I woke up in my old bedroom, but it felt more like a prison cell.

My back was burning, the skin feeling as though it were still being licked by flames.

Every breath was a struggle, a ragged gasp against the tightness in my chest.

Dante sat in the armchair, nursing a cigarette.

The smoke curled around his head, wreathing him in a dark, toxic halo.

"You are awake," he said.

He did not ask how I was. His voice was devoid of any husbandly concern.

"Tonight is the Family Gala," he announced flatly. "Sofia wants to hear music. Specifically, she wants you to play the violin."

I tried to sit up, but the searing pain forced me back down.

"I can't," I rasped, my throat dry.

"You will," he countered.

"Don Vitiello," I said, using his formal title like a weapon.

He stiffened. He hated when I called him that.

"Drop the attitude," he warned, his eyes narrowing. "Be ready in an hour."

With agonizing slowness, I put on an old black dress.

It hung loose on my frame now.

I had lost at least ten pounds in a week.

Crucially, it covered the bandages on my back.

An hour later, I arrived at the hotel ballroom.

The air smelled of expensive perfume and underlying fear.

The wives of the Capos eyed me.

They used to bow to me.

Now, they covered their mouths and tittered behind manicured hands.

"Look at the fallen queen," one whispered audibly.

I walked to the stage, forcing one foot in front of the other.

My legs shook.

I remembered Don Giovanni, Dante's grandfather.

A Vitiello breaks what he loves, he had told me once.

He was right.

Then Dante entered.

The room went silent.

He had Sofia on his arm.

She wore triumphant red.

She looked radiant, a stark contrast to my fading shadow.

She treated him like a prized pet, patting his hand condescendingly.

Dante let her.

He looked up at the stage.

Play, he mouthed.

I lifted my violin to my chin.

I played Adagio in G Minor.

It was a sad, heavy piece.

It was a funeral dirge for my marriage.

The music filled the room, silencing the malicious whispers.

For a moment, Dante looked at me.

He really looked at me.

Then, Sofia stood up abruptly.

"Stop this noise!" she shouted, her voice piercing the melancholy melody.

"She is cursing us with this funeral music!"

The room gasped.

But Dante laughed.

He actually laughed.

He stood up and took Sofia's hand.

"You are right, my love," he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Let's dance to something alive."

The band immediately struck up a jazz number.

Dante led Sofia to the floor.

He spun her around, full of life and vigor.

I stood alone on the stage, my bow hanging limply by my side.

I was a ghost at my own wake.

I secured my violin case, my heart hammering against my ribs.

I needed to leave.

More than that, I needed to get to Luca.

Keeping my head down, I tried to slip out the side exit near the kitchen, hoping to disappear into the shadows.

But I didn't make it.

Three women blocked my path, forming a wall of silk and hostility.

They were the wives of men Dante had hurt to protect me years ago, and they hadn't forgotten.

"Going somewhere?" one asked, stepping closer.

"Please," I said, my voice trembling. "I just want to leave."

"Sofia told us everything," another said, her lip curling.

"She said you paid people to hurt her."

"That's a lie," I said, shaking my head frantically.

"She paid us to teach you a lesson," the third one said.

She grabbed my arm.

Her nails dug into my skin, sharp and stinging.

I pulled back instinctively.

I stumbled.

My heel caught, and I hit the table behind me hard.

The champagne tower towering above me teetered.

Then, gravity took hold.

It crashed down on top of me.

Glass shattered everywhere, exploding in a deafening cacophony.

Shards cut into my arms and face.

I lay in a puddle of expensive wine and blood, the cold liquid soaking instantly through my dress.

Suddenly, Sofia appeared.

She looked down at me, a mask of horror slipping perfectly into place.

"Oh my god!" she cried out, her voice pitching high for everyone to hear.

"She tried to bribe these women to hurt me, and look what happened!"

The guests circled around, closing me in like vultures.

They threw napkins at me, as if I were something dirty that needed to be covered up.

"Trash!" someone yelled.

"Whore!" another shouted.

I looked through the forest of legs, searching for a lifeline.

And then I saw Dante.

He stood at the edge of the circle, unmoving.

He held a glass of whiskey, his grip loose, casual.

He watched me lying in the broken glass.

His eyes were cold.

Dead.

He took a slow sip of his drink and turned away.

He left me there.

That was the moment the last thread snapped.

I didn't feel the cuts anymore.

I didn't feel the shame.

I felt nothing.

I stood up, glass crunching beneath my feet.

My dress was soaked, heavy with wine and ruin.

I limped through the crowd.

They parted for me, not out of respect, but out of disgust.

I walked out of the ballroom.

I walked out of the hotel.

