I woke up to the sterile sting of antiseptic and the rhythmic, indifferent beeping of a monitor.

My back felt like it was on fire-a canvas of raw nerves and shredded skin that throbbed with every shallow breath I took.

I tried to move, and a involuntary whimper escaped my lips.

Dante was there instantly.

He was hovering over the bed, his face pale, his eyes wide with a frantic sort of panic.

"Don't move," he said, reaching out to touch my hand.

I flinched.

My body recoiled from his touch as if he were the one currently holding the whip.

He froze, his hand hovering in mid-air, rejected.

"I saved you," he whispered, the words heavy with a twisted savior complex.

"They wanted to kill you, Elena. I talked them down to the whip."

I looked at him, seeing the terrifying delusion swimming in his eyes.

He actually believed he was the hero of this story.

"Do you believe I hurt him?" I asked, my voice a cracked, dry whisper.

He straightened up, the mask of the Underboss sliding back into place, hardening his features.

"The evidence is absolute," he said.

"Sofia had bruises. The baby was crying. Why do you defy the Family, Elena? Why can't you just submit?"

Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, burning their way down my cheeks.

He didn't trust me.

After everything, he chose her lie over my truth.

"Soon, we return to the start," he said, his voice softening once more.

"Just heal. I'll make it right."

A nurse appeared tentatively at the doorway.

"Mr. Moretti? Your wife is asking for you. She's... distressed."

Dante looked at the door, then back at me, torn between his two lives.

"I have to go," he said.

"I'll be back in an hour. I promise."

He left.

An hour passed.

Then two.

Then twelve.

He didn't come back.

The next morning, the doctor discharged me.

It was raining outside-a torrential downpour that turned the New York streets into rivers of grey sludge.

I stood at the hospital entrance, clutching my thin jacket around me, the pain in my back throbbing in time with my heartbeat.

A black SUV pulled up to the curb.

Dante was driving.

My heart leaped for a stupid, fleeting second.

Then the passenger window rolled down.

Sofia was sitting there.

She looked at me with a concern that didn't reach her eyes, her hand resting possessively on Dante's thigh.

"Oh, Elena," she said. "You look terrible."

Dante leaned across her.

He held out an umbrella.

"Take this," he said, refusing to meet my eyes. "Wait for a taxi. We have a dinner reservation."

He handed the umbrella through the window.

I didn't take it.

I stared at him, letting the rain soak through my bandages, letting the freezing water mix with the warm blood seeping through my shirt.

"Drive, Dante," I said.

He hesitated for a second, his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.

Then he hit the gas.

The car sped off, splashing muddy water onto my legs.

I stood there in the rain, abandoned, until I couldn't feel the cold anymore.

I walked.

I walked the three miles back to the estate, every step a torture session, adrenaline alone keeping me upright.

When I finally pushed open the heavy oak doors of the villa, I was dripping wet, shivering violently.

The living room was warm, lit by the soft, golden glow of the fireplace.

I stopped dead in the doorway.

Dante was lounging on the sofa.

Sofia was sitting next to him, her blouse unbuttoned.

She was breastfeeding the baby.

But it wasn't just feeding.

Dante's hand was resting on her breast, guiding the baby's head, his thumb brushing against her skin in a rhythmic caress.

It was intimate.

It was a sacred act of family that I had no part in.

He looked up and saw me.

He didn't move his hand.

He didn't look guilty.

He looked... comfortable.

The soul I thought I had managed to save turned to ash inside my chest.

I wasn't his queen.

I wasn't even his mistress.

I was a ghost haunting a house that belonged to someone else.

I spun around and fled back into the storm before the scream clawing at my throat could tear free.

The image of his hand claiming her skin seared itself onto the back of my eyelids.

I collapsed onto the cold stone bench in the garden, letting the rain hammer against me, hoping it would wash away the last of my pathetic illusions.

I remembered our first night together.

He had worshipped my body as if it were a holy temple.

