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?"

Elara POV:

I remember a time, years ago, when Caterina Moretti told Dante I was a liability, a low-born distraction. He had turned to his mother, his voice quiet but laced with a terrifying stillness. "She is mine. And if you ever speak to her that way again, I will forget you are my mother." He had defied the Matriarch for me. It was a promise etched in the defiance of a son against his queen. A promise I thought unbreakable.

Now, as Dante tried to stammer out an explanation for his behavior at the restaurant, Isabella let out a soft cry and crumpled to the floor.

His reaction was instantaneous. He didn't spare me a single glance-me, dripping and shivering from the river-as he scooped Isabella into his arms. His face, once my sanctuary, was now a mask of glacial indifference.

He walked right past me.

"Wait here," he commanded, his voice devoid of any warmth.

Just before her eyes fluttered shut, I saw it. A faint, triumphant smirk curled Isabella's lips.

I woke up to the smell of disinfectant and the steady beep of a heart monitor. An IV was taped to the back of my hand.

Dante was sitting in a chair by the window, his expression grim. He didn't ask if I was okay. He didn't mention the river, or my father's medallion.

"Your mental state is unstable," he said, his voice flat and clinical. "I'm sending you back to the clinic in Switzerland. It's for the best."

The words hollowed me out, a phantom fist to the gut. He was twisting the trauma he had inflicted into a weapon, branding me as unstable.

"Are you ever going to divorce her?" I asked, my voice a raw whisper.

He looked away, staring out the window at the city lights. "There are... complications."

I pulled the simple silver ring from my finger. The one he'd given me years ago, a promise of a future that had been stolen. With a flick of my wrist, I threw it. It sailed through the open window and disappeared into the night.

His jaw tightened. He looked like he was about to say something, but a nurse appeared in the doorway, her presence a sharp intrusion.

"Mr. Moretti, your wife has a headache. She's asking for you."

He stood up immediately. "Call if you need anything," he said to me over his shoulder, already walking out the door to tend to her.

He never came back. Not for the next three days. He sent his men, of course. They brought food in sterile containers and bottles of nutritional supplements, leaving them on the table like offerings to a ghost. I was a problem to be managed, not a person to be cared for.

On the day of my discharge, my phone buzzed. It was a message from a friend from art school.

Is this you? What is going on?

It was a link. I clicked it.

My breath hitched. It was my art. My portfolio. The pieces I had poured my soul into for my application to the Parisian academy. They were splashed across a popular art blog, showcased in a digital gallery.

But the name under the collection wasn't mine.

It was Isabella Rossi Moretti.

The accompanying article accused an unnamed student-me-of blatant plagiarism, of trying to steal the work of the Don's talented wife.

My blood ran cold. Only one person in the world had access to that portfolio. Only one person could have given it to her.

Dante.

I fled the hospital, my hand trembling as I hailed a cab. I had to see him. I had to hear him deny it.

The cab dropped me in front of the towering Moretti Corporation building. As I stumbled from the cab toward the entrance, my gaze was snagged by the massive news ticker scrolling across the building's facade.

MORETTI CORPORATION RELEASES STATEMENT CONFIRMING ISABELLA MORETTI AS THE ARTIST BEHIND THE 'ECHOES OF WINTER' COLLECTION, CONDEMNS PLAGIARISM ATTEMPT.