The restaurant for our "dinner" was actually just the VIP booth at The Sapphire Room.

Dante decided we should stay there since Isabella was feeling "stressed."

Isabella sat across from us, commanding the space. It wasn't an anniversary dinner. It was a business meeting disguised as a meal, with me playing the role of the third wheel.

"This place is exactly how I imagined it," Dante said, looking around the room with a rare warmth. "Do you remember you sketched this layout on a napkin five years ago?"

"You kept that napkin?" Isabella asked, her eyes wide.

"I keep everything," he said.

I took a sip of water. It tasted like ash in my mouth.

A waiter appeared at Dante’s elbow.

"We’ll have the Lobster Risotto, the truffle carpaccio, and the sea bass," Dante ordered smoothly. He didn't even look at the menu.

"Dante," Isabella said with a fake, playful pout. "Ask Elara what she wants. Maybe she doesn't like sea bass."

Dante shrugged, dismissive. "I don't know what she likes. She can speak for herself."

Three years. We had been married for three years.

I was deathly allergic to shellfish. The risotto had lobster stock. Even cross-contamination could shut down my throat.

"I’m not hungry," I said quietly.

"Suit yourself," Dante said.

"I’m going to the ladies' room." I stood up.

I needed to breathe. I needed to get away from the suffocating weight of their shared history, which hung over the table like a toxic fog.

I walked into the restroom. It was a collision of marble and gold—opulent and suffocatingly tacky.

The door opened behind me.

Isabella walked in.

She stood next to me at the sinks, checking her lipstick in the mirror.

"You look tired, Elara," she said.

"I’m fine," I said, scrubbing my hands.

"You know," she said, leaning closer to the mirror. "It’s kind of sad. You trying so hard."

"I’m his wife, Isabella."

She laughed. It was a cruel, sharp sound. "You’re a contract. You’re a handshake between two dead men. You think because you wear his ring, you have his soul? I own every breath he takes."

"Then why didn't he marry you?" I asked, turning to face her.

Her eyes narrowed. "Because he had to protect you. You’re the charity case. The Consigliere’s Bargain."

She smirked. "But don't worry. He comes to me when he needs to feel real."

I opened my mouth to respond, but a deep, groaning sound echoed from above.

The ceiling shook.

We both looked up.

The massive crystal chandelier above the main dining area—the one Dante had installed because Isabella wanted "grandeur"—gave a terrifying high-pitched screech of metal shearing.

It wasn't directly above us. But the structural support beam ran straight through the ceiling of the restroom.

The plaster cracked.

The chandelier in the main room crashed. The impact was like a bomb going off.

The shockwave blew out the wall of the restroom.

Debris rained down. A heavy chunk of plaster and steel support beam plummeted toward us.

I saw Dante in the doorway. He had run from the table the second the noise started.

He saw us both. We were standing three feet apart.

He had a split second. A single heartbeat.

He lunged.

He tackled Isabella, covering her body with his own, shielding her against the far wall.

He left me standing in the open.

The beam hit me.

Pain exploded in my side. Darkness swallowed me whole.

*

I woke up to the rhythmic beep of machines.

My side felt like it was on fire. My head was throbbing in time with my pulse.

I opened my eyes. White ceiling. Hospital.

I turned my head. Dante was bursting through the door. He looked frantic. His tuxedo was covered in dust and plaster.

"Elara!"

I looked at him. I felt a strange, cold clarity.

"I’m awake," I whispered.

"I didn't know," he panted, rushing to the bedside. "I didn't know you were hit. There was so much dust. I got Isabella out and..."

"And you realized the wife was missing later," I finished.

"Elara, don't," he said. "Are you okay? The doctor said you have three broken ribs and a concussion."

"I’m fine," I said.

I closed my eyes. I pictured the ledger in my mind.

*He chose.*

In the moment of life or death, instinct took over. He didn't think. He just acted. And his instinct was to save her.

"Minus ten," I whispered.

"What?" Dante asked, leaning closer. "What did you say?"

"I said minus ten," I said, opening my eyes to look at him dead on.

"Ten points away from freedom."

"What points?" he demanded. "You’re talking nonsense. You have a concussion."

"I have clarity, Dante," I said. "Crystal clear."

"Where were you?"

The nurse’s voice was sharp, cutting through the sterile air. She was adjusting my IV drip, her glare fixed firmly on Dante.

"I was... handling the situation," Dante said, shifting his weight. He looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable. Here stood the great Don Moretti, being scolded by a middle-aged nurse in orthopedic shoes.

