Elara POV:

I watched them from my window, a tableau of staged grief. Isabella sobbed into Dante's chest, the very picture of a fragile, trembling thing. He held her, his broad back a fortress, murmuring words I couldn't hear. But I didn't need to.

I watched his lips form the familiar shapes of a sentence I'd heard a thousand times before. You're my wife. You shouldn't hide something like this from me.

The words were meant for her, but they seared themselves onto my own skin.

At the nurses' station, the gossip was a low, buzzing hum. Dante Moretti-the cold-hearted Devil, they called him-was a devoted husband. He'd flown in specialists from Johns Hopkins for Isabella. He'd bought out every digital billboard in the city to wish her a happy birthday last month. He'd had a man's tongue cut out for making a crude comment about her at a restaurant.

I returned to my room, numb. The lie of his "loveless contract" was laid bare, exposed under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital. His heart wasn't just occupied; it was conquered.

In the days that followed, I never saw him. But his name was a constant presence, always linked with hers. Mr. and Mrs. Moretti.

On the day of my discharge, they arrived together to pick me up. Isabella, her face a mask of saccharine sympathy, offered a flawless apology for the "terrible accident." She insisted I come to their third anniversary party at the Moretti estate that weekend.

"We're family, after all," she'd said, her smile never reaching her eyes.

Against my better judgment, I went. Some self-destructive part of me needed to see the wreckage up close. The estate was glittering, transformed into a monument to their love. A massive screen on the lawn played a looping video montage: Dante and Isabella in Paris, Dante and Isabella on a yacht in the Mediterranean, Dante and Isabella cutting a cake, laughing.

Then, a clip of him kissing her. It wasn't a perfunctory peck. It was deep, hungry, passionate. The kind of kiss he used to give me. The air turned to glass in my lungs.

"I never thought I'd see the Don so completely smitten," a woman whispered behind me. "She really tamed the devil."

I couldn't breathe. I stumbled away from the crowd, seeking refuge in the sudden quiet of the back garden. But even here, she had replaced me. My beloved white lilies, the ones Dante had planted for me years ago, were gone. In their place stood rows and rows of blood-red roses, Isabella's favorite.

A blur of black fur shot out from the shadows. It was one of Dante's prized hunting hounds, a massive, snarling beast. It barreled into me, knocking me off my feet. I landed hard on the stone path.

Isabella screamed.

I saw Dante's head whip around. His first, immediate instinct was to move in front of his wife, shielding her from a threat that didn't exist.

He saw me on the ground. He saw the dog. And he did not move.

The hound, agitated by the scream, turned on me. It lunged, its teeth sinking into the soft flesh of my calf. A searing, white-hot pain shot up my leg.

But the agony in my heart was infinitely worse.

Elara POV:

I sat in silence on the edge of the hospital bed as a doctor stitched the gash in my leg. Dante stood by the window, his back to me, his voice a low murmur into his phone. His attention was a world away, his concern for me a mask so thin I could see the indifference right through it.

He had fallen for her and was the last to know. The thought was so bitter it almost tasted like a laugh.

"Does it hurt?" he finally asked, pocketing his phone and turning to face me. His brow furrowed with what was meant to be worry. "Are you hungry?"

"Go be with Isabella," I said, my voice devoid of inflection. "She must have been terrified."

"This isn't about her," he insisted, his jaw tightening. "My life with her is a performance, Elara. You know that."

I met his gaze, a strange calm settling over me. The physical pain, sharp and clean, had cauterized the last of my hope. "What if she never has the heir, Dante? What then?"

His silence was the only answer I needed. And in it, I found a profound, liberating release. I would endure this-this life, this marriage-until the anniversary of my father's death. And then I would be gone.

As a nurse administered a rabies shot-the final indignity-I watched him step back into the hallway, his phone already pressed to his ear. Through the glass, I could see the gentle curve of his lips, a softness in his eyes reserved only for her. I turned away, the sight a fresh wound.

I remembered Caterina Moretti's words from years ago, hissed at me in a cold, empty hallway: You will never be enough for him. You don't have the bloodline. You are a weakness he cannot afford.

