Dante POV

The atmosphere of the art gallery was suffocating.

White walls. White wine. White noise.

Sofia was clinging to my arm, her manicured nails digging into my suit jacket as she dragged me from one canvas to another.

"Look at this one, Dante!" she squealed, gesturing wildly. "It represents the duality of man's soul."

It looked like someone had vomited red paint on a canvas and had the audacity to charge fifty thousand dollars for it.

"It's exquisite," I lied, taking a long sip of champagne to wash away the taste of boredom.

I checked my watch.

It had been three days since Elena had come home covered in mud.

Three days of silence.

She was either in the Penance Room or her bedroom. I hadn't checked.

I had told the guards to let her stew. She needed to learn that her tantrums had consequences.

But the silence was... loud.

Usually, I could feel her presence in the house. A tension. A warmth. A simmering resentment.

Now, the Villa felt sterile.

"Dante?" Sofia pouted, tugging at my sleeve. "You aren't listening."

I looked down at her.

She was beautiful, objectively. Perfect symmetry, perfect skin.

But her voice grated on my nerves like sandpaper.

She was needy.

Elena was never needy.

Elena was steel wrapped in silk.

Even when she knelt in the snow, her eyes had burned with defiance. I missed that fire.

Suddenly, panic seized my chest. It was a sharp, cold grip around my heart, tightening until I couldn't breathe.

I looked across the room.

I saw a flash of dark hair. The familiar curve of a neck.

"Elena?" I said aloud.

I pushed Sofia aside and strode through the crowd, ignoring the gasps as I shoved past patrons.

I grabbed the woman's shoulder and spun her around.

A stranger looked up at me, terrified.

"I'm sorry, Don Vitiello!" she stammered, shrinking back.

I let her go, my hand dropping to my side.

My heart was hammering against my ribs.

What the hell was wrong with me?

"Dante!" Sofia was back, hanging on me like a parasite. "What is it?"

"Nothing," I snapped.

I looked at Sofia.

I saw the greed in her eyes. The vanity.

I felt a sudden wave of repulsion.

I wanted to go home.

I wanted to see Elena.

I wanted to see her glare at me.

I pulled out my phone and glanced at the screen.

Calendar: 10th Wedding Anniversary. Tomorrow.

Guilt, sharp and unfamiliar, pricked me.

I had pushed her too far this time.

The business with Luca-it was a bluff, of course. I'd never actually kill the vegetable. But she didn't know that.

I needed to fix this.

"Matteo," I barked at my Consigliere, who was shadowing me from a discreet distance.

"Yes, Don Vitiello."

"Prepare the Villa. Tomorrow night."

"I want lilies," I commanded. "Thousands of them. Stargazer lilies."

Matteo raised an eyebrow. "For the mistress?"

"No," I growled. "For my wife."

"I'm going to buy her that diamond necklace she looked at in Milan. I'm going to reinstate her."

"I'll send Sofia to the Hamptons for a week," I added, already walking toward the exit.

Elena will cry. She will thank me. We will start over.

I smiled, imagining the look of relief on Elena's face.

She would be waiting for me. She always was.

Dante POV

I'd texted her at noon with a simple command:

Be ready at 7. Wear the red dress.

She didn't reply.

That was fine. I told myself she was just sulking.

I worked late on purpose, letting the anticipation build.

I wanted to walk in like a benevolent King granting mercy to a rebellious subject.

I arrived at the Villa at 7:15.

The scent hit me the moment I crossed the threshold.

Lilies.

The entire foyer was drowning in them.

Vases crowded every table; petals littered the floor like fallen snow.

It smelled like a funeral, though I reminded myself that Elena loved them.

I loosened my tie as I stepped deeper into the silence.

"Elena?" I called out.

Silence was my only answer.

The house was dark, save for the flickering candles the staff had lit.

I walked into the dining room.

Dinner was set for two.

The food was stone cold.

"Where is she?" I demanded of the maid cowering in the corner.

"I haven't seen Madam all day, sir," she whispered, trembling.

Irritation flared hot in my gut.

She was defying me. Again.

I pulled out my phone and dialed her number.

The subscriber you have dialed is not in service.

My frown deepened as the automated voice mocked me.

