Giuliana POV

Dante had stormed out an hour ago, leaving a vacuum of terrifying calm in his wake following the doctor's report. He mentioned something about verifying financial records, but the look in his eyes promised retribution, not accounting.

The house felt haunted, heavy with the weight of unburied secrets.

I walked past Chiara's room. The door was locked from the outside now-a temporary cage for a volatile animal.

Downstairs, my aunt and uncle sat in the drawing room, nursing glasses of scotch in heavy silence, their gazes fixed on the wall as if it held the answers to their ruin.

I couldn't stay there. I needed to see it for myself. I needed to understand the hell Alessia had survived.

My feet carried me to the third floor. To the attic.

I pushed open the heavy door to the storage room where they had forced Alessia to exist.

The air was stagnant, smelling of dust and... an acrid, lingering undercurrent of smoke.

I frowned, stepping inside. I walked to the corner where Alessia's meager belongings were piled like refuse.

Her sketchbook lay there. Or rather, the corpse of it.

It hadn't just been torn; it had been eviscerated. Shredded with a blade, strip by agonizing strip, until the art was unrecognizable.

And in the corner, on the bare floorboards, I saw them-dark, jagged scorch marks.

Someone had tried to start a fire right next to the bed.

The rumors the maids whispered in the kitchen came flooding back. How Chiara liked to play with lighters. How she used to sneak up here when the house was asleep.

I knelt to inspect the burns. As I lowered my head, I spotted something shoved deep under the cot.

I pulled out a small, dusty box.

Inside were photos. Old snapshots of Dante and Alessia from high school.

But Alessia's face had been obliterated in every single one.

Violent, deep scratches gouged through the glossy paper, erasing her features entirely.

A chill raced down my spine. This wasn't just a spoiled brat wanting attention.

This was a predator trying to erase its prey.

Adrenaline surged through me. I grabbed the box and the remains of the sketchbook, turning on my heel. I ran downstairs, my footsteps thundering against the silence.

My aunt looked up, startled, as I burst into the drawing room.

"Look," I demanded, slamming the mutilated photos onto the coffee table. "Look at what your 'fragile' daughter did."

Isabella picked up a photo. Her hand trembled, the ice in her glass clinking softly.

"She tried to burn the room," I said, my voice shaking with rage. "There are scorch marks by the bed. She didn't just want to send Alessia to prison, Aunt Isabella. She wanted her gone. Permanently."

"No," Isabella whispered, her face pale. "They are sisters."

"No," I countered, ruthless. "One is a sister. The other is a monster."

Before she could respond, the front door slammed open, the sound echoing like a gunshot.

Dante was back.

And he wasn't alone.

He held a thick stack of files in his hand, his knuckles white. The darkness in his eyes made the air in the room drop ten degrees; I wanted to crawl under the table to escape it.

He didn't acknowledge us.

Instead, his cold gaze drifted upward, piercing through the ceiling beams toward the room directly above us.

Toward Chiara.

"Unlock the door," he commanded.

I kicked the door open and strode into Chiara's room.

She was sitting on the bed, idly filing her nails, the very picture of boredom.

She looked up, her lips curling into that perfect, innocent smile that had fooled me for seven years.

"Dante," she cooed, her voice dripping with syrup. "Did you come to tuck me in?"

"Get up," I commanded, my voice low.

"What?"

"Get up!" The roar tore from my throat, shaking the walls.

She flinched, dropping the nail file. "You're scaring me."

"Good."

I threw the file folder onto the bed. It exploded on impact. Bank statements. Police reports. They rained down around her like a judgment.

"I checked the accounts, Chiara," I said, stepping closer until I loomed over her. "The 'charity' money you needed for your treatments? It went to Cartier. To Prada. To a condo in Miami."

"I needed comfort!" she cried, her eyes widening with feigned victimhood. "I was sick!"

"And the hit," I said, cutting her off. "The Falcone guy you ran over. I read the original police report. The one your father paid to bury."

Her breath hitched. The color drained from her face.

"You weren't just high," I said, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "You ran him over twice. You backed up. It wasn't an accident, Chiara. It was a thrill kill."

