Alessia POV:

I woke to the smell of antiseptic and the sharp, rhythmic beep of a machine.

My shoulder ached with a dull, throbbing pain, a physical reminder that the nightmare had been real.

The wedding music was gone.

In its place was the cold, sterile silence of a hospital room, broken only by that relentless beeping.

That sound. It was the new rhythm of my life, the only thing left.

Dante's cold face. My father's body on the pristine white runner.

I squeezed my eyes shut, a fresh wave of nausea rolling through me.

I expected to see him.

Hoped, in some broken, stupid part of my heart, that he would be here.

That he would explain.

That he would hold me.

The door opened, but it wasn't Dante.

A woman stood in the doorway, her posture ramrod straight, her dress a sharp, impeccable black that seemed to absorb all the light in the room.

Her heels clicked softly on the linoleum as she approached my bed.

"Alessia Gallo," she said. It wasn't a question.

"I am Isabella Moretti."

Her eyes, the color of dark, polished wood, scanned me from head to toe, lingering for a moment on the bandage covering my shoulder. There was no pity in her gaze. Only assessment.

"I have some questions for you," she began, her voice as crisp and starched as her collar. "About your father's operations. Specifically, any hidden ledgers or accounts. Anything related to a product codenamed 'Crimson Thorn'."

My head was spinning. I couldn't process her words.

All I could think of was him.

"Is he... is Dante okay?" I whispered, my voice hoarse.

A smile pulled at her lips, but it was a cold, cutting motion that didn't reach her eyes.

"The Don is fine," she said, and the title landed like a deliberate sting, a reminder of the chasm that had just opened between us.

"He is... occupied. With his duties."

She let the words hang in the air, a silent, cruel implication.

Dante had moved on.

Our engagement, our love-it was all just a means to an end. An operation that was now complete.

He had other commitments.

A new alliance.

A new future.

The question clawed its way out of my throat, raw and desperate. "Is there someone else?"

Isabella Moretti didn't have to answer.

Her triumphant gaze, the slight, satisfied tilt of her head, said it all.

Alessia POV:

"Please," I begged, the word tearing from my raw throat. "I need to see him."

Isabella-Bella-didn't even look at me. She was examining her perfectly manicured nails, as if my entire world collapsing was a minor inconvenience.

"The Don is managing a significant transition of power," she said, her voice bored. "He can't be bothered with loose ends."

Loose ends. That's what I was. The final, messy piece of a successful mission.

Silent tears cut clean tracks through the grime on my cheeks. The finality of it crashed down on me, a physical weight that made it hard to breathe.

He never loved me. Not for a second.

I remembered the texts I'd sent him that morning, just hours before the wedding.

I can't wait to be your wife.

You're my forever, Dante.

I love you more than anything.

He never answered. I'd told myself he was busy. The truth was so much worse. He was preparing to destroy me.

My bag was on the chair in the corner. My phone was inside. They hadn't taken it. An oversight. A sign of how little I mattered.

My fingers trembled as I found his number. The one I knew by heart.

It rang twice.

He answered. His voice was clipped, impatient. "Yes?"

"Dante," I breathed, a sob catching in my throat.

Silence. Then, his voice dropped, each word a shard of ice. "This number is for Family business only. Don't call it again."

He hung up.

The dial tone buzzed in my ear, a sound more violent than any gunshot.

I tried again, my thumb hitting redial with frantic desperation.

A recorded voice answered. The number you have dialed has been disconnected.

The phone slipped from my numb fingers, clattering against the cold tile floor. The sound echoed in the sudden, crushing silence of the room.

The pain that ripped through me was worse than the bullet wound. It was a hemorrhage of the soul.

He hadn't just left me. He had erased me.

The days that followed blurred into a haze of sterile solitude and Bella's relentless questions. I was a prisoner, not a patient.

To them, I was the Scorpion's daughter. Tainted. An outcast.

But a stubborn, foolish part of me refused to believe it all. Refused to believe the loving father who taught me to ride a bike and read me bedtime stories was the monster they claimed he was.

They were lying about him. Just like Dante had lied about everything.

They had to be.

Alessia POV:

A silent De Luca Soldier escorted me from the hospital.

Not to freedom, but to another cage.

This one was a cold, minimalist office in a high-rise that screamed of new money and old power.

Dante was there.

He stood with his back to me, facing a wall covered in black-and-white photographs. A memorial: the faces of De Luca members killed by the Gallos over decades of war.

His shoulders were slumped, and even from across the room, I could see the exhaustion etched into his posture. He looked like a man carrying the weight of all their ghosts.

He didn't turn when I entered.

"We found one of your father's safe deposit boxes," he said to the wall of the dead. "Your name is on it."

He turned then, and my breath hitched.

But the exhaustion I'd seen in his posture didn't reach his eyes. They were simply hollow-cold and professional.

He slid a document across the vast, polished expanse of the desk.

"The contents are substantial and illicit," he said, his voice so flat he could have been reading a quarterly earnings report. "I'd advise you to get a lawyer."

He was speaking to a stranger.

My hands trembled. I couldn't bring myself to touch the paper. All I could do was look at him, the man who had held me and whispered promises in the dark.

"Dante, please," I begged, my voice cracking. "Look at me. Was there ever a single moment of truth between us?"

He finally met my gaze, and the hollowness in his eyes was so vast I felt like I could fall into it and never be found.

"It was my job."

He turned to leave, his duty done.

A memory flashed, sharp and painful.

The first time I saw him at my father's charity gala. I'd chased him for months after that, a lovesick puppy.

I remembered faking a fall on a marble staircase just so he would have to catch me. And he had, his arms closing around me, strong and steady.

I remembered the night I finally confessed my feelings, my heart pounding in my chest.

He hadn't returned the kiss. Not on the lips, anyway. Instead, he'd pressed his lips to my forehead, his voice a dark, velvet warning.

"You'll regret this, Alessia."

I had laughed then, delirious with what I thought was victory.

Here, in this cold De Luca office, surrounded by the ghosts of his family, I whispered the words to myself.

"I regret it."