Elena Rossi POV:

The charity auction was less a gathering and more a battlefield disguised in silk and shadows. A sea of black tuxedos and glittering diamonds stretched out before me.

I wasn't supposed to be here.

Dante had explicitly told me to stay home, dismissing the evening as "tedious family politics."

But Marco, bless his well-meaning but confused heart, had sent a driver for me, assuming Dante had simply forgotten to issue the invitation. I couldn't refuse without raising questions I wasn't prepared to answer.

So, I stood in the periphery, half-hidden by the cold shadow of a marble pillar, watching.

Dante stood in the center of the room. He didn't just occupy the space; he commanded it. He looked like a king. Lethal. Beautiful. Untouchable.

And Sofia was next to him.

She was wearing red. The color of warning. The color of blood.

She was laughing, her hand lingering on his bicep, her lips brushing his ear as she whispered secrets I would never hear.

Suddenly, the atmosphere shifted. The air grew heavy, charged with static.

Three men from the Russo family approached them. They were drunk, their voices too loud for the polite hum of the room.

One of them grabbed Sofia's arm, his grip visibly rough.

"Look at the little princess," the man sneered, his words slurring. "Crawling back to the big bad wolf now that daddy is broke?"

Sofia let out a sound-a sharp, theatrical cry that cut through the noise like glass.

Dante moved faster than thought.

He seized the man's wrist and torqued it. The sickening crunch of bone snapping echoed through the hall.

Chaos erupted.

Security swarmed. People screamed. Champagne glasses shattered.

Dante shoved the man back, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated violence.

"Get back!" Dante roared.

He swung his arm backward to clear a perimeter, creating a protective circle around Sofia.

He didn't see me.

He didn't know I had stepped forward, instinctively trying to reach him, to pull him back from the edge.

His heavy forearm slammed into my chest with the force of a battering ram.

I flew backward.

My head cracked against the sharp edge of the marble pillar.

White light exploded behind my eyes, blinding and absolute.

I crumpled to the floor, my vision swimming.

Warmth trickled down my neck. Thick. Metallic. Blood.

"Dante..." I gasped, the air knocked from my lungs.

But he wasn't looking at me.

He was kneeling on the floor, his attention entirely consumed by Sofia, holding her ankle with gentle hands.

"Are you hurt?" he asked her, his voice frantic, stripped of its usual composure. "Did they touch you?"

"My ankle," Sofia sobbed, clutching his lapels. "I think I twisted it. Oh god, Dante, take me away."

He scooped her up in his arms without hesitation.

He walked right past me.

His expensive Italian leather shoes stepped squarely into a fresh droplet of my blood on the polished floor.

He didn't look down.

He carried her out of the hall like she was porcelain, leaving me bleeding on the cold stone, invisible in the wreckage.

*

I stitched the wound myself in the bathroom of the penthouse.

Four stitches.

I didn't use anesthetic. The sharp bite of the needle in my scalp was a welcome distraction from the gaping hole in my chest.

I sat on the bathroom tiles all night, staring at the door, waiting for the handle to turn.

It didn't.

The next morning, my phone rang.

"Velvet Lounge. VIP Room 703. Now," Dante's voice was ice. Absolute zero.

He hung up before I could breathe a word.

I pulled on a high-necked sweater to hide the bandage and hailed a cab, my head still throbbing in time with my heart.

When I walked into the private room, the air was thick with acrid cigar smoke and suffocating tension.

Dante was sitting on the leather sofa, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand. Sofia was next to him, her foot propped up on a velvet pillow, wrapped dramatically in an ace bandage.

She looked perfect. Not a hair out of place. A pristine victim.

Dante looked at me with eyes I didn't recognize. They were void of any warmth, any recognition of who I was to him.

"Explain," he said.

"Explain what?" I asked, keeping my voice steady despite the trembling in my hands.

"The men at the auction," Dante said, his voice low and dangerous. "The Russos."

"What about them?"

"Sofia says you know them," Dante said. "She says she saw you signaling them before they approached her."

I looked at Sofia, stunned.

She offered me a sad, pitying smile. It was a masterful performance. "Elena, I know you're jealous. But to hire thugs to scare me? That's dangerous. You could have gotten Dante hurt."

My jaw dropped.

"You think I hired the Russo family?" I asked, looking back at Dante, searching for sanity. "Dante, I was standing in the corner. You hit me. You knocked me out."

"Don't lie to me!" Dante slammed his hand on the table, making the crystal glasses jump.

I flinched, the sound echoing like a gunshot.

"I saw the security footage, Elena," he snarled. "You were there. Watching. Waiting."

"I was waiting for *you*," I whispered, the truth sounding pathetic even to my own ears.

"You're lucky I don't kill you for endangering the future Donna," Dante spat, the title hanging in the air like a guillotine blade. "But because of what you did for me in the past... I will show mercy."

Mercy.

He pointed a finger at Sofia.

"Apologize," he commanded, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Apologize to her. On your knees."

A heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the room.

