I woke to the sterile sting of antiseptic and the oppressive weight of silence.

There were no flowers brightening the gray room.

No get-well cards lining the windowsill.

There was only the steady, rhythmic beep of the cardiac monitor, counting away the seconds of my isolation.

My left leg was encased in a heavy cast, elevated on a sling. My shoulder throbbed beneath thick bandages.

I pressed the call button, my fingers trembling slightly.

A nurse bustled in a moment later. She looked exhausted, her uniform rumpled.

"Where is my family?" I asked, my voice scraping against my dry throat.

Her eyes darted away, avoiding mine.

"Mr. Moretti and your sister are in the VIP suite down the hall," she said, smoothing the sheets unnecessarily. "Miss Vitiello was treated for shock."

Shock.

A bitter laugh bubbled up in my chest, but I choked it down as agony flared in my bruised ribs.

I had broken bones. She had shock.

And they were with her.

"I need pain medication," I rasped.

"The doctor hasn't signed off on the new dose yet," she said apologetically. "He is with your sister right now."

Of course he was.

I waited an hour. The pain in my leg transformed from a dull ache into a throbbing, living thing that gnawed at my sanity.

Finally, the heavy door swung open.

It wasn't the doctor.

It was Dante.

He strode in, his broad shoulders instantly making the small hospital room feel claustrophobic. He didn't look concerned; he looked irritated.

"Isabella is very upset," he said without preamble, his voice clipped.

I stared at him, unable to process the callousness.

"The sign almost killed her," he continued, pacing to the foot of the bed. "She is traumatized."

"It fell on me, Dante," I whispered, the injustice burning hotter than my injuries.

He glanced briefly at my elevated leg, his expression unreadable.

"You have a fracture. You will heal. Isabella is delicate. Her kidneys... stress is poison to her."

He walked to the bedside table and dropped a plastic takeout container onto the metal surface with a loud clatter.

"Mother wants you to eat," he said. "We ordered from the seafood place Isabella likes. She didn't want the shrimp scampi, so she said you could have it."

I stared at the condensation on the lid.

Shrimp.

"I am allergic to shellfish," I said, my gaze snapping back to his.

Dante frowned, a line appearing between his brows.

"Stop lying, Seraphina. Isabella said you love it. She told me you're just being difficult because you want attention."

"I'm allergic," I repeated, panic rising in my chest. "My throat closes up. I can't breathe."

Dante leaned over the bed, invading my personal space. His hands gripped the metal railing with white-knuckled force.

"Isabella is trying to be nice to you after you ruined her evening. You will eat it. Consider it discipline for your attitude."

He popped the lid open. The pungent aroma of garlic and shellfish filled the air, turning my stomach.

"Eat," he ordered.

I looked into his eyes—dark, demanding, and utterly devoid of mercy.

The eyes of the man I had saved.

He was a monster.

Realizing that fighting him would only expend energy I didn't have, I made a calculation. I picked up the plastic fork.

I took a bite.

I swallowed, feeling the slide of it like a stone down my gullet.

Dante watched me for a moment, satisfied that his will had been imposed.

"Good," he said, straightening his suit jacket. "Stop the drama."

He turned on his heel and walked out.

The second the door clicked shut, I dragged myself upright.

Ignoring the screaming pain in my leg, I hopped on one foot to the cramped bathroom.

I shoved my fingers down my throat.

I retched until my stomach was completely empty, until I was dry heaving nothing but bitter bile and saliva.

My hands shook violently as I gripped the porcelain sink.

I splashed cold water on my face, gasping for air.

I needed to get out. I was suffocating.

I found a wheelchair folded in the hallway and managed to collapse into it, wheeling myself away from that room.

I made my way to the hospital courtyard.

It was deserted. A stone fountain bubbled in the center, the water looking black in the moonlight.

I sat there, shivering in my thin, open-backed hospital gown, trying to stabilize my breathing.

"Well, look who it is."

My head snapped up.

Isabella was standing there. She was wearing a luxurious silk robe, looking perfectly, infuriatingly healthy.

She sauntered over to me.

"Dante is so protective, isn't he?" she mused, trailing her manicured fingers through the fountain water.

"He thinks you're the one who saved him," I said quietly, the words hollow.

Isabella smiled. It was a cold, sharp expression that didn't reach her eyes.

