The apartment was eerily quiet.

I stood in the middle of the living room, listening to the silence. There was no traffic noise from the street below, no hum from the refrigerator. Just the sound of my own breathing.

I walked into the bathroom and flipped on the light.

The woman in the mirror was a stranger.

My hair was a disaster-tangled, soaked, plastered to my scalp in some places and sticking out in others. My eyes were red and swollen, yet completely dry. As for my face... my face was a living record of exactly what I'd been through over the last few hours.

The cut on my cheek had stopped bleeding, leaving a dark red trail from my cheekbone down to the corner of my mouth. It wasn't deep enough to need stitches, but it would definitely scar.

Good.

I wanted a scar. I wanted something permanent to remember the night I finally woke up.

I found the first-aid kit under the sink-a pristine white box that looked like it had never been opened. Everything inside was perfectly organized, the bandages still wrapped in their plastic film.

Did Dante even know where the first-aid kit was? I wondered. Probably not. He had people for that. He had me.

With trembling hands, I wrapped a bandage around my forearm. I wasn't a nurse, but over the years, I'd patched up enough of Dante's men to pick up the basics.

It was ironic, really. I'd spent so much time taking care of everyone else, yet I'd never learned how to take care of myself.

I was just securing the bandage with medical tape when my phone buzzed on the nightstand, shattering the quiet.

The sound was so sudden, so jarring in the empty apartment, that I nearly dropped the scissors.

I walked into the bedroom and picked up the phone.

Sophia.

Her name glared on my screen like an accusation.

She had unblocked me just to send a text.

I almost didn't open it.

Sophia: Sweetie, so sorry about your dress. But honestly, white isn't your color anyway. It's for brides. You looked like a stain standing next to Dante. Have fun hanging out with the dog. Or did it run away too?

A photo came next.

It was a selfie. She was sitting in the passenger seat of a Maybach-my husband's car.

Her hair was immaculate, her makeup flawless, and her smile dazzling. She looked like she had just won the lottery.

Dante was driving. His hand rested casually, yet possessively, high on her thigh.

I stared at that picture for a long time.

My eyes traced the lines of his face-his sharp jawline, his dark hair, the intense focus in his eyes even when he was just driving.

But it was the face of a stranger.

Because the Dante I knew wouldn't do this. The Dante I knew wouldn't have his hand on another woman's thigh while his wife was bleeding in an alley. The Dante I knew wouldn't let his mistress send me pictures of them having fun.

But that Dante didn't exist.

He never had.

He was a figment of my imagination. I had taken a broken, angry boy and molded him into something he was never meant to be. I had written a love story in my head, casting him as the hero, when in reality, he was just the villain.

I didn't cry.

I was done crying.

I set the phone down and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows. The rain had finally stopped. The city sprawled out beneath me, glittering yet cold and unforgiving. Somewhere out there, people were sleeping peacefully. Somewhere, couples were curled up together, dreaming of forever.

It was 2:00 a.m.

I threw on a plain black hoodie and slipped out of the penthouse without a backward glance.

The elevator ride felt endless. The lobby was deserted. The doorman barely glanced up as I walked past.

Outside, the air smelled of wet concrete and infinite possibilities.

When I reached the gates of the Vitiello estate, the guards recognized me.

"Bit late for a visit," one of them noted, his tone flat and disinterested.

"I forgot something," I said. "I'll be quick."

He waved me through without another look.

I walked the familiar paths, but with foreign eyes.

I crossed the damp grass toward the rear gardens, walking past the rose bushes I'd pruned countless times, past the fountain where I used to sit and read, past the bench where Dante had kissed me for the first time.

The old peach tree stood at the edge of the property, its branches gnarled yet steadfast.

Seven years ago, on Dante's eighteenth birthday, we had buried a time capsule among its roots.

I still remembered that day vividly. The party had been extravagant-hundreds of guests, a live band, and catering from the city. But Dante had quietly slipped away from the crowd. He found me hiding out in the gardens and asked me to help him bury something.