Even the bodyguards stationed by the door averted their gaze, shifting uncomfortably in their suits.

"Dante," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I didn't do it."

"Knees," he barked.

Sofia sighed, a sound of exaggerated theatricality. "Dante, honey, don't be so harsh. Maybe she just needs a drink to calm her nerves. A toast, perhaps? To my safety?"

She gestured languidly to a bottle of whiskey resting on the low table.

"Drink it," Sofia commanded, her eyes gleaming with the cruelty of a predator toying with its prey. "Finish the bottle, and I'll forgive you."

I stared at the amber liquid.

I hadn't let alcohol touch my lips in five years.

When Dante was blind, he used to drink to drown the darkness. He became a monster when the liquor took hold, a creature of rage and sorrow. So I stopped drinking to be the sober one. The anchor in his storm.

My tolerance was non-existent.

"I can't," I choked out.

Dante leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. "You disrespected the Family, Elena. You drink, or you leave New York in a body bag. Choose."

He was bluffing. Or maybe he wasn't.

I couldn't read the man behind the mask anymore.

I walked to the table, my legs feeling like lead.

I reached for the bottle.

As I did, my hand brushed against the room service tray next to it. In a blur of motion, I palmed the small shaker of mustard powder.

While they watched, thinking I was hesitating, I tipped my head back and slipped a handful of the yellow dust into my mouth, dry-swallowing it in one agonizing gulp.

An old servant's trick. It was a violent emetic; it would force me to purge everything before the alcohol could stop my heart.

Then, I started drinking.

The whiskey hit my throat like molten lead.

One glass.

Two glasses.

Sofia clapped her hands, delighted as a child at a grotesque circus.

Three glasses.

The room began to tilt on its axis.

Four.

I gagged, fighting the urge to retch too soon.

Five.

Tears streamed down my face, hot and humiliating.

Dante was watching me. His face was carved from granite, but his hand gripped his knee so tightly his knuckles had turned bone-white.

Six.

I swayed, the floor rushing up to meet me.

Seven.

My fingers went numb. I dropped the glass. It shattered, sending shards of crystal skittering across the floor.

"Enough," Dante said. His voice was rough, like gravel grinding together.

He stood abruptly and seized my wrist. "That's enough, Elena."

I yanked my arm away from him.

The alcohol flooded my veins with a reckless, burning courage.

"Are you happy, Don Vitiello?" I slurred, flinging a hand toward Sofia. "Is she worth it? Does she know how to hold you when the nightmares tear you apart? Does she know which song lulls you back to the dark?"

"Elena, stop," he warned, a dangerous edge to his tone.

"I hope she burns you," I spat, the words tasting of bile and whiskey. "I hope she burns you down to the ground."

I turned and stumbled toward the door.

"Elena!" he shouted.

I made it to the hallway before my legs finally betrayed me.

The mustard powder kicked in with violent force.

I collapsed, heaving, my body rejecting the poison and the grief all at once.

Darkness swarmed the edges of my vision, narrowing the world to a pinprick.

I felt strong arms lift me up effortlessly.

"Call the car!" Dante was roaring, his composure shattered. "Get the damn car!"

"Dante, wait!" Sofia's voice echoed shrilly from the room. "You can't leave me!"

"Shut up, Sofia!"

He carried me, holding me tight against him.

I pressed my face against his chest.

It smelled like sandalwood and betrayal.

"Let me go," I whispered into his shirt, my consciousness fading. "Please, just let me go."

*

I woke up in a hospital bed.

The sterile scent of antiseptic filled my nose.

Dante was sitting in the chair next to me. His head was buried in his hands.

He looked wrecked-a king sitting in the ruins of his own making.

"You're awake," he said, sitting up sharply.

"Where is she?" I asked, my gaze fixed on the white ceiling tiles. "Where is your wife?"

"She's not my wife yet," he said, his voice low. "Elena... why did you drink it? You know you can't handle it."

"You told me to."

"I was angry. I didn't mean..." He trailed off, the excuse dying in the air.

He reached for my hand.

I pulled it under the sheet, hiding it from his touch.

"Go back to your duties, Dante," I said, my voice cold as ice. "The maid's daughter will be fine."

He flinched as if I had struck him.

"Stop calling yourself that."

"It's what I am," I said. "And it's all I'll ever be to you."

He stood up, pacing the small room like a caged animal. "I'm doing this for the Family. You don't understand politics."

"I understand loyalty," I countered. "And I understand that you have none."

He stopped pacing. He looked at me with a terrifying intensity, his dark eyes burning into mine.

"You are mine," he said, his voice a low growl. "Contract or no contract. Wife or no wife. You belong to me, Elena. Never forget that."

He turned and strode out of the room.

I waited until the heavy door clicked shut.

Then, I pulled the IV out of my arm.

Blood dripped onto the pristine white sheets, a stark red stain.

Nine days left.

Elena Rossi POV

I had become invisible again.

I moved through the penthouse like a phantom, spiriting my belongings away into boxes whenever Dante wasn't looking.

