The relentless bass in the VIP section hammered against my bruised ribs, mocking the rhythm of my own pulse.

It was a so-called "Celebration" party.

Sofia had convinced Luca that a festivity was in order-specifically, to mark her "recovery" from the trauma of... witnessing me fall down the stairs.

The irony was thick enough to choke on.

I remained wedged in the corner of the plush leather booth, nursing a glass of ice water that I prayed passed for vodka.

Luca sat in the center, holding court.

His soldiers surrounded him, laughing too loudly at his jokes, lighting his cigars with trembling deference.

Sofia perched on his lap, whispering in his ear, draping herself over him to mark her territory for everyone to see.

"Let's play a game!" Sofia announced, clapping her hands sharply. "Truth or Dare!"

The soldiers cheered. They were already deep in their cups.

"I'll start," Sofia said, her eyes gleaming with a toxic sweetness. "Elena."

The room went instantly quiet.

"Truth or Dare?"

"Truth," I said. I wasn't going to dance for her.

"Boring," she sighed, feigning disappointment. "Okay. Truth."

She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that carried clearly over the music.

"Everyone knows you chased Luca for years. You bought your way into this marriage. But tell us..."

She paused for dramatic effect, letting the question hang.

"Is the man you truly love in this room right now?"

Luca stopped drinking.

He set his glass down with a deliberate clink.

He looked at me.

His arrogance filled the booth. He expected me to say yes. He expected me to confess an undying, pathetic devotion to him in front of his men, validating his cruelty.

He wanted to see me bleed.

I looked around the room.

I saw the soldiers. I saw the sycophants. I saw the monster on the throne.

My mind drifted to the wind-swept cemetery on the hill.

To the worn photo hidden deep in my purse.

I met Luca's gaze.

"No."

The word hung in the air, heavier than the cigar smoke.

One syllable.

Absolute devastation.

The silence was deafening.

A soldier coughed awkwardly, shifting in his seat.

Luca's face didn't change, but his eyes... his eyes turned into shards of ice.

"You're drunk," he said, his voice low and laced with menace.

"I'm drinking water, Luca," I replied, calmly lifting my glass.

"Then you're lying."

"It's Truth or Dare. I chose Truth."

Sofia laughed, but it sounded brittle. "Oh, honey, don't be embarrassed. We all know you worship him."

"Next person," Luca barked, grabbing a bottle of whiskey and pouring a glass that was half full.

He downed it in one swallow.

The game continued, but the air had shifted.

Luca was angry. Not the explosive anger of the stairs, but a brooding, dark storm brewing beneath the surface.

He started losing on purpose.

"Dare," he growled when it was his turn.

"Show us your gallery!" a brave soldier shouted, trying to break the tension. "Last photo taken!"

It was a standard penalty.

Luca threw his phone on the table. "Unlock it."

Sofia grabbed it, beaming. "It's probably a picture of me."

She unlocked it and projected it onto the screen on the wall.

It was a shrine to Sofia.

Sofia sleeping. Sofia eating. Sofia trying on shoes.

The men cheered, relieved. "The Don is in love!"

Sofia preened, kissing Luca's cheek. "See? He's obsessed with me."

Luca didn't smile.

He was staring at me.

He was trying to find a crack in my mask. He wanted to see jealousy. He wanted to see pain.

He saw nothing.

I regarded the slideshow of his mistress with the detached disinterest one might reserve for peeling paint.

"It's getting late," I said, checking Dante's watch on my wrist. "I'm going home."

"Sit down," Luca ordered.

"No."

I stood up.

"I said sit down, Elena!" He slammed his hand on the table, making the glasses jump.

"And I said no."

I grabbed my purse.

"Enjoy your night, Luca. You two deserve each other."

I walked out of the VIP room.

I felt his eyes burning a hole in my back.

Let him burn.

I had a flight to catch in three days.

And when I left, I was taking the only part of him that had ever mattered-the part that belonged to Dante-with me.

