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.

Elara POV:

The statement was a declaration of war. Within minutes, my name-and face-was everywhere. The whispers from the restaurant had erupted into a digital firestorm. I was a home-wrecker. A fraud. A pathetic, obsessed girl trying to steal the life of a better woman.

I found him in his penthouse office, its glass walls overlooking the entire city.

"Why?" I screamed, my voice raw. "Why did you give her my work?"

He didn't even have the decency to look guilty. He admitted it with a chilling casualness.

"Isabella didn't mean for them to be published," he said. "But a major Moretti company is going public next week. We can't afford a scandal. You need to take the fall for this one, Elara."

The words tasted like ash in my mouth. "Take the fall?" I repeated. "Dante, this will destroy me. This will ruin my chances of ever getting into Paris. It's a stain that will follow me for the rest of my life."

He was dismissive, already looking at his watch, his mind elsewhere. "You don't need art school. I'll take care of you forever." He was already moving toward the door.

"She already knows she was wrong," he added, as if that fixed everything. "Just drop it."

I remembered a time when a man had insulted me at a gala, and Dante had quietly had him removed, his hand broken in three places. He had come back to me, his eyes dark with possession, and had whispered, "I'm here."

That man was gone.

I spent the next two days erasing myself from this life, packing the few belongings I had left. I was preparing to leave this city for good right after I visited my father's grave. The past was a ghost I could no longer live with.

The door to my temporary apartment burst open. Dante stormed in, his face a mask of raw fury.

He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my skin. "Where is she? Where have you taken Isabella?"

I stared at him, bewildered. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb with me," he snarled. "She's missing. Kidnapped."

"I don't know anything about it," I said, trying to pull away.

A cruel disbelief twisted his features. His patience, already worn thin, snapped. He shoved me away from him, and I stumbled back.

"Besides you"-his voice dripped with contempt-"who else would give a damn about a little plagiarism?"

His phone rang. He listened for a moment, his expression hardening from rage into a cold, venomous fury directed entirely at me. He hung up.

"I don't even know who you are anymore," he said, his voice a low growl.

He turned and left without a backward glance.

I stumbled, my hand flying to my mouth as a sharp, metallic taste filled it. I coughed, and a spray of crimson bloomed against my skin.

Elara POV:

The cemetery was quiet, the air heavy with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. It was the anniversary of my father's death.

"I'm better now, Dad," I whispered, tracing the cold, carved letters of his name. "I'm leaving. I'm going to start over."

I remembered Dante's promise, made at this very spot years ago. I'll come here with you, every year. You won't be alone.

I waited until nightfall, a silent vigil under a starless sky. The car I'd called was late. As I stood by the cemetery gates, a hand clamped over my mouth from behind. A sweet, cloying smell filled my nostrils, and the world went black.

I woke to darkness and pain. I was bound and gagged, shoved inside a rough burlap sack. Every time I struggled, a heavy boot slammed into my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs.

I was dragged across what felt like a field of rocks and gravel, the rough terrain tearing at my skin through the thin fabric of the sack.

Then I heard his voice. Dante's. And hers. Isabella's.

"Please, Dante, perhaps let them go?" Isabella's voice held a brittle, rehearsed tremor. "They were only hired hands."

Dante laughed, a cold, cruel sound that seemed to scrape the marrow from my bones. "This will be a lesson, Bella. A lesson to anyone who ever dares to cross my wife."

A horrifying clarity sliced through the pain. This was a setup.

"Tie her to the helicopter," Dante ordered his men.

My heart hammered against my ribs. No.

"Dante, isn't this a bit... much?" Isabella asked, her tone laced with the detached curiosity of a spectator.

"I know what I'm doing," he reassured her, his voice softening. "Just watch the kite fly."

The roar of helicopter blades filled the air, deafening me. Then, a violent lurch. My body was dragged across the ground, scraped raw over rocks and thorns until every nerve screamed.

The helicopter ascended. I was hoisted into the air, a broken puppet dangling from a string. I could feel the warm slickness of my own blood, a grotesque rain falling from my battered body.

Then, the sickening sensation of falling.

The drop wasn't high, but it was high enough. I felt bones snap, a blinding, white-hot pain exploding through me before the world started to fade.

The sack was ripped from my head.

My last conscious sight was of Dante, wrapping his arm protectively around Isabella's shoulders. He turned and walked away with her, leaving me broken and bleeding on the ground.

I tried to scream his name, but all that came out was a choked, bloody laugh-a sound that clawed its way out of my ruined lungs.