Now, he knelt at another altar entirely.

I remained there until the lights in the villa flickered and died, and until my shivering escalated into violent, uncontrollable tremors.

Stumbling back to the servants' quarters, I collapsed onto the narrow mattress.

The fever didn't just hit me; it crushed me like a collapsing building.

I burned.

I hallucinated.

In the haze of my delirium, Dante's deep voice floated through the air.

He was reading.

"And the little rabbit ran all the way home..."

It was the story. The one he had promised to read to our children.

I dragged my heavy limbs to the door, cracking it open just an inch.

He was there in the hallway, standing outside Sofia's room, reading to the closed wood, or perhaps to the unborn life inside.

He turned, and his gaze landed on me.

He took in the sweat slicking my forehead, the glassy, fever-bright sheen of my eyes.

He crossed the distance, placing a hand on my forehead.

It was cool, professional, and utterly devoid of affection.

"You're sick," he stated, his tone clinical.

He offered no comfort. No softness.

Instead, he pulled a key from his pocket.

"I have to quarantine you," he said, stepping back.

"We can't risk the heir getting infected."

He pushed my door shut.

I heard the lock click.

It was the sound of a coffin lid sealing shut.

I screamed silently, my throat too raw and swollen to produce a sound.

I wasn't his love anymore. I was a biological threat.

Hours bled into days.

Sofia ordered the staff to stop bringing me food.

She claimed the trays were a "vector for disease."

I survived on tap water from the bathroom sink, fading in and out of a gray consciousness.

Through the thin walls, the sounds of life drifted in.

Laughter.

The delicate clinking of silverware against china.

I dragged myself to the window, bracing against the sill to look down into the courtyard.

They were having a candlelight dinner.

My favorite meal. Risotto with white truffles.

Dante was smiling.

He looked happy.

He looked... complete.

They were talking, their voices carrying clearly on the crisp night air.

"We need a name for the boy," Sofia said, idly twirling her wine glass by the stem.

Dante paused.

He looked up toward my dark window, though I knew he couldn't see me in the shadows.

"Luca," he said.

My heart stopped beating.

Luca.

That was the name we had chosen.

We had whispered it to each other between sheets, dreaming of a boy with his storm-gray eyes and my smile.

"He calls him Luca," Sofia repeated, testing the weight of it on her tongue. "I like it. A strong name."

She reached across the table, covering his hand with hers.

Dante didn't pull away.

He squeezed her fingers.

"To Luca," he toasted, lifting his glass.

I slid down the wall, curling into a tight, trembling ball on the floor.

He hadn't just stolen my freedom.

He hadn't just stolen my dignity.

He had stolen the future we built in our dreams and gifted it, wrapped in a bow, to the woman who destroyed us.

The gnawing hunger in my stomach was nothing compared to the vast, echoing emptiness in my soul.

I closed my eyes and whispered into the darkness.

"Goodbye, Dante."

And for the first time, I truly meant it.

My fever broke just in time for me to be paraded like a show pony.

Isabella threw a garment onto the foot of my bed.

It was red.

The color of the sins they were forcing me to swallow.

"Get up," she commanded, her voice leaving no room for argument. "Tonight is the celebration of the heir. You will stand in the back. You will smile. And you will look grateful that we let you breathe our air."

I pulled the dress over my head.

It hung loosely on my frame, failing to cling to the curves I no longer possessed.

I had lost ten pounds during the quarantine, surviving on tepid tap water and the echoes of Dante playing house with another woman.

The gala was held in the grand ballroom of the Pierre Hotel.

Crystal chandeliers dripped artificial light onto men who killed for a living and women who looked the other way for the sake of diamond necklaces.

I clung to the shadows near a marble pillar, invisible to everyone but the security detail assigned to ensure I didn't run.

Dante stood at the center of the room.

He looked devastating in his tuxedo, the King of New York holding court.

Sofia was by his side, glowing in white silk, the baby resting in her arms like a prop.

