Elena POV：

I woke up alone.

The sheets were charcoal silk, cool against my heated skin.

My body ached, but it was a deep, satisfied ache, not the sharp agony of the drug I had anticipated.

I sat up, pulling the sheet against my chest.

The penthouse was silent.

Matteo was gone.

Naturally. I wasn't surprised. Men like him didn't stay to cuddle. They conquered, took what they wanted, and moved on to the next battle.

But he had left something on the nightstand.

A bottle of water. A bottle of aspirin. And a single, perfect red apple sitting mockingly on the glass surface.

I stared at the fruit.

It felt almost biblical. Like I had taken a bite of forbidden knowledge and doomed myself.

Or maybe, just maybe, I had saved myself.

I dragged myself to the bathroom.

The mirror showed a stranger staring back.

My hair was a tangled mess, a chaotic halo around my face. My lips were swollen, bitten red.

And on my neck, right where the collar of a modest dress would sit, was a dark, violet bloom.

A mark.

Matteo hadn't been careful. Care was for lovers. He had been territorial.

I traced the mark with my fingertip, wincing slightly.

It was a declaration of war.

I didn't cover it.

I showered quickly, scrubbing the sterile scent of the hotel soap off my skin, though the memory of his touch remained.

I put on the ruined dress from the night before, the fabric feeling foreign now.

I took the elevator down to the lobby.

I strode out the front doors of the Ritz-Carlton, ignoring the doorman's questioning glance, and hailed a taxi.

When I arrived at the Vitiello estate, the gates were open.

Cars were in the driveway. Genovese cars.

My stomach twisted, but I forced my spine straight. I was done cowering.

I walked through the front door.

Voices echoed from the drawing room. My father's booming baritone clashing with Dante's frantic tenor.

I walked in.

Silence fell like a guillotine blade.

Dante was standing by the fireplace. He looked disheveled. His tie was loose, his hair a mess.

My father, a man who loved power more than his children, looked at me with relief that quickly curdled into anger.

"Where the hell have you been?" my father demanded. "Dante has been out of his mind with worry."

I looked at Dante.

He didn't look worried. He looked like a man caught in a noose. Guilty.

"I woke up and you were gone," Dante said, stepping toward me. He tried to sound like a concerned fiancé, but his eyes were cold, calculating.

"I thought you were kidnapped."

"I wasn't kidnapped," I said calmly.

"Then where were you?" He reached for my arm.

I stepped back, out of his reach.

"I was in the hallway," I lied smoothly. "Listening."

Dante froze.

"Listening to what?"

"To you and Sofia," I said.

The room went deadly quiet.

My father looked at Dante, eyes narrowing. "Who is Sofia?"

Dante's face paled. "She's... nobody. A mistake. Elena, you were confused. The champagne..."

"I wasn't confused when I heard her screaming your name in my bridal suite," I said, my voice devoid of emotion.

I saw Luca in the corner. My brother. He looked green. He knew what was in that champagne. He knew I should have been unconscious hours ago.

"You abandoned me," I said to Dante. "On the night of our engagement. To sleep with a whore."

"It was an accident!" Dante shouted, losing his composure. "She came onto me! I thought it was you!"

"You thought the woman in the cheap sequins was me?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in mock disbelief.

Dante flushed red.

"It doesn't matter," he snapped, waving his hand dismissively. "We are getting married. This changes nothing."

"It changes everything," I said.

I lifted my chin, brushing my hair aside to expose the bruise on my neck.

Dante's eyes dropped to it.

His pupils dilated.

He knew that mark. He knew it wasn't his.

"What is that?" he whispered.

"Proof," I said.

"You whore," he hissed. He lunged at me.

Luca stepped forward, blocking him with his shoulder.

"Don't touch her," Luca warned, his voice low.

Dante pointed a shaking finger at me. "She slept with someone else! She broke the contract!"

"You broke it first," I said, my voice ice cold. "You brought a mistress into our bed. I just... sought comfort elsewhere."

"With who?" Dante screamed. "Who touched you?"

I smiled. It was a small, cruel thing.

"Someone who knows exactly how to treat a woman," I said.

"The engagement is off, Dante. Get out of my house."

Elena POV：

The silence in the dining room was a physical weight, suffocating enough to crush a lung.