Elena POV

The scent of bitter herbs hung heavy in the air of the master bedroom, an acrid, botanical fog that refused to lift.

It was a pungent, earthy smell that clung to the heavy velvet curtains and seeped into my hair, a stark contrast to the sterile, expensive fragrance of white lilies that usually permeated the rest of the estate.

I was drinking the last dregs of the fertility tonic my grandmother used to swear by, a dark viscous sludge meant to protect the life I was trying to cultivate inside me.

The door clicked open.

I didn't flinch. I just set the cup down on the nightstand with a deliberate calmness.

Luca stood in the doorway.

He shouldn't be here. It was Friday. Fridays were for the club, for business, for Sofia.

"You smell like an apothecary," he said, walking into the room.

He looked worn down. The top button of his shirt was undone, his tie hanging loose like a noose around his neck.

"It's for my health," I said, wiping a stray drop from my mouth.

He walked over to the bed, looming over me. He studied my face, searching for something-a crack, a flinch, a sign of weakness.

"Sofia asked me to stay with her tonight," he said.

"And yet, here you are."

"I told her no."

He said it like he expected a round of applause. Like he had conquered a nation just by sleeping in his own bed instead of a mistress's sheets.

"Okay," I said.

He frowned. My lack of reaction bothered him; it always did. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, heavy object wrapped in velvet.

He tossed it onto the duvet.

"I found this in the storage unit at the old house. I was going to throw it out, but I remembered you like this junk."

I reached for it.

My fingers trembled violently as I unwrapped the fabric.

It was a small, abstract sculpture of a bird taking flight, carved from dark walnut wood.

The wing was chipped.

I ran my thumb over the curve of the wood. I knew every groove. I knew the exact moment the chisel had slipped and scarred the base.

Dante made this.

He had carved it during our second year of university, sitting on the grass while I read poetry to him.

"It's ugly," Luca said, watching me closely. "But you have weird taste."

"Thank you," I whispered.

I clutched it to my chest, pressing the hard edges against my heart.

Luca's expression softened, just a fraction. A dangerous, arrogant softness.

"You're easy to please tonight," he said. "Is that all it takes? A piece of wood?"

He sat on the edge of the bed.

"I see the way you look at me, Elena. You play cold, but you keep my things. You drink that sludge to make yourself strong for me."

He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering on my neck.

"You're obsessed."

I didn't correct him. I couldn't.

I just held the bird tighter, letting the wood dig into my skin until it hurt.

"Go to sleep, Luca," I said.

He smirked, satisfied with his conquest, and went to the bathroom.

Hours later, the house was silent.

I slipped out of bed.

I went downstairs to the kitchen, the marble floor cold against my bare feet.

I pulled a small cake out of the back of the fridge. It was a simple vanilla sponge with white frosting.

I stuck two candles in the top. Two and six.

Twenty-six.

Dante would have been twenty-six today.

I didn't light them. I just sat in the dark, staring at the wax numbers, letting the grief wash over me like a cold, suffocating tide.

"What are you doing?"

The light flicked on, blindingly bright.

I jumped, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Luca was standing by the fridge, holding a bottle of water. He was shirtless, his chest defined and scarred.

He looked at the cake. He looked at the candles.

He looked at the date on the calendar on the wall.

"It's my birthday," he said slowly.

Technically, yes. They were twins.

"I thought you forgot," he said, walking closer. His voice was thick with sleep and surprise. "Sofia didn't even remember. She just wanted a diamond bracelet."

He looked at the pathetic little cake sitting on the granite island.

"You sat up alone to celebrate me?"

He picked up my phone, which was lying face up on the counter.

I tried to grab it, but he was faster.

He swiped the screen. The gallery was open.

Hundreds of photos.

Photos of a man laughing. Photos of a man sleeping. Photos of a man carving wood.

"Jesus, Elena," he muttered, scrolling. "You have thousands of pictures of me."

They were all Dante. Every single one.

But to him, looking into the mirror of his own face, he only saw himself. He didn't see the gentleness in the eyes, the softness of the smile that he had never once worn.

