The smell of yeast used to comfort me. Now, it reeked of shame.

"Elena! Wait!"

My mother's voice echoed off the stone walls of the compound's service entrance. She was breathless, clutching a basket wrapped in a checkered cloth.

"You forgot the delivery for the East Wing meeting," she huffed, shoving the warm wicker into my arms. "Fresh focaccia. Still hot. Go, before the Capos get hungry and angry."

I wanted to throw the basket into the trash.

I wanted to scrub my skin until it bled, anything to purge the "kitchen smell" from my pores.

But my father's bakery existed at the mercy of the Vitiello family. We paid protection in dough and silence.

"Okay," I whispered.

I hugged the basket to my chest, using it as a shield, and hurried down the marble corridor.

My head was down. I kept my eyes fixed on the floor tiles, counting them-one, two, three-to keep the anxiety from closing my throat.

I turned the corner sharply, trying to make up for lost time.

And collided with an unyielding barrier.

The impact knocked the wind out of me. The basket flew from my hands.

Oily, herb-crusted bread tumbled through the air.

Not on the floor.

On a bespoke, charcoal-gray Italian suit that cost more than my entire existence.

Time froze.

I watched, horrified, as a piece of focaccia slid down the lapel, leaving a dark, greasy trail on the fine wool before landing on a polished shoe.

I looked up, trembling.

Dante Vitiello stared down at the mess on his chest.

He didn't yell. He didn't curse.

He recoiled.

He took a step back, peeling the wet fabric away from his shirt with two fingers, his face twisting into a mask of absolute disgust. It was the same look he'd given me in the gym.

"I... I am so sorry," I stammered, reaching out instinctively to brush the crumbs off his shoulder.

Dante flinched back.

He swatted my hand away before I could make contact, as if my touch carried a plague.

"Don't," he snapped.

"Well, look at this tragedy."

The voice was high, sharp, and dripping with amusement.

Bianca Moretti sauntered out from the meeting room. The Capo's daughter. She was wearing white, pristine and untouched, holding a protein bar.

She looked at the scattered bread, then at me, her lip curling.

"Cleaning up after the help is exhausting, isn't it, Dante?" she drawled. She tossed the protein bar to him. "Here. Real food. Not that greasy peasant trash that stinks of yeast."

Dante caught the bar. He looked at Bianca, then at me.

I stood there, surrounded by the ruins of my mother's hard work.

I waited for him to say something. Anything. The irony burned in my chest; I had spent months researching his diet, ensuring the dough was fermented for forty-eight hours to be easily digestible for him.

"Get a cleaner," Dante said to the air, refusing to look at me. "And burn this suit."

He stepped over the bread and walked away with Bianca, leaving me alone in the hallway.

Giulia, one of the maids, poked her head out from a supply closet. She saw my face.

"Elena?" she whispered. "It's just a suit. It washes out."

"No," I said, my voice hollow. "Some stains don't."

The library was the only place in the compound where I felt like a person, rather than a piece of furniture.

It was 2:00 AM.

I was huddled in the back corner, buried under a stack of contract law textbooks. The silence was heavy, saturated with the scent of old paper and dust.

I closed my book, pressing the heels of my palms against my burning eyes.

"Rossi."

The name sliced through the stillness.

I jumped, spinning around in my chair.

Dante was leaning against the bookshelf in the shadows. He was wearing a crisp black shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal the corded muscle of his forearms.

He knew my name.

My heart did a traitorous little flip before my brain reminded me of the gym floor. The cold tile against my cheek. The look of absolute revulsion on his face.

"Mr. Vitiello," I said, standing up abruptly. I clutched my book to my chest like a shield. "Do you need the room? I was just leaving."

"I'm not here to read," he said. He pushed off the shelf and strode toward me.

He stopped three feet away. The safe zone.

"About this morning," he started, his voice low, vibrating in the quiet room. "Bianca... she has a sharp tongue. She didn't mean to insult your family's business."

I stared at him.

He wasn't apologizing for flinching at my touch as if I were diseased. He wasn't apologizing for calling me a rat. He was doing damage control for the Capo's daughter.