"I want to remember who I am," he had said.

He wasn't the Godfather then. And I was already in love with him.

I had loved him so much it ached.

I dropped to my knees in the mud.

The rain had soaked the earth, making it soft, but that didn't make digging any easier. I didn't bother looking for a shovel; I dug with my bare hands. The dirt was freezing, heavy, and gritty. It wedged under my fingernails and stuck to the cuts on my palms.

My fingers scraped against rocks-small pebbles at first, then larger stones. I pried them out and tossed them aside. The fresh bandages on my arm were soaked through, black mud mixing with bright blood. The cut on my cheek throbbed with every heartbeat.

I didn't care.

I was desperately searching for answers. I was searching for proof that I hadn't just imagined it all. I was searching for the girl I used to be-the girl who believed in wishes, promises, and happily-ever-afters.

My fingers hit metal.

The sound was dull and hollow.

I scraped away more dirt until I saw it-the rusty tin box we had buried. Most of the paint had peeled away, exposing the corroded metal underneath.

I yanked it out of the ground and set it on my lap.

I pried open the lid.

Inside were two folded pieces of paper and a tarnished silver locket.

The paper was yellowed with age, its edges soft from the dampness. They were still folded exactly as we had left them-neat little squares carrying our deepest desires.

I unfolded my paper first.

My own handwriting stared back at me-loopy and childish, written by someone who still believed in fairy tales.

I will serve and love Dante Vitiello until the end of my days. I will be his light.

I stared at those words.

I had written them in blood. Literally. I had pricked my finger on a rose thorn and used the blood as ink. It felt so romantic, so poetic at the time. A blood oath. A promise written with the only thing I truly owned.

What a stupid, naive girl I had been.

What a waste of blood.

I traced the words with my fingertips, feeling the faint indentations on the paper, the physical marks of everything I had given up. Seven years. Seven years of devotion. Seven years of loving a man who had never loved me back.

And for what?

So I could sit in a mud puddle at 3:00 a.m. and dig up the proof of my own stupidity?

I set my note aside and unfolded Dante's.

His handwriting was neater, sharper than mine. He had pressed down hard on the paper, leaving grooves that were still clearly visible all these years later.

I wish to see again. I wish for my family to be strong. I wish for Sophia to be safe.

Sophia.

Even back then. Even when she ignored him, even when she dated other boys, even when I sat beside him every single day, listening to his dreams, reading to him, loving him-he had still used his wish to pray for her safety.

Not mine.

Never me.

I was never part of his plan. I wasn't even a footnote. I was just the shovel he used to bury me.

I read the words again, letting them really sink in. I wish for Sophia to be safe. Not happy. Not to be with him. Just safe. Even at eighteen, he knew he couldn't have her. He knew she was out of reach. But he yearned for her anyway.

And I had yearned for him.

How pathetic was that?

I picked up my piece of paper-my bloody oath, my bygone promise-and tore it to shreds.

Then I walked over to the drainage grate near the fountain.

The water rushing below was dark and swift, carrying the night's rain down into the sewers. I let the fragments fall, watching them drift down like dead leaves. They hit the water and scattered; some floated, while others sank immediately.

I watched until the very last scrap vanished into the darkness.

Swept down the sewer, exactly where they belonged.

Then I picked up the locket.

He gave it to me the night his sight was restored. I still remembered that night clearly-the way he looked at me, really looked at me, for the very first time.

His gaze had focused on my face; he was seeing me, not just hearing my voice. And he had smiled.

"This is for you," he had said, pressing the locket into my palm. "It was my grandmother's. She always said wearing it brought good luck. I want you to have it."

For years, I had worn it every single day.

I had slept with it under my pillow. I had kissed it for luck before his surgery. On the nights he didn't come home, I clutched it tightly, believing it would keep him safe.

I popped it open-for the first time in years.

Inside was a tiny photograph-so small I had almost forgotten it was there. It was a picture of us taken before the accident, before he lost his sight.

