Dante Vitiello POV

I woke up choking.

The darkness was heavy, pressing down on my chest like a physical weight. For a second, I thought I was blind again.

I reached out.

"Elena."

My hand hit only cold sheets.

I sat up, my heart hammering against my ribs. The room was empty. The bathroom door was open, revealing only darkness.

"Elena?" I called out.

Silence.

The silence in the penthouse wasn't peaceful. It was wrong. It was the silence of a grave.

I got out of bed and checked the closet.

Her clothes were there. The red dress I bought her. The shoes. But something was missing.

The air felt thin.

I walked into the living room. Maria, the maid, was dusting the mantle.

"Where is she?" I asked.

Maria jumped. "Sir?"

"Elena. Where is she?"

"I haven't seen Miss Rossi since yesterday, sir," Maria said, looking nervous. "Her bed wasn't slept in."

Panic, cold and sharp, spiked in my gut.

She said she was cleaning. She said she was buying a dress.

My phone rang on the kitchen counter.

I grabbed it, expecting her name.

It was Sofia.

"Dante!" she screamed. "Someone is in the hallway! The power is out!"

I rubbed my temples.

"Call security, Sofia."

"I can't! The keypad is dead! Please, Dante, I'm scared!"

I looked at the empty apartment. Elena was probably just out for coffee. She did that sometimes when she was mad.

"I'll be there," I growled.

I drove to Sofia's apartment in ten minutes.

The hallway lights were working fine.

I banged on her door.

She opened it instantly. She was wearing black lace lingerie and a silk robe that was falling off her shoulders.

She threw herself at me.

"Oh, thank God," she sobbed against my chest. "I heard footsteps."

I peeled her off me.

"The power is on, Sofia," I said, gesturing to the lamp behind her.

"It just came back," she lied. Her eyes were dry.

She ran her hands up my chest.

"Stay," she whispered. "Just for a bit. I'm shaken up."

She pressed her body against mine.

It felt wrong.

Her curves didn't fit me. Her perfume was too sweet.

I looked over her head at the window. The sky was grey.

A feeling of absolute dread washed over me.

It started in my stomach and spread to my fingertips. Something was happening. Something catastrophic.

Sofia was unbuttoning my shirt.

"Dante, look at me," she commanded.

I looked down.

But I didn't see her.

I saw Elena standing in the rain. I saw the blood on her arm.

I saw the look in her eyes in the piano room.

It wasn't anger.

It was nothing.

She had looked at me with absolutely nothing.

I pushed Sofia away.

"Dante?" she asked, shocked.

"I need to go," I said.

I turned around and walked out.

I didn't wait for the elevator. I took the stairs two at a time.

I needed to get back to the penthouse. I needed to see her.

I needed to make sure the bird hadn't flown the cage.

But as I drove back, speeding through red lights, the empty feeling in my chest turned into a scream.

I knew.

Before I even opened the door, I knew.

She was gone.

Dante Vitiello POV:

Sofia’s palms pressed flat against my chest.

Her fingers traced the buttons of my shirt, slipping inside to graze my skin.

She smelled of expensive roses and desperation.

It was a scent that used to drive me wild when we were teenagers. Now, it just made my stomach turn.

I wasn't looking at her.

I was looking at the window behind her, staring blindly at the grey New York skyline.

The silence in my head was deafening.

It wasn't the peaceful silence of a quiet room. It was the hollow silence of a missing heartbeat.

"Dante?" Sofia whispered. "You're trembling."

I pushed her hands away.

I stepped back.

The movement was abrupt, violent. Sofia stumbled, catching herself on the edge of the sofa to keep from falling.

"What is wrong with you?" she snapped, her mask of vulnerability cracking instantly. "I just told you I was scared. There was someone in the hall."

"There was no one," I said. My voice was a low grind of gravel.

"I checked the security feed on my phone before I came up. The hall has been empty for the last hour."

Sofia's face paled.

She pulled her silk robe tighter around her body, as if shielding herself from the cold truth.

"I heard footsteps," she insisted, but her eyes darted away.

"You lied," I said.

It wasn't a question.

"Why did you lie, Sofia?"

She bit her lip. Tears welled up in her eyes with practiced ease.

"Because I needed you," she sobbed. "Because you've been so distant. You're always with her. That... servant."

*Her.*

*Elena.*

The name hit me like a physical blow.

I didn't answer Sofia.