Three days had passed since I returned home.

My father was furious about the failed alliance, but he lacked the leverage to force me back to Dante just yet. The story of Dante and the "maid" in the bridal suite had leaked to the gossip columns, painting the Vitiello name in a shade of humiliation he couldn't ignore.

I suspected Matteo had something to do with that.

But Dante wasn't giving up.

Tonight, he had forced a "reconciliation dinner."

And he had brought a guest.

Sofia sat across from me.

She was wearing a modest white dress that was a transparent attempt at cosplaying innocence. She kept resting a protective hand on her flat stomach, casting wide, doe-like glances at Dante.

"Elena," Dante said, cutting his steak with aggressive force, the knife screeching against the china. "Sofia is here to apologize. She feels terrible about the... misunderstanding."

Sofia looked up, her bottom lip trembling on cue. "I didn't know he was engaged. I swear."

Liar. In my past life, this woman had stalked me with the dedication of a predator.

"It's fine," I said, lifting my crystal goblet for a calm sip of water. "I don't blame the dog for eating the steak left on the floor. I blame the owner for not training it."

Sofia gasped, a theatrical sound.

Dante slammed his fork down.

"She is not a dog, Elena. She is a guest."

"She is your mistress," I corrected, my voice bored. "And you brought her to my mother's table."

My father cleared his throat, avoiding my gaze as he stared at his plate. "Elena, be civil. Dante is trying to make amends."

"By bringing his whore to dinner?" I looked at my father, watching him shrink into his chair. "Is our family name worth so little to you?"

My father looked away. He was weak. The Vitiello family was crumbling, debts piling up, and his spine had snapped under the weight of it. He needed Dante's money more than he needed his dignity.

Sofia let out a small sob.

"I'm sorry," she wept, dabbing at dry eyes. "I'm just... so emotional lately."

Dante put a protective hand on her shoulder, glaring at me.

"She's fragile, Elena."

I looked at Luca.

My brother was staring at Dante with pure disgust.

In my last life, Luca had been loyal to the family above all else. But seeing Dante parade his mistress in our home, disrespecting me so openly... it was cracking his loyalty foundation.

I stood up, my napkin dropping to the table.

"Excuse me," I said. "I've lost my appetite."

I walked out of the dining room without looking back.

I went straight to the library, knowing Luca would follow.

He did.

Two minutes later, he slipped into the room, closing the heavy oak door behind him and sealing us in the quiet dark.

"You pushed him too hard," Luca said quietly, pacing the rug. "Father is going to force the wedding next week just to stop the bleeding."

"I won't marry him, Luca."

"You don't have a choice," he said, rubbing his face exhaustedly. "We need the Genovese protection. The Outfit is encroaching on the docks."

"The Outfit isn't the enemy," I stated.

Luca looked at me like I was crazy. "Matteo Moretti is a butcher. He'd kill us all without blinking."

"He hasn't killed me," I said softly.

Luca paused. He looked at the bruise on my neck, which was fading to a sickly yellow-a souvenir from Dante, not Matteo.

"Elena... that mark. Who gave it to you?"

I walked over to him and took his hands, forcing him to look at me.

"I need you to do something for me, Luca. For the family."

"What?"

"Set up a sit-down," I said. "With Moretti."

Luca yanked his hands away as if burned. "Are you insane? Father would kill me."

"Father is leading us off a cliff," I said, my voice hard. "Dante is stealing from us, Luca. I saw his texts to Sofia. He plans to absorb our territory once we're married and put Father in a home."

It was a lie, technically. I hadn't seen the texts in this timeline. I had lived the reality.

Luca hesitated, conflict warring in his eyes. "Do you have proof?"

"Get me the meeting," I said. "And I will give you the world. I will give you the empire Father is too weak to hold."

"Why Moretti?" Luca asked, his resistance crumbling. "Why him?"

"Because," I said, looking out the window at the dark garden, where the shadows seemed to agree with me. "Sometimes the only way to survive a fire is to let it burn everything down and start over."

Luca stared at me for a long moment, searching for the sister he used to know and finding someone new.

"Tomorrow," he said finally. "I know a guy who knows his Capo. But if this goes south, Elena... we're dead."

"We're already dead," I said. "We just haven't fallen down yet."

