Elena POV

"Thank you for keeping him alive," I said.

The words were heavy, sitting on my tongue like river stones.

Mia looked at me, her eyes wide and searching beneath the flicker of the dim porch light.

She tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

"You said you're family," she ventured softly. "But you didn't say how."

I gripped the wooden railing until a splinter dug into the soft flesh of my palm.

The sharp bite of pain was grounding.

It was the only thing keeping me from screaming the truth that was clawing its way up my throat.

I am his wife. I am the woman he promised to burn the world for.

But looking at the closed door behind us, where Dante slept without screaming for the first time in years, I knew I couldn't say it.

The truth would shatter the fragile glass of his mind.

The doctors had warned us about the fragility of his memory, the trauma that had rewritten his very existence.

If I forced him to remember the blood, the torture, the empire he ruled, it might kill the man he had become.

And I loved him too much to kill him twice.

"I am Elena," I said, my voice steady and detached. "I am a cousin. A distant relative of the Famiglia."

Mia let out a long, shaky breath.

Her shoulders slumped as the tension left her frame.

"Oh, thank God," she whispered. "I was worried... I thought maybe you were an ex-lover."

She laughed nervously, her hand drifting to rub her swollen belly.

"I know how that sounds. Insecure. But he doesn't remember anything before the river, and when I saw you... you look like someone who belongs in a magazine. I'm just a nurse from a one-stoplight town."

She looked down at her hands.

They were rough, chapped from years of scrubbing and work.

"I was afraid he belonged to someone else."

"He doesn't," I lied.

The falsehood coated my tongue like ash.

"He belongs to you now."

Mia looked up, hope warring with fear in her expression.

"But his parents... the family you mentioned. Will they accept me? I'm nobody, Elena. I don't have money or status."

I looked at her.

She was innocent.

She was soft.

She was everything Dante used to despise.

He had once called civilians sheep waiting to be slaughtered.

Now he had become the shepherd protecting one.

"He chose you," I said. "In our world, loyalty is currency. He is loyal to you."

"But will they like me?" she pressed.

I looked away, staring into the suffocating darkness of the cornfields.

"You saved the Heir," I said. "The Family will treat you like royalty."

I didn't tell her that royalty in our world usually ended up dead or widowed.

I didn't tell her that by entering the Moretti estate, she was stepping into a cage gilded in gold and drowned in blood.

Mia smiled, a genuine, radiant thing.

"Thank you, Elena. I'm glad you found us."

She reached out and squeezed my hand.

Her skin was warm, alive.

Mine felt like ice, dead.

"We should sleep," I said, gently pulling my hand away. "We have a long drive tomorrow."

She nodded and went back inside.

I stayed on the porch.

I listened to the chorus of crickets.

I listened to the slow, steady beat of my own failing heart.

I had just given my husband to another woman.

And the worst part was, I knew he would thank me for it.

Elena POV

The convoy arrived at dawn.

But it wasn't a carriage that came for us.

It was a fleet of black, armored SUVs that crouched on the dirt road like idling beasts.

All down the street, curtains twitched as neighbors peeked through their blinds, terrified.

Dante stood on the porch, his body coiled tight.

He was scanning the perimeter, his eyes tracking the movement of the soldiers Rocco had called in.

From the wary set of his jaw, I could tell he didn't know them.

He didn't realize they were his subordinates.

He only saw armed men near his pregnant woman.

"It's okay, Arthur," Mia said, her voice soft as she touched his arm. "They're here to take us home."

Dante didn't relax until she was safely inside the middle vehicle.

It was the most secure one.

Bulletproof glass.

Reinforced chassis.

It was the car designed for the Don and his Donna.

I stood by the open door, watching.

"Get in," Rocco said to me, gesturing to the back seat where Dante and Mia were settling.

I shook my head, stepping back.

"No," I said. "I'll take the lead car."

Rocco frowned. "Principessa, that car is for security. It's not comfortable."

"I don't care."

I couldn't sit in a confined space with them for twelve hours.

I couldn't watch him touch her.

I walked to the front SUV and climbed in next to the driver.

The leather was stiff.

The suspension was unforgiving.

As we rolled out of the town, leaving the safety of the Midwest behind, I felt the familiar weight of the life I had tried to escape settling back onto my shoulders like a lead cloak.

We drove for hours.

My back ached.

My chest felt tight, a constant pressure that made it hard to draw a full breath.

We stopped at a rest area in Pennsylvania.

The soldiers formed a perimeter instantly.

Dante helped Mia out of the car.

He kept his hand on the small of her back, guiding her toward a picnic bench as if she were made of glass.

He didn't look at the soldiers.

He didn't look at me.

His world had shrunk to the size of the woman beside him.

I sat on a concrete barrier, keeping my distance.

Rocco brought me a bottle of water.

"You need to eat," he grunted.

"I'm not hungry."

