep tight, Principessa," Sofia said.

She closed the door.

I lay in the pool of my own blood.

The tears stopped. The sobbing stopped.

Something inside my chest, the frantic, beating thing that had hoped for salvation, finally stopped moving.

It died.

And in its place, something cold and sharp began to grow.