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.

Three thousand white roses.

That was the exact count required to fill the grand atrium of the Vitiello estate. I knew because I had counted the bundles myself, my fingers pricked and bloody from the thorns I hadn’t stripped fast enough.

"Move the arch to the left," I instructed the florists, my voice raspy from dehydration. "The light hits better there at sunset."

"You have a good eye for a maid," a voice drawled behind me.

I turned. Sofia stood at the top of the marble staircase. She wore a silk robe that cost more than my father’s medical practice used to make in a month. She descended slowly, her hand gliding down the banister like she already owned the place.

"It's perfect, Elena," she said, stopping a step above me so she could look down. "Dante will propose right here. He’ll kneel, just like you are kneeling in life."

"I hope you’re happy, Sofia," I said, clutching the clipboard to my chest like a shield. The LVAD pump hummed against my ribs, a constant, mechanical reminder of my expiration date. Forty-eight hours left.

"Happy?" She laughed, a brittle sound. "I’m ecstatic. But I’m also impatient. I don’t want to wait for you to die on your own schedule. I want you gone now."

She took a step closer. Her eyes darted to the security camera in the corner, then back to me.

"Dante loves a damsel in distress," she whispered.

Before I could react, she threw herself backward.

It wasn't a stumble. It was a calculated launch. She screamed, her arms flailing theatrically as she tumbled down the last six marble steps. She landed at my feet with a sickening thud, sprawling amidst the white rose petals.

"Elena! No!" she shrieked, clutching her ankle. "Why did you push me?"

The doors burst open. Dante stormed in, followed by three guards. He took in the scene instantly: Sofia weeping on the floor, me standing over her, and the accusation hanging in the air like smoke.

He didn't ask what happened. He didn't look at the security cameras.

He struck me.

The backhand connected with my cheekbone, the force of the blow knocking me into the floral arch. The structure collapsed, burying me in an avalanche of white roses and thorns.

"Get the car!" Dante roared, scooping Sofia up as if she were made of glass. "If she has a scratch on her, Elena, I will peel the skin from your bones."

*

The hospital lights were blinding.

I sat on a plastic chair in the hallway, handcuffed to the armrest. My cheek throbbed where he had hit me, but the pain in my chest was worse. My battery indicator blinked red: 15%.

Dante emerged from the private room. He rolled up his sleeves, his forearms tense with corded muscle.

"She needs a transfusion," he said. "She lost blood from a gash on her leg. She has a rare blood type. O-negative."

"So do I," I said quietly.

"I know," he said. He signaled to a nurse. "Hook her up."

"Dante," I said, panic rising in my throat. "I can't. My heart condition... I’m anemic. If you take my blood now, with the pump struggling..."

"You took five years of my life," he cut in, his voice cold and flat. "You can spare a pint of blood for the woman you tried to cripple."

He grabbed my arm, forcing it straight for the nurse. I looked at the woman, begging her with my eyes to check my chart, to see the LVAD controller at my waist, to see that draining me was a death sentence.

But the nurse looked at Dante, saw the heavy outline of the gun in his holster, and paled. She didn't argue. She swabbed my arm.

The needle slid in.

I watched the red tube fill. It was my life leaving me, flowing out to sustain the lie that was Sofia Moretti.

Dante watched the bag fill, his expression unreadable. He didn't look at my face. He only looked at the blood.

When the bag was full, the room spun. Black spots danced in my vision, and the hum of my pump seemed to grow distant, like a failing engine.

"Done," Dante said. "Now, get up."

"I... I can't," I whispered.

He hauled me up by the handcuffs. My legs were like rubber. He dragged me into Sofia’s room. She was sitting up in bed, looking flushed and healthy, scrolling through Instagram.

"Look who it is," Dante said, shoving me toward the bed. "Apologize."

I swayed, gripping the bedrail to stay upright. Sofia smirked at me behind Dante’s back.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled.

"Like you mean it," Dante commanded. He placed a hand on the back of my neck, his fingers tightening. "Kneel."

I sank to the floor. The humiliation was absolute. I was the donor, the savior, the victim, and yet here I was, kneeling before the thief.

"I am sorry, Sofia," I said, my voice breaking. "I am sorry I exist."

Dante released my neck. He looked at me for a second, his gaze lingering on the fresh bruise on my cheek, then on the bandage on my arm where he had stolen my blood. For a heartbeat, something flickered in his eyes—a question, perhaps, or a memory.

Then Sofia groaned. "Dante, my leg hurts."

He turned away from me instantly. "I'm here, baby. I'm here."

I used the bedrail to pull myself up. I walked out of the room. Neither of them watched me go. I was a ghost before I was even dead.