Elara POV:

Dante saw me. His eyes widened, and he immediately pushed Seraphina away from him, her hands falling from his shoulders. He took a step toward me, his face a mixture of shock and something that looked like guilt.

“Elara? What are you doing here?” His voice was laced with a false concern that made my skin crawl.

I said nothing. I just stood there, letting the cold night air fill my lungs, letting the silence stretch between us. The sight of my stillness, my utter lack of reaction, seemed to unnerve him. He faltered, his step hesitating.

That’s when Seraphina moved. She glided to his side, linking her arm through his possessively.

“Oh, look, it’s your little charity case,” she sneered, her eyes raking over me with contempt. Then her expression shifted, melting into one of fragile innocence. She turned to Dante, her voice trembling. “Dante, she’s been following us, hasn’t she? She’s jealous. Please, make her understand.”

She clung to him, pressing her face into his chest as if seeking protection from me.

“Seraphina,” I said, my voice flat and dead. “Shut up.”

The look of pure contempt I gave her must have hit its mark. She flinched, then her face crumpled, and she burst into tears.

“See?” she sobbed into his shirt. “She’s so cruel to me.”

Dante’s arms went around her, pulling her tight. He glared at me over the top of her head, his expression hardening. “Don’t push your luck, Elara.”

Pain, sharp and familiar, lanced through me. It wasn’t just about this moment. It was about all the moments that came before. I remembered high school, when Seraphina Gallo and her friends had made my life a living hell. They’d cornered me in the locker room, stripped me, and taken pictures, all because Alessandro De Luca, the quiet boy from a powerful family, had shown me a moment of kindness. The memory of their laughter was a scar on my soul.

And I remembered Dante, years later, holding me as I cried about those old wounds. He’d kissed my scars and promised me, his voice a low growl of protective fury, *“I’ll make them all pay for what they did to you, baby. Every last one of them.”*

Now, he was holding my tormentor in his arms, protecting her from *me*. He hadn’t just forgotten his promise. He had fallen in love with the very person who had scarred me.

He misread my silence as guilt. He sighed, a weary, put-upon sound. “Just get in the car, Elara. We’ll talk at home.”

Seraphina lifted her tear-streaked face from his chest. “Yes, get in,” she said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. She moved toward me, and as she passed, her fingers dug cruelly into my side, right over my ribs. “We have so much to talk about.”

I flinched away, a sharp gasp of pain escaping my lips.

It was all she needed. Using my movement as a catalyst, Seraphina stumbled backward dramatically, letting out a small, theatrical cry as if I had shoved her with all my might.

Dante’s head snapped up. His eyes, cold and furious, locked onto me. He instantly assumed the worst. He instantly assumed it was my fault.

Elara POV:

Dante rushed to Seraphina’s side, his hands hovering over her as if checking for injuries. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice thick with concern.

She nodded weakly, leaning against him for support.

He turned his glare on me. “That’s enough, Elara. You can’t let the past go, can you?” He gestured vaguely at Seraphina. “So she watched while her friends did some stupid shit in high school. It was years ago. Get over it.”

He trivialized it. He dismissed years of trauma, the scars both seen and unseen, as “stupid shit.”

Seraphina, feigning a desire for peace, gave me a triumphant, mocking smile over Dante’s shoulder. The message was clear: *I won. You lost.*

I ignored them both. My eyes fell to the ground where Luca’s box had fallen, his few precious belongings scattered across the filthy pavement. I knelt silently, my fingers trembling as I reached for his favorite model airplane, a wooden Spitfire he’d spent months building.

As my fingers brushed against the delicate wing, a red-soled heel slammed down on it.

*CRACK.*

The balsa wood splintered, the model shattering into a dozen pieces under Seraphina’s deliberate weight.

Something inside me snapped. A raw, primal scream of rage tore from my throat. I lunged at her, my only thought to rip that smug smile off her face.

I never reached her.

A hard kick connected with my stomach, sending me flying backward. The air rushed out of my lungs, and I hit the ground hard, landing on a sharp piece of plastic from the broken model. It pierced the skin of my back, a searing, white-hot pain.

