The New York rain was a freezing slurry of ice and gray slush, a biting cold that soaked instantly through the thin fabric of my dress.

We were at the cemetery. Ahead, the Vitiello family mausoleum loomed against the slate sky, a dark palace for the dead.

"Get out," Dante ordered from the climate-controlled warmth of his armored SUV.

I stepped onto the wet asphalt, my legs trembling. My body was a tapestry of bruises from the kitchen, my lungs rattling with the fluid congestion of pneumonia earned in the walk-in cooler.

"Your father denied my father his life," Dante said, rolling down the window just an inch to let his voice carry over the wind. "You will pay respects."

He pointed to the path leading to the crypt. It wasn't paved. It was covered in crushed gravel and, for today, scattered with hot coals he had ordered his men to lay down. A 'Walk of Fire'—an old Sicilian penance.

"Crawl," he said.

I looked at him, panic seizing my chest. "Dante, please. My machine..."

"Crawl, or I turn off the battery right now."

He held up the remote.

I dropped to my knees. The sharp gravel sliced through my skin instantly, mingling with the biting cold of the rain. The heat from the coals radiated up, singeing the hem of my dress before I had even moved.

I began to move.

Every inch was agony. The stones gouged. The coals seared. I could smell the acrid scent of my own skin scorching. Blood mixed with the rain, leaving a diluted red trail behind me.

Dante drove the car slowly beside me, matching my torturous pace. Sofia was in the passenger seat, laughing at something on her phone. She held a cup of hot chocolate, the steam rising mockingly in the cold air.

"Look, Dante," she giggled, gesturing vaguely at me. "She looks like a dog."

Dante didn't laugh. He just watched, his face a mask of stone. "Dogs are loyal. She is the daughter of a traitor."

I kept crawling.

*Whir-click-whir.*

The machine embedded in my chest was my only companion. I focused on the mechanical rhythm. If it stopped, I stopped.

I reached the grave. My knees were shredded meat. My palms were blistered burns.

Dante got out of the car. He walked over to me, grabbed the back of my neck in a vice grip, and slammed my forehead against the cold marble of his father's tombstone.

*Crack.*

Warm blood trickled down my face, mixing with the rain and blinding one eye.

"Apologize," he hissed into my ear.

"I'm sorry," I sobbed into the stone. "I'm sorry."

"Louder."

"I'M SORRY!" I screamed, my voice tearing raw through my throat.

Dante released me. I slumped against the grave, a broken doll discarded in the mud.

"Get up," he said, wiping his hand on a silk handkerchief. "We have a party to plan."

I looked up at him through one swollen eye, vision blurring. "Party?"

"Sofia's birthday is coming up," he said, wrapping an arm around Sofia as she stepped out of the car, stepping delicately over my blood in her designer heels. "She wants a grand celebration. A wedding theme."

My heart—the metaphorical one, the soul I still possessed despite the plastic pump in my chest—shattered.

"But..." I whispered, my voice barely audible over the rain. "We were supposed to get married on her birthday."

"Exactly," Dante said, a cruel smirk twisting his lips. "You already did the planning. The flowers, the venue, the music. It’s all ready. We’ll just change the name on the card."

He opened the car door for Sofia.

"You can walk back," he said.

They drove away, taillights fading into the mist. I lay on my parents' grave, the rain washing away my blood, realizing that my dream wedding was now the celebration of my torture.

The Grand Ballroom of the Vitiello estate was a sea of black tuxedos and designer gowns.

Overhead, the chandeliers dripped heavy crystal, casting a golden light that felt abrasive and artificial against the hollow darkness inside me.

I stood in the corner, wearing a plain black dress that blended into the shadows, holding a tray of champagne. I wasn't a guest. I was a prop.

The High Families were there—the Russos, the Gambinos. They all knew who I was. They whispered behind their hands, their eyes darting from Dante to me like vultures circling a carcass.

"Look at the traitor's daughter," a woman whispered loud enough for me to hear.

"How does he let her live?"

"He's playing with his food," her husband replied, laughing darkly.

Dante stood in the center of the room, Sofia clinging to his arm like a parasite. She was wearing *my* dress. The custom Vera Wang I had designed for my wedding.

It hung loose on her slender frame, but she wore it with a smug, possessive pride.

"Attention everyone," Dante’s voice boomed, instantly silencing the room.

He turned to Sofia, his expression softening into a mask of adoration. "To my savior. The woman who gave me a heart when mine was failing."

Applause thundered around me. It felt like a physical blow to the chest. *I* gave him life. *I* lay in that hospital bed for months while he recovered. And now, he was thanking the thief.

"I have a gift," Dante said. He snapped his fingers.

A guard brought forward a velvet box. Dante opened it. Inside lay the Emerald of Sicily—a necklace that had been in the Vitiello family for generations.

He had fastened it around my neck two years ago, swearing on his life that it would never leave me.

"Sofia," he said, fastening it around her throat. "It finally rests on a neck worthy of it."

Sofia touched the gems, her eyes gleaming with greed. She looked at me across the room and smiled. She beckoned me over.

I walked toward them, my legs heavy as lead.

"Elena," Sofia cooed, fingering the large central emerald. "Doesn't it look beautiful?"