I didn't care about her tears. I didn't care about her manufactured fear.

I turned around and walked to the door.

"Dante! Where are you going?"

"Home," I said.

I slammed the door behind me, severing her scream.

I didn't walk to the elevator; I ran.

I hit the button for the lobby repeatedly, as if I could force the machine to move faster through the sheer weight of my rage.

I needed to get back to the penthouse.

I needed to see Elena sitting on the couch, reading a book. I needed to see her look up and smile that quiet, reserved smile.

I needed to prove the cold dread in my gut wrong.

I drove the Maybach like a man possessed.

I ran three red lights. I cut off a taxi without glancing back.

I didn't care.

I pulled up to the building, screeching to a halt, and threw the keys to the stunned valet.

I didn't wait for the elevator this time either. I took the private lift.

The doors slid open.

The penthouse was silent.

"Elena?" I called out.

My voice echoed off the marble walls, mocking me.

There was no answer.

I walked into the living room.

Maria, the maid, was standing there. She was holding a feather duster like a shield, but she wasn't moving.

She looked terrified.

"Where is she?" I asked.

Maria swallowed hard.

"Sir..."

"Where is Elena?" I roared.

Maria flinched, shrinking back.

"She's gone, sir."

"What do you mean, gone? Did she go to the store? The library?"

"No, sir."

Maria pointed a trembling finger toward the hallway. Toward the bedroom.

"She took her things."

The floor seemed to tilt beneath my feet.

I walked past Maria.

I walked down the hall.

The door to our bedroom stood ajar.

I stepped inside.

And the world ended.

Dante Vitiello POV:

The closet doors were thrown wide open.

I stared at the empty space where her clothes used to be.

The red dress I had bought her was gone.

The simple grey coats she always wore were gone.

The wire hangers were bare, skeletons dancing in the draft from the air conditioner.

It was a sound I would hear in my nightmares for years. *Clink. Clink. Clink.*

I ripped the drawers open.

Empty.

No socks. No underwear. No t-shirts.

I stormed into the bathroom.

Her toothbrush was gone. Her face cream. The cheap comb she refused to replace.

All of it. Gone.

I ran back to the bedroom and checked the nightstand.

Her charger was missing.

I pulled out my phone with trembling hands and dialed her number.

*The number you have dialed is no longer in service.*

My blood ran cold. I dialed it again.

*The number you have dialed...*

I hurled the phone across the room. It smashed against the far wall, cracking the screen into a spiderweb of glass.

I didn't care.

I grabbed the landline and called Marco.

"Find her," I ordered, my voice raw.

"Dante? What—"

"Find Elena. She's gone. Check the airports. Check the train stations. Check the hospitals."

"She left you?" Marco asked, confusion heavy in his tone.

"Find her!" I screamed.

I slammed the phone down so hard the plastic housing cracked.

I stood in the center of the room, vibrating with rage.

My chest felt like it was being crushed by a hydraulic press. I couldn't breathe.

I fell to my knees.

I put my head in my hands, fingers digging into my scalp.

*Think, Dante. Think.*

When did she decide this?

Last night?

No.

She was calm last night. She was... cold.

*I don't need you.*

That text.

I thought she was just being difficult. I thought she was jealous of the dog.

I stood up and stalked to the living room.

Maria was still standing there, shaking.

"Did she say anything?" I asked. My voice was dangerously quiet.

"No, sir. She just... she packed while you were sleeping. She left when you went to Miss Sofia's."

She waited.

She had waited for me to leave.

She knew I would go to Sofia.

She had counted on it.

A memory flashed in my mind like a lightning strike.

The car ride.

\The phone call with Marco.

I had spoken in Italian. I had told Marco about the marriage contract. I had told him I was going to trick Elena with a fake wedding.

I looked at Maria, a horrifying realization dawning on me.

"Maria," I said. "How long has Elena been studying Italian?"

Maria looked confused.

"Italian, sir? Since... since you were blind."

The air left my lungs in a rush.

"She used to read to you," Maria whispered. "She learned so she could read your letters. The ones from your uncle in Sicily."

I staggered back as if struck physically.

She knew.

She had understood every word I said in the car.

She had sat next to me, listening to me sell her out, listening to me plan to make her a whore in the eyes of the law while I married Sofia.

And she didn't say a word.

She just got out of the car.

She let me drive away.

And then she started planning her escape.