Dante stood over me, his face a mask of cold fury. “You keep going after her,” he snarled, completely ignoring the blood that was already starting to soak through my shirt.

Tears streamed down my face, hot and furious. “That was Luca’s,” I sobbed, the words choked with grief. “That was all I had left of him.”

Dante scoffed, his expression dismissive. “It’s a toy. I’ll buy him a more expensive one.”

The world stopped. The sounds of the city, the cold wind, the pain in my back—it all faded away.

He had forgotten.

In the seven days since my brother died, the man who claimed Luca was “family to him, too” had forgotten he was dead. He had forgotten everything.

The fight drained out of me, replaced by an emptiness so vast it felt like a black hole had opened in my chest. My heart, my love, my hope—it was all gone, consumed.

I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the pain, and turned to leave. I just wanted to disappear.

Dante blocked my path, his car idling like a growling beast. He leaned out the window, his anger suddenly replaced by a semblance of concern. “You haven’t eaten, have you? You’re too thin.”

He was inviting me to lunch. After everything.

Numbly, I got in. What else was there to do?

I slid into the back seat, a prisoner in my own life. Up front, Dante and Seraphina chatted intimately, their voices a low murmur. He peeled an orange for her, feeding her the segments one by one.

I closed my eyes, remembering every cut, every humiliation Seraphina had inflicted since she’d reappeared in our lives. Each one was a fresh wound, and Dante had held the knife every single time.

A violent jolt threw me forward. The sound of screeching tires and shattering glass filled the air.

A massive truck had smashed into the side of the car.

Elara POV:

The impact was brutal. The airbags in the front deployed with a violent bang, filling the car with white powder and the smell of chemicals. My head slammed into the back of the passenger seat with enough force to make my vision swim with black spots.

Dante’s first and only thought was for Seraphina. He threw his body over hers, shielding her from the spray of glass as the passenger-side window imploded.

“Sera? Are you hurt?” he asked frantically, his hands running over her arms, her face.

She sobbed in his arms, complaining of a pain in her wrist.

In the back, there was no airbag to cushion the blow. I was thrown against the door, my head cracking against the remaining glass. The wound in my back tore open further, and I could feel a warm, wet stickiness spreading across my clothes. Blood.

Dante glanced into the rearview mirror. His eyes met mine for a split second. I saw a flicker of something—shock, maybe—at the sight of the blood matting my hair. But then his gaze immediately returned to the crying woman in his arms.

Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer. Onlookers gathered, their faces pale and horrified.

The paramedics arrived, prying open the mangled doors.

“Save her first!” Dante screamed, pointing a shaking finger at Seraphina. “Get her out of here now!”

He never mentioned me. He never looked back.

My vision blurred. The world tilted sideways. I was abandoned in the wreckage, the twisted metal a cage around me. I tried to call for help, to say his name, but only a choked whisper came out.

He lifted Seraphina out of the car, cradling her as if she were made of glass, and rushed her toward the ambulance, his back to me the entire time.

The memory of his proposal flashed in my mind—down on one knee, promising to protect me for the rest of our lives. A promise as broken and useless as my body.

I passed out, the darkness a welcome relief.

I woke to the sterile smell of antiseptic and the soft beeping of a heart monitor. A cheerful nurse was adjusting my IV drip.

“You’re very lucky,” she said, beaming. “And your husband is a true hero. He adores you.”

I must have looked confused, because she pulled out her phone. “It’s gone viral! Look.”

She showed me a video, shaky footage from a bystander’s phone. It showed Dante, his face grim, his shirt stained with what everyone assumed was his own blood, “risking his life to save his wife from the wreckage.” The media had twisted the story, painting him as the devoted, heroic husband.

A bitter, hollow laugh escaped my lips. The nurse looked at me, her smile faltering, unnerved by the sound. She made a quick excuse and left the room.

A moment later, the door opened.

It was Dante, holding a large bouquet of white lilies, my favorite flower. He looked tired, but unharmed. A hero, home from the war.