Isabella stepped forward, a microphone in hand.

She snapped open a velvet box.

A diamond ring the size of a quail egg glittered violently under the lights.

"To my daughter-in-law," she announced, her voice booming. "For giving the Moretti family its future."

The room erupted in polite, thunderous applause.

Dante took the ring.

He slid it onto Sofia's finger.

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

The camera flashes went off like strobes, blinding me, burning the image of their union into my retinas.

I felt nothing.

My heart was a dried leaf, crumbling to dust inside my chest.

Then, Sofia saw me.

Of course she did.

She handed the baby to the nanny and waved me over with a manicured hand.

"Come, Elena!" she called out, her voice dripping with a sweetness that tasted like saccharine. "Get in the photo. We are all family here."

The guests murmured, their gazes sliding over me-the mistress, the fish girl, the charity case.

Dante stiffened.

He looked at me across the crowd, his eyes pleading.

_Just do it,_ his gaze seemed to say. _Just play along._

I walked forward, my legs moving on autopilot.

I took my place next to Sofia.

She leaned in close, smiling radiantly for the cameras.

"You look like a corpse," she whispered through her teeth. "Try not to bleed on the floor."

I stared straight ahead, focusing on the flashbulbs.

Then the world groaned.

The heavy velvet backdrop behind us, laden with thousands of roses and supported by a massive steel frame, gave way.

It tipped forward with the screech of tearing metal.

Dante moved before anyone else.

He didn't think.

He lunged.

He tackled me.

He threw his body over mine, driving me into the carpet as the steel frame crashed down exactly where we had been standing.

Dust and crushed petals filled the air, choking the light.

Silence fell over the room.

Dante lifted his head, his hands checking me frantically.

"Are you hurt?" he demanded, his voice rough. "Elena?"

I shook my head, stunned.

He had saved me.

In the moment of pure instinct, he had chosen me.

Then a scream pierced the silence.

Sofia.

She was trapped under the edge of the frame.

Blood was pooling rapidly on the white carpet.

Dante's face went white.

He scrambled off me, leaving me in the dust, and ran to her.

"Sofia!" he roared.

He lifted the steel beam with a strength born of sheer panic.

She was pale, gasping for air, clutching her abdomen.

The ambulance arrived in minutes.

We were rushed to the private wing of Lenox Hill.

I sat in the waiting room, covered in dust, forgotten.

A doctor burst out of the operating doors.

"She is hemorrhaging," he told Dante urgently. "We need O-negative blood. The blood bank is low. We don't have time to wait for a transfer."

Dante turned to me slowly.

He knew my blood type.

He knew everything about me.

"Give it to her," he said.

It wasn't a question.

I looked at him, disbelief washing over me like ice water.

"You want my blood?" I asked, my voice trembling. "The same blood you called dirty?"

"She carries the spare heir," Dante said, his voice shaking with a terrifying intensity. "If she dies, the alliance dies. If the alliance dies, war starts."

"I don't care about your war," I spat.

I stood up to leave.

Dante grabbed my arm.

His grip was iron.

"You will do this," he snarled.

"You owe the Family. You caused the accident with your bad luck."

I stared at him.

This wasn't the man who had saved me from the bomb.

This was the Don who would grind bones to make his bread.

"Strap her down," he ordered the guards.

"No!" I screamed as they grabbed me.

They dragged me into the prep room.

They held my arm down on the table.

The needle pierced my skin.

Dante stood in the doorway, watching.

He didn't look away.

"Take what you need," he told the nurse coldly.

I watched the bag fill with red.

They took one pint.

Then two.

I started to get dizzy, the room tilting on its axis.

"Stop," I whispered, my strength fading. "Please."

"She needs more," Dante said, his voice void of emotion.

The room spun.

Black spots danced in my vision.

He was draining me dry to keep his lie alive.

I looked at him one last time before the darkness took me.

_I hope it chokes her,_ I thought.

Then I passed out.