"I know," she said.

She leaned in close, her perfume cloying.

"I know about the safe house, Seraphina. I know about the vanilla candles you lit for him. I know about the prayers you whispered."

My breath hitched. She knew everything.

"But he prefers the beautiful lie," she whispered, her voice like venomous silk. "He doesn't want a savior who looks like you. He wants a queen."

She glanced back toward the glass doors of the hospital.

Then she looked at me, her eyes gleaming with malice.

"You really should be more careful," she said.

She stepped back.

Then she lunged.

She didn't push me.

She grabbed my injured arm and yanked me forward.

I lost my balance. The wheelchair tipped violently.

I hit the stone pavers hard. My heavy cast dragged me down, anchoring me to the ground as pain exploded in my shoulder.

Isabella screamed.

It was a performance—a piercing, bloodcurdling shriek of terror.

"Help! Dante! Help me!"

She threw herself backward into the shallow water of the fountain.

She splashed wildly, thrashing as if she were drowning in two feet of water.

The hospital doors burst open.

Dante sprinted into the courtyard, his face a mask of panic.

He saw me on the ground.

He saw Isabella flailing in the water.

He didn't ask questions.

He saw exactly what he expected to see.

The unstable, jealous sister attacking his fragile fiancée.

Seraphina Vitiello POV

Dante crashed into the water, shattering the surface.

He gathered Isabella into his arms as if she were made of spun glass, shielding her from a threat that didn't exist.

She was sobbing hysterically, her fingers clawing at his soaked shirt.

"She tried to drown me!" she wailed, her voice echoing off the stone walls. "She tried to kill me, Dante!"

I lay sprawled on the cold stones, my breath hitching as agony tore through me.

My fractured leg was twisted at a sickening angle beneath me. Pain radiated up my thigh, white-hot and blinding, stealing the air from my lungs.

I tried to push myself up, my arms trembling.

Dante turned.

His face was no longer the face of the man I knew. It was a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.

"You are sick," he spat, the words landing like physical blows.

"I didn't touch her," I gasped, fighting the black spots dancing in my vision.

"Liar!" Isabella screamed, burying her face in the crook of his neck to hide her dry eyes. "She said she hated me! She said she wished the sign had killed me!"

Dante stepped out of the fountain, water streaming from his clothes. He set Isabella down gently on a stone bench, treating her with a tenderness that shattered my heart.

Then, he turned his attention to me.

He stalked forward, water dripping from his clothes like blood.

He looked like an executioner.

"Attempted murder on a made man's fiancée," he said. His voice was terrifyingly calm, a deadly contrast to the rage in his eyes. "Do you know the punishment for that, Seraphina?"

"You're blind," I whispered, my voice cracking.

He stopped dead.

"What did you say?"

"You were blind when I found you, and you are blind now," I rasped, looking up at him through a haze of pain. "You see nothing."

Before he could respond, my father burst into the courtyard, flanked by two soldiers.

"What is happening?" the Don roared, his presence sucking the oxygen from the air.

"She attacked Isabella!" Dante shouted, never taking his eyes off me.

My father didn't hesitate. He didn't ask for my side. He didn't look at my broken leg.

He crossed the distance in two strides and backhanded me across the face.

The force of the blow snapped my head back. Metallic tang filled my mouth. I tasted blood.

"Disgrace," my father hissed, looking down at me as if I were something he had scraped off his shoe.

"Take her to the Cooler," Dante ordered the soldiers, his voice devoid of mercy.

My eyes went wide with terror.

The Cooler. The hospital morgue. The place where they kept the bodies before disposal.

"Dante, no," I pleaded, panic overriding the pain in my leg. "It's freezing down there. You can't..."

"You need to cool off," he said coldly, turning his back on me. "Maybe a night with the dead will teach you to respect the living."

The soldiers seized my arms.

They didn't help me stand. They dragged me.

My cast scraped loudly against the concrete, vibrating the shattered bone beneath.

I screamed, a raw, guttural sound, but no one listened. No one cared.

They shoved me into the service elevator.

They took me down, past the basement, into the bowels of the building.

The air grew sharp and biting. The chemical sting of formaldehyde assaulted my nose.

They hauled me to the heavy steel door of the morgue and threw it open.

Inside, rows of stainless steel drawers lined the walls, gleaming under the harsh fluorescent lights.