"I..." I couldn't speak.

"You're terrifying," he said, but there was no bite in it. His ego was preening. He was basking in the glow of a devotion that wasn't his.

He put the phone down and leaned over the counter.

"Light them."

"What?"

"The candles. Light them. Sing."

My hands shook as I struck the match.

The flame flared, illuminating his face.

For a second, in the flickering orange light, the hardness in his eyes seemed to soften. For a second, he looked like Dante.

I opened my mouth.

"Happy birthday to you," I sang softly.

I looked right at him, but I wasn't seeing him. I was seeing the ghost standing behind him.

"Happy birthday, dear..."

I couldn't say the name. The name died in my throat.

"Happy birthday to you."

Luca blew out the candles. Smoke curled into the air between us.

"Make a wish," he commanded.

I already had.

I wished for him to rot, and for me to be free.

"I wish for the future," I said.

Luca smiled. He cut a slice of cake and ate it with his fingers.

"The future," he agreed. "With me."

He had no idea he was consuming a dead man's offering.

Elena POV

The auction house felt less like a gallery and more like a cathedral of greed.

Crystal chandeliers cascaded from the vaulted ceiling, casting fractured light over a crowd that smelled of old money and quiet desperation.

I sat in the back row, my hands clenched tightly in my lap.

I hadn't come for the Renaissance oils. I hadn't come for the diamond chokers.

I was here for one thing only: Lot 42.

A crystal ball.

Not a mystical trinket found in a fortune teller's tent. It was a solid sphere of pure, flawless quartz.

Dante had commissioned it for me. He had claimed it represented clarity.

"The only thing in this world clear enough to match your mind," he had told me.

It had been looted from his apartment in the chaotic vacuum left by his death.

Now, it sat on a velvet pillow on the stage, mocking me.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Lot 42."

My heart squeezed painfully against my ribs.

"Starting bid at fifty thousand."

I raised my paddle. "One hundred thousand."

Heads turned. It was an aggressive jump.

"One hundred and fifty!"

The voice came from the front row.

I froze.

Luca sat there, looking like a king in a bespoke suit, radiating a dark gravitational pull. Next to him, Sofia was whispering in his ear, pointing at the stage.

She didn't want the crystal ball. She likely didn't even know what it was.

She just saw me bid on it.

"Two hundred thousand," I said, my voice betraying none of the tremors in my hands.

Sofia tugged on Luca's sleeve. He raised his paddle without looking back.

"Three hundred."

"Four hundred," I countered.

"Five hundred."

It was a game to them. A cruel, blood sport.

I mentally tallied my bank account on my phone. I had liquidated my personal assets, but I needed cash for the escape. I had a hard ceiling.

"One million," I said.

The collective gasp sucked the air out of the room.

Sofia turned around in her seat. Her eyes met mine, glittering with malice. She said something to Luca.

Luca turned. His eyes were voids-cold and empty.

He didn't see a grieving widow. He saw an opponent to be crushed.

He raised his hand.

"Two million."

The floor dropped out from under me. That was my limit. If I went higher, I couldn't pay the pilot. I couldn't pay for the safe house.

I stared at him, begging silently. Please. It's all I have left of him.

He saw the desperation.

And he mistook it for weakness.

"Three million," Luca drawled. "And the lady in red wants it wrapped immediately."

The gavel banged down.

"Sold to Mr. Falcone for three million dollars."

To my ears, the sound of the gavel was like a bone snapping.

I sat there as the room erupted in polite applause.

I watched the staff package the crystal ball. I watched them hand the velvet box to Luca.

I watched Luca hand it to Sofia.

She held it up to the light, laughing. She tapped her long, acrylic nails against the flawless surface.

It wasn't just a purchase.

It was an erasure.

He had taken the symbol of his brother's love and gifted it to the woman who was helping him dismantle his brother's legacy.

I stood up. My legs felt like lead.

I walked out of the auction hall, the applause ringing in my ears like a funeral dirge.