"He was rude to me!" she shrieked, her mask finally slipping. "He didn't open the door for me!"

The air left the room. Silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.

She killed a man because he was rude.

And Alessia spent seven years in hell for it.

Giuliana stood in the doorway, holding a shredded sketchbook. Her face was pale. "She hates her, Dante. Look at this."

She showed me the photos. Alessia's face had been violently scratched out with a pen until the paper tore.

I looked at Chiara. I really looked at her. I didn't see a fragile flower. I saw a viper waiting to strike.

"You told me Alessia didn't love me," I said. "You told me she wanted to go to prison to get away from me."

"She did!" Chiara yelled, scrambling back against the headboard. "She never loved you! She was cold! I loved you, Dante! I needed you!"

"You didn't love me," I said, my tone icy. "You just wanted what was hers."

"She didn't deserve you!" Chiara stood up on the bed, her face twisting into something ugly, something monstrous. "She was always the smart one! The talented one! The strong one! I wanted her gone! I wanted her to rot in that cell until she died!"

My hand twitched toward my gun. The cold steel called to me. It took every ounce of control I had not to end her right there.

"You wanted her dead," I said.

"I wish she was!" she screamed, spittle flying from her lips. "I wish she had died in there!"

Behind me, I heard Isabella sob.

Marco walked into the room. He looked old. Broken. As if the weight of his daughter's sins had finally crushed him.

"That's enough," Marco said, his voice barely a whisper.

Dante POV

Marco moved past me, his stride heavy with a decision that had clearly been festering for a long time. He stopped and looked at his daughter. The Golden Child.

But there was no gold left in his gaze-only the dull, flat look of a man cutting off a gangrenous limb.

"You are done," Marco said.

"Daddy?" Chiara blinked, the rage in her eyes dissolving into a fragile, childlike confusion. "What do you mean?"

"You are not a Salinas," Marco said. His voice was flat. Dead. "You are a cancer. And tonight, I cut you out."

"You can't do that!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "I am your heir! I am the future!"

"You are nothing," Marco said. He pointed to the door with a trembling, final finger. "Get out."

"Dante!" She spun toward me, tears carving tracks through her makeup. "Help me! You love me! You peeled my grapes!"

I looked down at her clinging to my arm, and a wave of nausea rolled through me.

"I peeled your grapes because I thought you were dying," I said, my voice hollow. "I pitied you."

"Pity is love!" she argued, her nails digging into my suit jacket.

"No," I said, prying her fingers off me. "It isn't."

I stepped into her space, looming over her until she was forced to look up into my eyes. I leaned in close, dropping my voice to a lethal whisper so she could hear the monster I had become.

"You stole seven years from her," I said. "You stole my life. You destroyed the only thing I ever loved."

She froze. "You never loved her. You chose me. Tonight. In the park. You chose me."

The memory hit me like a physical blow-Alessia standing in the candlelight, her heart in her eyes. My back turning on her. The sound of her breaking.

"I made a mistake," I whispered, the words tasting like ash. "My last mistake."

I turned to the guards standing like statues in the hallway.

"Take her," I ordered. "To the sanitarium upstate. The secure unit. The one with the padded walls. She never leaves. She never speaks to anyone. As far as this world is concerned, she ceases to exist."

"No! No! Daddy! Dante!"

The guards grabbed her. She kicked and shrieked, a feral animal realizing the cage door was closing. She dragged her nails across the doorframe, leaving gouges in the wood as they hauled her away.

The screams faded down the hall, swallowed by the size of the house.

Silence returned to the room, heavy and suffocating.

Isabella was on the floor, weeping into her hands. Marco was staring out the window, looking at nothing.

I looked at the shredded photo in Giuliana's hand. Alessia's smiling face, obliterated by hate.

My hands trembling, I pulled out my phone. I dialed Alessia's number.

The silence on the line stretched for an eternity, followed by the three tone chime that signaled the end of my life.

The number you have dialed is not in service.

The phone slipped from my numb fingers. It hit the floor with a sharp crack.

She was gone. And in the silence of that room, I knew she wasn't coming back.