"Are you apologizing as the Underboss, or as her babysitter?" I asked.

The words left my mouth before I could stop them.

Dante's eyes narrowed. The air temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.

"Careful," he warned softly. "I'm trying to be civil. I don't want any friction with the civilian staff."

"Friction?" I let out a dry, humorless laugh. "You treated me like I was radioactive because I tripped. Bianca called my family's livelihood 'trash'."

"It's just a suit, Elena," he said, the use of my first name sounding like a foreign word on his tongue. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick envelope. "This should cover the bakery's trouble. And the dry cleaning."

He held it out. Hush money.

He thought he could pay for my dignity.

I looked at the envelope, then up at his face. He looked bored. Impatient. Like this was just another item on a checklist.

"My father wakes up at 3 AM every day to make that bread," I said, my voice steady despite the shaking of my hands. "It's honest work. It doesn't taste like blood."

Dante's jaw tightened, a muscle ticking in his cheek.

"We don't want your money," I said. "And I don't want your apology. We are even."

I shoved my book into my bag and stepped around him.

"Elena," he said.

I didn't stop. I walked to the heavy oak door.

"You're making a mistake," he called out.

"My mistake," I said, yanking the door open, "was thinking you were different from the rest of them."

I slammed the door shut, severing the connection, and locked it from the outside.

For the next three days, I made myself invisible.

I took the back stairs. I ate in the storage room, surrounded by sacks of flour. I studied until the text swam before my eyes and my head throbbed.

I was effectively a ghost.

Until the ghost was summoned.

"The Capo wants to see you."

I looked up from the dough I was kneading in the bakery kitchen. Dante was standing in the doorway.

He looked exhausted. There were dark circles under his eyes that no amount of money could hide, bruise-like shadows against his olive skin.

"Why?" I asked, wiping flour onto my apron.

"Just come," he said.

I didn't argue. You don't argue with the Vitiellos.

I followed him across the courtyard. In the past, I used to walk a step behind him, admiring the breadth of his shoulders, the lethal grace of his stride.

Now, I just stared at the back of his head and wondered how I could have been so blind.

We entered the main office. The air smelled heavy with stale cigar smoke and expensive leather.

Lucio Moretti, the Capo and Bianca's father, sat behind a massive mahogany desk. Bianca was perched on the edge of it, examining her manicure.

She looked up when we entered, a slow, predatory smile spreading across her face.

"There she is," Bianca said. "The little baker."

"What is this?" I asked, looking at Dante.

He didn't look at me. He moved to stand near Bianca, crossing his arms over his chest. A united front.

"We have a discrepancy in the supply ledgers," Lucio rumbled, his voice a deep baritone that vibrated through the room. "Funds missing from the kitchen budget. Information leaked about delivery schedules."

My stomach dropped. "I don't know anything about that."

"Don't you?"

Bianca hopped off the desk. She circled me, her heels clicking rhythmically against the hardwood. "You're always around, aren't you? Listening. Watching. Maybe selling little secrets to pay for that fancy law school you think you're going to?"

"I earned my scholarship," I snapped, indignation rising in my throat. "I use my brain, Bianca. I don't need to steal."

Bianca gasped, mocking shock. She looked at Dante. "Are you going to let the help speak to me like that?"

I looked at Dante too.

This was the moment. The moment he could say, She's honest. She's loyal. She's been feeding me for months.

Dante looked at Bianca. I saw the calculation in his eyes, cold and unyielding. Bianca was the daughter of his most powerful general. I was nobody.

"Watch your tone, Elena," Dante said coldly. "You're here to answer questions, not throw insults."

The betrayal didn't sting. It burned.

It cauterized the wound instantly.

It clarified everything.

"I didn't take your money," I said, looking Lucio dead in the eye. "Check the cameras. Check my bank accounts. I have nothing to hide."

"We will," Lucio said. "Get out. And stay out of the main house until we decide what to do with you."

I turned on my heel and walked out.

I didn't run this time.

I walked with the spine of a woman who realized that in their world, innocence was just a weakness waiting to be exploited.