Not in service?

I marched up the stairs, my patience fraying with every step.

I went straight to her bedroom.

"Elena, open this door," I warned, my voice low and dangerous.

I didn't wait. I pushed it open.

The bed was made. Perfectly smooth.

Too smooth.

It looked like no one had slept in it for days.

I strode to the closet and threw the doors open.

Her clothes were there.

The red dress hung in the center, mocking me, untouched.

Her shoes were lined up in military precision.

But something was wrong.

The air was stale, devoid of her perfume.

I went to the jewelry box.

The diamonds I gave her were there.

The emeralds. The rubies.

I yanked open the drawer where she kept her documents.

Empty.

My heart skipped a beat.

"Matteo!" I roared.

My assistant appeared in the doorway seconds later, breathless.

"Find her," I ordered. "Now."

I sat heavily on the edge of her bed, the silence of the room pressing in on me.

Then, I saw something in the trash can.

I reached in and pulled it out.

It was the photo album.

The one with the pictures of us as kids.

The one she had saved from the fire when our first apartment burned down.

She loved this book more than her life.

And she had thrown it in the trash like it meant nothing.

Dread, cold and heavy, settled in the pit of my stomach.

I pulled up Luca's contact on my phone.

I held down the voice note button, my hand shaking with suppressed rage.

"Elena," I snarled into the phone. "If this is a game, you lose. Get back here in an hour, or I pull the plug on your brother for real this time."

I sent it.

It didn't deliver.

Dante POV

One hour bled into two.

Two stretched into an agonizing four.

The bedroom was a ruin of my own making.

The vanity mirror was shattered, a spiderweb of cracks reflecting my fractured composure. The anniversary lilies lay shredded on the floor, their white petals trampled into the expensive rug.

I sat amidst the debris in the armchair, lighting my twentieth cigarette with a trembling hand.

My knuckles were split and bleeding where I had punched the wall.

Why wasn't she answering?

She would never risk Luca. Never.

She was the most predictable creature on earth. Her love for that brother was her fatal weakness, and I held the knife against his throat.

When my phone finally vibrated against the armrest, I snatched it up before the first ring could finish.

Matteo.

"Where is she?" I demanded, my voice a low growl.

"Don Vitiello..." Matteo's voice was thready, shaking.

"Speak!"

"We checked the hospitals. We checked the morgues. We checked the flight manifests."

"And?"

"Her digital footprint... it's gone, sir. It's like she was never here. Like she was erased."

I laughed-a dark, humorless sound that scraped against my throat.

"She's a street rat, Matteo. She can't erase herself. She's hiding."

"Sir, there's something else."

"What?"

"I pulled the logs from the clinic regarding Luca."

I gripped the phone so hard the screen cracked under my thumb.

"Put him on video," I ordered, standing up. "I want to see him. I'll send her a video of me wrapping my hands around his throat. That will bring her out."

"Sir, you can't."

"Why?"

"Because he's dead, Don Vitiello."

The world didn't just stop spinning; it tilted on its axis.

"What did you say?"

"He died three days ago, sir. The night of the... incident with Sofia. The cardiac arrest. You... you blocked the doctors from entering."

"No."

The room swayed violently.

"That's a lie. She would have told me."

"The records show she claimed the body, sir. She had him cremated the next morning."

I dropped the phone.

It hit the floor with a dull, final thud.

She cremated him.

She buried him.

She came home to me.

She let me touch her.

She lied.

The memory of her eyes that night crashed into me.

They hadn't been submissive.

They were dead.

I had killed her brother.

And then I had forced her to kiss me with the same mouth that had just said goodbye to him forever.

A scream built in my chest, a pressurized wave of agony.

It started low, a rumble of absolute denial, before it tore its way out of my throat.

"Elena!"

I overturned the heavy oak table with a roar.

I smashed the remaining lamp against the wall.

I tore the velvet curtains from the windows, ripping them from the rods.

She was gone.

She was really gone.

And I was the one who had opened the door and shoved her out.

I fell to my knees in the wreckage of our anniversary.

The cloying scent of crushed lilies was suffocating now.

It didn't smell like a celebration anymore.

It smelled like a grave.