I walked out of the Vitiello world.

I was alone.

And for the first time in ten years, I was free.

Elena POV

The bathroom mirror in the hospital lobby was cracked.

It fractured my reflection, splitting my face into two jagged, irreconcilable halves.

One half was the Mafia Queen, pale and defeated.

The other was the street rat from the Bronx, bleeding but stubbornly alive.

I pulled a shard of glass from my shoulder with tweezers I had stolen from a supply cart. I didn't flinch.

The pain was grounding. It reminded me that I was still in a body, even if my soul felt hollowed out, like a building gutted by fire.

I wrapped my arms in gauze, hiding the cuts from the champagne flutes, from the nails of the women who used to call me a friend.

I had work to do.

I checked my burner phone. The transfer was complete. The safe house in Germany was paid for in cash. A medical transport team was on standby, waiting for my signal to move Luca.

We just had to survive the night.

I pulled my coat tight around me and took the elevator up to the fourth floor. The private wing. The Vitiello wing.

The air grew colder the higher I went.

When the elevator doors dinged open, I heard the shouting. It wasn't the hushed tones of doctors. It was the shrill, entitled screech of a woman who had never known hunger.

I ran.

I rounded the corner to Luca's room and froze.

The hallway was full of black suits. Dante's men.

Inside the room, chaos reigned.

A middle-aged woman with blonde hair-Sofia's mother-was shoving the night nurse.

"Get away from him!" the woman yelled. "My daughter says this vegetable is draining the family resources!"

Sofia stood by the window, checking her nails. She looked bored, as if she were waiting for a manicure rather than a murder.

"Do it, Mom," Sofia said, her voice flat. "Just pull the plug. Dante said I could redecorate this wing for my studio."

"No!" I screamed.

I launched myself into the room. I didn't think. I didn't plan. I was ten years old again, fighting for a scrap of bread in the alley.

I grabbed Sofia's mother by the shoulder and threw her back. She stumbled, her expensive heels slipping on the linoleum.

"Don't you touch him!" I roared, standing between them and Luca's bed.

The beep of his heart monitor was the only rhythm I knew.

Sofia's mother looked at me, then at Sofia. Then, with the dramatic flair of a soap opera actress, she threw herself onto the floor.

"Help! She's killing me!" she wailed, clutching her hip.

Sofia let out a high-pitched scream. "Dante! Help! The crazy bitch is attacking my mother!"

The heavy oak doors swung open.

Dante filled the frame.

He took in the scene in a single second. His mistress's mother on the floor. His mistress screaming in terror. And me, wild-haired, bleeding through my coat, standing over them like a demon.

He didn't look at Luca. He didn't look at the terror in the nurse's eyes.

He looked at me with cold, judicial fury.

"Enough, Elena."

He didn't ask what happened. He didn't care.

"She tried to kill him, Dante!" I pointed at the woman on the floor. "They were going to unplug him!"

"Liar!" Sofia sobbed, rushing to Dante's side. "She's jealous! She attacked my poor mother because she hates me!"

Dante's jaw tightened.

"Remove her," he ordered the guards.

Two men stepped forward.

"No, Dante, please!" I begged, dropping to my knees. "Not this. Anything but this."

"Disconnect the ventilator," Dante said to the doctor behind him, his voice devoid of emotion. "We need this room cleared for Sofia's studio by morning."

The world stopped.

He wasn't just removing me. He was executing my brother.

"No!" I screamed, a sound that tore my throat raw.

I lunged for the emergency alarm on the wall. My hand slammed against the red button.

Alarms blared. Code Blue lights flashed. Doctors from the main hallway rushed toward the door.

Dante stepped into the doorway. He blocked them with his broad shoulders.

"Family matter," he growled at the chief surgeon. "No one enters."

"Dante, he needs oxygen!" I shrieked.

The guards grabbed my arms. They dragged me backward. I kicked. I bit. I clawed.

I watched the numbers on Luca's monitor drop.

90.

80.

Dante stood like a statue, guarding the door, ensuring his wife's punishment was absolute.

I broke free from one guard and ran for the stairwell, thinking I could get another doctor from the floor below.

I tripped.

My knees hit the concrete stairs. I tumbled down a flight, my head cracking against the railing.

Black spots danced across my vision.

But I crawled.

I crawled back up the stairs, blood dripping into my eyes. I dragged myself back to the hallway.

Silence.

The alarm had stopped. The screaming had stopped.

I looked into the room.

The monitor was a flat, green line.

Dante was checking his watch.

Sofia was smiling at her mother.

And Luca.

My Luca.

He was gone.

Dante looked down at me, sprawled on the floor.

"It's done, Elena. Go home."