It was freezing. A tomb of ice.

They threw me onto the tiled floor. My hip slammed against the hard surface, sending fresh waves of nausea through me.

"Think about what you did," one of the soldiers sneered.

Then they slammed the door.

The lock clicked with a sound of finality.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

It was absolute. Heavy. Suffocating.

The cold began to seep into my bones immediately, bypassing my skin and settling deep in my marrow.

I curled into a ball, tucking my knees to my chest, trying desperately to preserve heat.

My teeth began to chatter violently.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to imagine the safe house.

I tried to remember the crackle and heat of the fireplace.

I tried to remember Dante's body heat, the way I had lain next to him to stop his shivering when the fever took him.

*I am cold, Sette,* he had whispered then, vulnerable and broken.

*I am here,* I had answered, holding him tight.* I will keep you warm.*

I had given him my warmth.

I had given him my blanket.

And now, he had locked me in a freezer.

The irony felt like a serrated knife twisting in my gut.

As the hypothermia set in, I started to hallucinate.

I saw shadows detach themselves from the corners.

I heard whispers echoing off the tiles.

I realized they were the voices of the girls who had died on the operating table before me. The other spares. The ones who hadn't made it.

I was going to die here.

And the man I loved was the one who had turned the key.

Seraphina Vitiello POV

The door groaned open, the sound of grinding metal echoing against the concrete walls.

Light flooded in, harsh and sudden, blinding me.

I was huddled in the corner, my lips blue and my body shaking uncontrollably.

Dante stood in the doorway.

He was dry now, immaculate in a fresh suit.

He looked at me with undisguised disgust.

"Get up," he said.

I tried. But my legs wouldn't work; they were numb, dead weight beneath me.

He sighed, impatient.

He walked over and hauled me up by my arm with zero gentleness.

My frozen limbs screamed in protest as the blood rushed back too quickly.

"Have you repented?" he asked.

I looked at him.

His eyes were hard as flint.

"Yes," I whispered. My voice was a broken croak.

"Good. Because tonight is the engagement gala. You will be there. You will smile. And you will apologize to your sister."

He dragged me out of the morgue.

He didn't offer me a jacket.

We went back to the estate in silence.

Once inside, I went straight to my room.

I took a scalding shower, trying to scrub the smell of death off my skin.

My skin turned raw and red, but I still felt cold inside.

After drying off, I walked to my closet.

I pulled out a shoebox from the back shelf.

It held everything.

A dried flower from the safe house garden.

A bloody piece of gauze I had saved from when I tended his wounds.

A photo I had taken of him sleeping, his eyes bandaged.

I looked at them.

Trash.

It was all just trash.

I took the box to the trash chute in the hallway.

Dante was walking by just as I approached. He stopped.

"What is that?" he asked.

"Garbage," I said.

I opened the chute.

I tipped the box.

The memories tumbled down into the darkness.

I heard them hit the compactor three floors down with a final thud.

"Better to get rid of the clutter," Dante said, adjusting his cuffs indifferently. "You're leaving for London in two days anyway."

"Yes," I said, my voice hollow. "Just clutter."

I went back to my room and dressed.

I chose a black dress.

Long sleeves to hide the bruises from where the soldiers had grabbed me.

A high collar to hide the mark from my father's ring.

I looked like a widow.

I went downstairs to the ballroom.

It was filled with the elite of the criminal underworld.

Crystal chandeliers glittered overhead. Champagne towers caught the light.

Isabella was in white. Of course.

She looked like an angel.

My father tapped his glass.

Silence fell over the room.

"We are here to celebrate the union of the Vitiello and Moretti families," he announced.

Cheers and applause erupted.

Dante stepped onto the stage. He took the microphone.

He looked at Isabella with a possessiveness that made my stomach turn.

"Isabella is the light of my life," he said, his voice smooth. "She saved me when I was in darkness."

He turned to her and pulled out a ring box.

A massive diamond sparkled inside.

"Marry me, Isabella."

"Yes!" she screamed.

She kissed him.

The crowd roared.

I stood in the back, hidden near the kitchen doors.

I watched the man I loved promise his life to the woman who wanted to harvest my organs.

I felt a strange sense of peace.

The hope was dead.

And with the death of hope, the pain finally stopped.

I was just a ghost now.

And ghosts don't cry at their own funerals.