He interpreted my silence as sulking. He believed I was finally "learning my place."

I was in the hallway, my hand hovering over the study door, when the sound of his voice stopped me cold.

"She's calming down, Mother," Dante said, his tone dismissive. "Yes, I know about the trip. She thinks it's a vacation."

I froze.

"Isabella," he continued, the name rolling smoothly off his tongue, "Elena agreed to go to the villa in Tuscany for a few weeks. Just until the wedding heat dies down."

He was lying to his mother. Or perhaps, Isabella was lying to him.

"She signed the papers, Dante," Isabella's voice drifted faintly from the speakerphone, tinny but unmistakable. "She knows she's leaving for good."

My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

If he knew I had signed the exit deal...

Dante laughed, a dark, rich sound that used to make my knees weak. "She signed the NDA to secure the allowance, Mother. She's not going anywhere. She's obsessed with me. She'd never leave."

He actually believed it.

His arrogance was my shield.

I backed away into the shadows, silent as the grave.

*

That night, he threw a party.

"For you," he said, pressing a velvet box into my hand. Inside lay diamond earrings, cold and heavy. "For your birthday. I know I missed the actual day."

My birthday was last week. The same day he had abandoned me on the side of the road.

The Estate ballroom was suffocating, filled with the same vultures who had watched me bleed at the auction.

They whispered as I walked in, their voices like the rustling of dry leaves.

*The mistress. The kept woman. The charity case.*

Dante kept a possessive hand on my lower back, branding me.

Then, the double doors swung open.

Sofia entered.

The air left my lungs in a rush.

She was wearing a gown of pale blue silk, embroidered with delicate silver vines that shimmered under the chandeliers.

It was a custom design.

I knew this because I had watched Dante sketch it.

Three years ago, when his vision had just begun to return-when he could see nothing but shadows and me-he had drawn it on a cocktail napkin.

*For you,* he had promised, tracing the lines. *When I can see again, I want to see you in this.*

Now, Sofia was wearing it.

She glided across the room, the crowd parting for her like the Red Sea.

She walked straight to us.

"Happy Birthday, Elena," she chirped, her voice dripping with faux sweetness. "Dante told me he designed this dress. It's exquisite, isn't it? A bit tight in the chest, but I made it work."

She smiled, a predator baring its teeth.

Dante shifted uncomfortably. He wouldn't meet my eyes.

"I have a gift, too," Sofia announced.

She snapped her manicured fingers.

A servant stepped forward, carrying a wicker basket.

Inside was a puppy. A German Shepherd.

Its ears were perked, its teeth sharp and white.

I took a sharp step back. My breath hitched in my throat.

When I was ten, the head of security's dogs had gotten loose in the servant quarters. One of them had torn my calf open. I still bore the jagged, silvery scars.

Dante knew this.

He *knew*.

"His name is Ari," Sofia said, thrusting the basket toward my chest. "Take him. He's a protector."

The puppy barked, a high-pitched snap.

I flinched violently, knocking into a passing waiter.

"Take it, Elena," Sofia pressed, her eyes gleaming. "Don't be rude."

"I... I can't," I stammered, my palms slick with sweat.

"Dante," Sofia pouted, turning to him. "She's refusing my gift."

Dante looked at the crowd. They were watching. Waiting to see if the mistress would defy the future Donna.

"Elena," Dante said, his voice tight with warning. "Take the dog. It's a gesture of peace."

"Dante, please," I whispered, pleading with him to remember. "You know."

"Just take the damn dog!" he snapped.

I reached out with trembling hands.

The puppy, sensing my terror, lunged.

It didn't bite, but it scrambled frantically out of the basket.

It bolted.

It ran straight into a towering pyramid of champagne glasses.

*Crash.*

The sound was deafening as hundreds of glasses shattered.

Dante moved instantly.

He threw his body over Sofia, shielding her from the falling shards.

Glass rained down like jagged hail.

A large shard sliced across my forearm. Another grazed my cheek.

I stood there, blood welling on my skin, watching him hold her.

He checked her face. Her arms. Her hair.

"Are you okay?" he asked her, his voice frantic.

"I'm scared," she whimpered, burying her face in his chest.

Only then did he look at me.

He saw the blood running down my arm, dripping onto the marble floor.

For a second, regret flashed in his eyes.

But then the crowd murmured.

"Get her to the ER," Dante barked at a nearby soldier, his mask slamming back into place. "Clean this mess up."

He turned back to Sofia.

"Come on," he said softly to her. "Let's get you out of here."

He walked her out.

Again.

I stood in the ruins of the party, bleeding, while the guests laughed behind their hands.

The soldier grabbed my uninjured arm roughly. "Let's go, Miss Rossi."

I looked at the shattered glass glittering on the floor.

It looked exactly like my life.

"No," I said, yanking my arm free.

"I'll take myself."

I walked out into the night alone.

Seven days left.

And I was going to make every single one of them count toward his destruction.