I watched Dante.

He was peeling an orange.

He did it methodically, removing every scrap of white pith before handing a segment to Mia.

She ate it, laughing at something he said.

He wiped a drop of juice from her chin with his thumb.

The gesture was so intimate, so casual, it felt like a slap across my face.

He used to do that for me.

On our honeymoon in Sicily, he had peeled blood oranges for me on the terrace.

He had told me that the fruit was sweet because it grew from volcanic soil.

Destruction creates beauty, Elena, he had said.

Now he was creating beauty for someone else, and I was just the destruction.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

It was a text from Luca, my brother.

Status?

I typed back with trembling fingers.

He is coming home. Prepare the Don.

I didn't tell him that the Don was gone.

I didn't tell him that the man coming home was named Arthur, and that he was bringing a queen who wasn't me.

Elena POV

We hit the Chicago city limits after dark.

The skyline rose against the bruised purple sky like a jagged row of teeth.

This was his kingdom.

Every building, every street corner, every casting shadow belonged to the Moretti family.

Dante stared out the window, his expression an unreadable mask.

Did he feel the pull of it?

Did the city sing to him in a language he had forgotten?

Or was it just lights and cold concrete to him now?

We pulled up to the wrought-iron gates of the Estate.

They swung open in silence.

The long driveway was lined with guards standing at rigid attention.

Their faces were masks of discipline, yet I caught the flicker of shock in their eyes as the headlights swept over them.

The Ghost had returned.

The convoy halted in front of the main house.

It was a fortress disguised as a mansion.

Stone walls climbed into Gothic arches, cold and imposing, mirroring the soul of the man who had built it.

Dante stepped out and helped Mia down.

She looked fragile against the backdrop of the massive stone facade, gripping his hand as if it were her only anchor.

The heavy front doors opened.

The Donna—Dante’s mother—stepped onto the porch.

She was draped in black, the color of her mourning for the last three years.

Her silver hair was pulled back in a severe, exacting bun.

Then, she saw Dante.

She froze.

Her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a cry that threatened to shatter her composure.

Dante stiffened.

He looked at the woman who had given him life with the blank eyes of a stranger.

"Who is she?" he asked Mia, his voice low and guarded.

"That’s your mother, Arthur," Mia whispered, using the name of the man he had become.

The Donna broke.

She ran down the stone steps, abandoning all protocol, ignoring the guards who watched.

She threw her arms around her son, burying her face in his chest.

Dante hesitated, his arms hovering awkwardly in the air, before he gently patted her back.

"It’s okay," he said, his eyes darting to Mia for rescue.

The Donna pulled back, framing his face with trembling hands.

"My boy," she wept, her voice raw. "My beautiful boy. You came back to us."

Then, her gaze shifted.

She saw Mia.

And then, the swell of her belly.

Her eyes went wide with shock.

Slowly, her gaze lifted to find me.

I was standing by the lead car, half-hidden in the shadows.

I met her stare and gave a sharp, imperceptible nod.

Accept it.

The Donna swallowed her confusion.

She was a Mafia wife; she knew the code.

Survival came first. Questions came later.

"Come inside," she said, hastily wiping her tears. "You must be tired."

She ushered them toward the warmth of the house.

I waited until the heavy doors closed behind them before I walked up the steps.

The Donna was waiting for me in the foyer.

The servants had already whisked Dante and Mia away to the guest wing.

Without a word, she pulled me into the library and sealed the heavy oak doors.

"Elena," she breathed, her voice trembling. "What is this? Who is that woman?"

"She saved him," I answered simply. "She is the mother of his child."

"But you are his wife!"

"He doesn't remember me, Isabella."

I walked over to the fireplace, needing the heat.

Above the mantle hung a portrait of Dante and me.

We looked like gods in oil and canvas.

Untouchable.

"He thinks I am a cousin," I said, staring at the painted ghosts. "And that is how it will stay."

"Elena, no. We can make him remember. The doctors—"

"The doctors said the trauma could break his mind permanently," I interrupted, turning to face her. "He is happy, Isabella. Look at him. He smiles now."

She stared at me, horror slowly dawning on her features.

"You are going to let him go?"

"I made a vow," I whispered. "Until death. I only wanted him alive. He is alive. My prayer was answered."

"But at what cost?" she cried, stepping closer. "You have waited three years. You have mourned him every single day."

"I am fine."

She looked at me closely then, really looked at me.

She saw the unnatural pallor of my skin.

She saw the faint tremors in my hands.

"You are not fine," she whispered, her voice catching. "You look like you are fading away."

"I have six months," I said.

The words hung in the stale air of the library.

"My heart is failing. The stress... the defect. It’s done."

Isabella gasped, her hand flying to her chest. "No."

"Yes. So let him be happy. Let him have this life."

I looked back at the portrait, at the woman I used to be.

"I won't be here to see the end of it anyway."