"Yes," I said, my voice hollow.

"You know," Sofia said, loud enough for the circle around us to hear. "I heard you have a match for Dante's blood type. Since my heart is still so... fragile from the transplant, maybe you should donate yours to me. It’s the least you could do."

The room went silent.

Dante looked at me. For a second, I saw a flicker of something—confusion?—in his eyes. But it vanished as quickly as it appeared.

"Give her your heart, Elena?" he mused, his tone turning cruel. "But you don't have one to give, do you? You’re heartless. Just like your father."

I looked at him. I wanted to rip open my shirt, show him the scars, show him the machine keeping me alive. But what was the point? He had chosen his truth.

"I have nothing left to give you, Dante," I said softly. "You took it all."

Sofia sneered, wrinkling her nose. "Ugh, get away from me. You smell like antiseptic and desperation."

She shoved me.

We were standing by the open French doors leading to the terrace, overlooking the estate lake. I stumbled back, my balance lost. My heel caught on the uneven stone threshold.

I fell.

The water was black and freezing. I hit the surface with a splash that silenced the party.

The cold water rushed into my nose, my mouth. The heavy battery pack of my LVAD weighed me down like an anchor. I sank.

Above me, the lights of the ballroom shimmered like distorted stars.

I didn't swim.

Why would I? The water was quiet. There was no pain here. No Dante. No betrayal.

I let the air leave my lungs in a rush of bubbles. I closed my eyes, and for the first time in five days, I felt peace.

The water was not just cold; it was a numbing, frigid embrace, far kinder than Dante’s touch had ever been.

My lungs burned for air, screaming for oxygen, but my mind commanded them to be still.

*Let go,* I told myself. *Just let go.*

Suddenly, the surface shattered.

Iron-hard arms wrapped around my waist. I was hauled upward, breaking the surface into the biting night air with a violent splash. I gasped, choking on lake water and bile, my throat raw.

Dante.

He was soaking wet, his tuxedo ruined, his hair plastered to his forehead in dark, chaotic strands. He dragged me onto the grassy bank, discarding me onto the mud like a broken doll.

"You think you can escape?" he roared, looming over me like a vengeful god.

I coughed, my body convulsing violently as I tried to expel the water. "Let... let me die."

"No!" He grabbed my face, his fingers digging into my cheeks bruisingly hard. "You don't get to die. Not until I say so. Your life belongs to me. Your death belongs to me."

From the shore, a scream pierced the air.

"Dante! Help!"

Sofia was standing knee-deep in the shallow water, clutching her chest. She looked pristine—not a hair out of place—yet she acted as if she were in the throes of a seizure. "My heart! The shock... I can't breathe!"

Dante froze.

He looked at me, shivering and half-drowned, my LVAD alarm shrieking a high-pitched warning that water had breached the casing. It was a sound of imminent death.

Then he looked at Sofia.

There was no hesitation.

His hands vanished.

He dropped me back into the mud without a second thought.

"Get the medical team for Sofia!" he yelled to his men, sprinting toward her. He scooped her up in his arms, cradling her as if she were made of spun glass. "I've got you, *amore*. Stay with me."

He carried her past me. He didn't even look down.

I lay in the sludge, watching him run to save the liar, while the woman who actually saved him lay dying in the dirt.

*

The hospital room smelled of bleach and old money. They had dried me off and changed my battery pack, but they hadn't bothered to give me a blanket.

Dante walked in. He looked dry, composed, and utterly terrifying.

"Sofia is in shock," he said, his voice level. "Because of your little stunt."

"My stunt?" I rasped, my throat feeling like it was full of glass. "She pushed me."

"Liar," he said simply.

He walked to the side of my bed and wrapped his hand around my throat. He didn't squeeze hard enough to kill, just enough to remind me that he could—that my breath was a gift he allowed me to take.

"You tried to commit suicide," he said. "You tried to take away my toy before I was finished playing."

"I'm tired, Dante," I whispered, tears leaking from my eyes and tracking into my hair. "Please. Just finish it."

"Not yet." He leaned in close, his breath ghosting over my ear. "Sofia is traumatized. She needs cheering up. You are going to plan the proposal."

I stared at him, blood draining from my face. "What?"

"I'm going to propose to her. Properly. And you are going to arrange it. The flowers, the ring delivery, the speech. You will write the speech I say to the woman I love."

"Dante, please..."

"Do it," he growled, tightening his grip on my throat until spots danced in my vision. "Or I will dig up your father's body and feed it to the dogs."

I broke. The last piece of my soul snapped with an audible crack in my chest.

"Okay," I whispered. "I'll do it."

He let go, looking at me with cold disgust. "Good. You have two days. Don't disappoint me."

He turned to leave. At the door, he paused.

"Oh, and Elena?"

"Yes?"

"Make sure the flowers are white roses. Sofia loves them."

He walked out.

I closed my eyes. Silence rushed back into the room, heavy and suffocating.

White roses.

They were my favorite flower. He knew that. He remembered.

And he was using them to bury me while I was still alive.

I reached for the notepad on the bedside table. My hand trembled as I picked up the pen.

*To my dearest Sofia...*

I started writing my own eulogy.