She was right.

For my birthday, Dante made a grand gesture. An entire waterfront restaurant-a glittering jewel box overlooking the river-booked just for us.

"Aren't you afraid Isabella will be upset?" I asked as he pulled out my chair.

"Do not mention her name tonight," he snapped, his voice a blade.

He produced a small, velvet box. Inside lay a delicate jade bracelet. Recognition was instant and cold. It was the same one from the gossip magazines-the gift Isabella had publicly rejected, calling it "tacky." Bile burned the back of my throat.

I forced a smile as he clasped it around my wrist. He visibly relaxed, pleased with what he mistook for appreciation.

Just then, the sky beyond the panoramic windows ignited. A meteor shower. A cascade of falling stars painted silver streaks across the velvet-black canvas of the night. We had promised to watch one together, a lifetime ago.

For a fleeting second, my heart ached with the ghost of what we'd lost. I was about to thank him-to offer a single sliver of warmth in this cold new reality of ours.

But the heavy glass doors of the restaurant burst open. Isabella stood silhouetted in the doorway, her face a mess of tears, clutching the limp body of a small, white puppy to her chest.

"You poisoned him!" she shrieked, her trembling finger aimed straight at me. "You killed my baby!"

Elara POV:

My eyes weren't on the dead puppy. They were fixed on the object glinting around its neck. A silver medallion, tarnished with age, stamped with the Moretti crest. It was my father's medallion-the one given to him for twenty years of loyal service to Dante's father, the one I'd entrusted to Dante for safekeeping after the funeral.

I reached for it, a strangled cry catching in my throat.

Isabella clutched the puppy's body to her chest and sank into Dante's waiting arms, her sobs great, theatrical wails.

"Elara, explain this," Dante said, his voice dangerously low. His arms were wrapped around Isabella, but his eyes, cold and hard as river stones, were locked on me.

"I didn't do it," I said, my voice shaking.

Isabella produced a small, orange pill bottle from her pocket. "I found this near his water bowl. It's hers."

I recognized the bottle instantly. My anti-anxiety pills. From the clinic. "The pills are mine, but I didn't do it," I insisted, my gaze snapping back to the medallion. "Give that back to me. That's my father's."

"Apologize to her," Dante ordered, stepping in front of me, blocking my path.

The whispers of the other diners rose around me, a venomous buzz. "Vicious." "Cares more about a trinket than a dead animal."

I looked past him, my eyes finding Dante's. "Did you let her use my father's medallion as a dog toy?" My voice was a blade of contempt I didn't know I possessed. "You have no heart."

For the first time, Dante's gaze truly registered the medallion. A flicker of something-recognition, maybe shame-crossed his face. He turned to Isabella. "What did you do?" he demanded.

Terrified, Isabella fumbled with the clasp. She held the medallion out, her hand trembling. Then, just as I reached for it, her fingers feigned a slip.

The silver disc flew through the air in a slow, perfect arc and disappeared into the dark, churning water of the river below.

My world stopped.

Pure, blind instinct took over. I scrambled over the railing of the restaurant's terrace and plunged into the freezing, black water. The shock of the cold was a physical blow, but I barely felt it. I just needed to find it. My hands scrabbled blindly in the mud and silt at the river bottom until my fingers closed around the cool, familiar metal.

I surfaced, gasping, clutching the medallion in my numb hand.

My eyes found the terrace. Dante was no longer looking for me. He was standing with his arm around Isabella, pointing up at the sky. He was showing her the meteor shower.

Not even the stars were for me.

A bitter, hollow laugh escaped my lips. The cold wasn't just in the water; it was in my soul. I regretted every second I had ever spent loving him.

His head finally whipped back toward the river, his eyes widening as he saw me. He rushed to the railing. "Are you hurt?" he called down, his voice laced with a panicky concern that was three years too late.

I held up the medallion, river water dripping from my clenched fist. "Do you think my father's honor"-I shouted, my voice cracking-"that I-am worth less than a dog?"