Elena POV:

The hospital smelled of antiseptic and stale lies.

I wasn't sick. I was hiding.

After the dinner, I had feigned a collapse. Stress, the doctor said. Exhaustion.

It had bought me a private room and twenty-four hours away from Dante.

But even here, I couldn't escape.

The door slammed open.

Dante marched in, holding a massive bouquet of lilies. Funeral flowers.

"Stop with the drama, Elena," he said, tossing the flowers onto the foot of the bed with a careless flick of his wrist. "The doctor said you're fine."

"I'm resting," I said, not looking up from my book.

"You're hiding," he sneered. "Because you know you lost."

He walked to the side of the bed, looming over me like a dark cloud.

"Sofia moved in today," he said.

My heart skipped a beat, but I kept my face carefully blank.

"Into the estate?"

"Into my wing," he said, a cruel smile touching his lips. "She's pregnant, Elena."

There it was. The trap.

In my last life, she hadn't conceived until after we were married. She was accelerating the timeline.

"Congratulations," I said flatly. "I hope the baby has your hairline and her morals."

Dante grabbed my wrist. His grip was bruising, intended to silence.

"You will marry me," he hissed. "And you will raise that child as your own. Because no one else wants a spoiled, used-up princess."

"Is that so?"

The voice came from the doorway.

Deep. Baritone. Absolutely lethal.

Dante froze.

He released my wrist as if burned and spun around.

Matteo Moretti leaned against the doorframe.

He wasn't wearing a suit today. He had traded the corporate armor for something far more dangerous: a black leather jacket and dark jeans. He looked like death on a motorcycle.

Two massive bodyguards stood in the hallway behind him, silent sentinels.

"Moretti," Dante said, his voice cracking on the second syllable. "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting the sick," Matteo said.

He walked into the room, ignoring Dante completely.

He stopped at the foot of my bed.

He picked up the lilies Dante had thrown there.

"Lilies," Matteo mused, twirling a stem between his fingers. "Bad luck. They invite death."

He dropped them into the trash can with a dull thud.

"I didn't know you knew my fiancée," Dante said, trying to puff out his chest.

Matteo looked at Dante then. A slow, dismissive look that stripped Dante of every ounce of dignity.

"Fiancée?" Matteo asked. "I heard the engagement was broken."

"Just a lover's quarrel," Dante said quickly. "We are very happy."

"She doesn't look happy," Matteo said.

He walked to the side of the bed where Dante had been standing.

Dante stepped back instinctively. The predator recognizing the apex predator.

Matteo looked down at me.

His eyes were dark, burning with a secret we shared.

"Hello, Elena," he said.

"Matteo," I breathed.

"I heard you were looking for a new alliance," he said.

Dante laughed nervously. "Elena? She doesn't make alliances. She's just a girl."

"She is a Vitiello," Matteo said, his eyes never leaving mine. "And she called for a sit-down."

Dante looked at me, betrayal and shock warring on his face. "You called him?"

"I did," I said.

"Why?" Dante screamed.

"Because," Matteo answered for me. He reached out and took my hand. His palm was warm, rough, and reassuring.

He lifted my hand to his lips, kissing the knuckles with a reverence Dante had never shown.

"Because she knows a king when she sees one," Matteo said. "And she's tired of playing with jesters."

Matteo turned to Dante.

"Get out," he said softly.

"This is Vitiello territory," Dante blustered.

"Not anymore," Matteo said. "Check your phone, Genovese. Your shell company just got raided by the Feds. And your father is looking for someone to blame."

Dante went white.

He scrambled for his phone, backing out of the room like a cornered rat.

When he was gone, the silence in the room wasn't heavy. It was electric.

Matteo looked down at me.

"You act fast," he said.

"I told you," I said, squeezing his hand. "I want him ruined."

"He is," Matteo said. "And now... the debt comes due."

He sat on the edge of the bed.

"Your brother set the meeting," Matteo said. "But the price has gone up."

"What is it?" I asked.

Matteo leaned in, his lips brushing my ear.

"Marriage," he whispered, his breath hot against my skin. "To me. Next week."

I closed my eyes.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

But this fire... this fire I could control.

"Deal," I said.

Matteo smiled against my skin.

"Good," he said. "Because I already bought the ring."