We were just teenagers, sitting right under this very tree. He was laughing at something I was saying. I was looking at him like he hung the moon.

I snapped the locket shut.

I went back to the tree and dug a new hole, deeper this time.

I dropped the silver chain into the muck.

It landed with a soft thud and disappeared into the shadows. I shoved the dirt back in and packed it down with my hands. I patted the earth flat until the ground looked completely undisturbed.

I wasn't just burying a necklace.

I was burying Elena Rossi.

The girl who believed in wishes. The girl who wrote oaths in blood. The girl who thought love could fix a broken man.

She was dead.

I had killed her.

I stood up and brushed the dirt from my knees. My hands were caked in mud and blood, my arm ached dully, and my cheek stung with a fiery heat. I looked like I had just crawled out of a grave.

Maybe I had.

My phone vibrated.

I pulled it out. The screen was cracked-I couldn't remember dropping it, but there it was, a spiderweb of shattered glass webbing out from the corner.

Dante: Are you okay? Luca said you refused the ride.

I stared at the screen.

Three hours. It took him three hours to check on me. It had been three hours since I walked away from him, out of that alley.

Three hours of him driving Sophia around with his hand on her thigh, while I was bleeding, digging, and burying.

I typed a reply.

Me: I'm fine. I don't need you.

I hit send before I had the chance to hesitate.

Then I turned and walked out of the garden, leaving my heart to rot beneath the peach tree.

I had returned for one reason only: my passport.

It was locked in the safe at the Estate, tucked away in the small, modest room I used to occupy near the kitchen.

I had assumed the house would be empty at this hour.

I was wrong.

I slipped through the side entrance, shaking the heavy rain from my coat, shivering as the damp cold clung to my skin.

Laughter drifted down the hallway, light and carefree.

It was coming from the music room.

I should have turned around right then.

But my feet moved on their own, drawn by a force I couldn't resist.

I walked to the open double doors and froze.

Dante sat at the grand piano, his posture rigid yet elegant.

He was playing *Liebestraum*. A dream of love.

It was the song he had written when he was blind, composed in the darkness that had once consumed him.

He used to play it for me at 3:00 AM, in the quiet hours when the pain in his eyes became unbearable.

He had told me, once, that the melody was the very sound of my voice.

Now, he was playing it for her.

Sofia sat on the bench beside him, too close.

She leaned her head on his shoulder, her fingers trailing playfully over the keys, pretending to play along in a mockery of intimacy.

She looked up, her gaze landing on me standing in the doorway.

Her eyes lit up with pure malice.

"Oh, look, Dante," she cooed, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "The help is back."

Dante's hands faltered on the keys.

The music died abruptly.

He turned.

His eyes found mine across the room.

"Elena," he said, his voice low and guarded. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting my things," I replied.

My voice sounded hollow, like wind whistling through an abandoned house.

"Don't be rude, Dante," Sofia scolded lightly, placing a possessive hand on his chest. "Play the rest. I love this song. You wrote it for me, didn't you?"

Dante looked at me.

He knew.

He knew that I knew.

But he didn't correct her.

"Yeah," he said, his dark eyes never leaving mine, cold and unyielding. "I wrote it for you, Sofia."

Something inside me snapped.

A final, vital cord severed.

Sofia smiled, victorious.

She leaned in.

She pressed her lips to his.

It wasn't a quick peck; it was a claim of ownership.

Dante didn't push her away.

He didn't pull back.

He simply closed his eyes and let her kiss him.

I stood there and watched them.

I watched the man I had bathed, the man I had fed, the man I had saved from the brink of despair, kiss the woman who had left him to rot.

I didn't scream.

I simply turned around.

I walked out the front door.

It was pouring now, the rain transforming into a thunderstorm.

I didn't run for cover.

I walked straight into the deluge.

The water mixed with the tears on my face, making them indistinguishable.

I was free.

I had nothing left to lose, because he had just taken the last thing I truly owned.

My memories.