"Your wife was unconscious for two hours," the nurse snapped, checking the monitor with efficient, angry movements. "She woke up alone."

"I’m here now," Dante replied, his voice tight.

He reached for my hand. Instinctively, I pulled it away.

"Don't," I said.

"Elara," he warned, his tone dropping an octave into that familiar command. "Don't make a scene."

"Where is she?" I asked, ignoring his warning.

He stiffened, his jaw tightening. "Isabella is in the psychiatric wing. She’s... in shock. The crash traumatized her."

"She has a scratch on her elbow," I stated flatly, staring at the ceiling. "I have broken ribs."

"It’s not about physical injury," Dante argued, frustration leaking into his voice. "She’s fragile, Elara. She wasn't raised in this life like you were. She doesn't handle violence well."

"So you checked her into a suite?"

"I needed to make sure she was safe."

His phone buzzed against the bedside table.

He looked at it. He sighed, the sound heavy with exhaustion.

"She’s panicking again," he said, reading the message. "The doctors can't calm her down."

He looked at me then. He was torn; I could see the conflict warring behind his eyes. But the tear wasn't equal. It was a ninety-ten split.

And I wasn't the ninety.

"Go," I said.

"I’ll come back," he promised, already stepping back. "I just need to settle her."

"Don't bother," I murmured.

He hesitated for a fraction of a second, then turned and walked out.

I waited exactly one minute.

I pushed the button to lower the bed rail. Taking a breath, I swung my legs over the side. The pain in my ribs was blinding, immediate—like a hot knife twisting deep in my torso. I gritted my teeth against a cry and forced myself to stand.

I grabbed the IV pole for support, my knuckles turning white.

I walked.

I shuffled down the corridor, moving like a shadow past the nurses' station. They were too swamped with a fresh trauma intake to notice one wandering patient.

I followed the sterile signs pointing to the Psychiatric Wing.

It was a nicer wing. Quieter. The air smelled less like antiseptic and more like lavender.

I found room 402. The blinds were partially open, slicing the room into strips of light and dark.

I stood there, leaning heavily on my IV pole, breathing through the agony radiating from my side.

Dante was sitting on the bed. Isabella was curled up in his lap, sobbing into his chest like a frightened child.

He was rocking her. He was stroking her hair. He was whispering things I couldn't hear, but I could read the movements of his lips.

*I’ve got you. I’m not leaving. You’re safe.*

A doctor was standing by the door, speaking in low tones. I moved slightly, wincing, so I could catch the words.

"She has an acute stress reaction," the doctor was explaining to Dante. "She needs an emotional anchor. Someone she trusts implicitly."

"I’m staying," Dante said, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Prep the jet. As soon as she’s cleared, I’m taking her to the vineyard in Tuscany. She needs quiet."

The vineyard. *Project True North.*

He was taking her to the house he had designed for *our* retirement.

He pulled out his phone and made a call, his demeanor shifting instantly from protector to predator.

"Find out where her ex-husband is," Dante ordered into the phone, his voice cold and lethal. "If he came anywhere near that restaurant, if he had anything to do with her stress... handle it."

He hung up and kissed the top of Isabella’s head.

I watched them.

It wasn't that Dante was incapable of love. He loved fiercely. He loved with a protective, consuming violence that was terrifying to behold.

He just didn't love me.

I was the obligation. She was the obsession.

I caught my reflection in the glass of the window. Pale skin. Hospital gown. A bruised, swollen face.

I looked like a ghost.

And that’s exactly what I was to him. A ghost haunting his real life.

I turned the IV pole around.

The pain in my ribs was still there, sharp and biting, but the pain in my chest—the heavy, suffocating weight I had carried for three years—was gone.

The hope was dead. And with the death of hope came the birth of indifference.

I shuffled back to my room, each step a little lighter.

I reached for the imaginary pen in my mind.

*Minus ten.*

Forty-five points left.

But honestly? I didn't think I needed to wait for zero anymore. The math was becoming irrelevant. The equation was solved.

Dante Moretti + Elara Rossi = Nothing.

Elara Rossi POV

I remained in that hospital bed for a week.

Seven days of white noise and the stinging scent of antiseptic. Seven days of watching the door, waiting for a shadow that never darkened the threshold.

Dante didn't come.

His assistant, a skittish man named Steven who looked afraid of his own reflection, arrived on day three. He carried a vase of lilies that likely cost more than a mid-sized sedan.

"Mr. Moretti sends his regards," Steven stammered, placing the vase on the bedside table with trembling hands. "He is... detained. With matters of security."

"Security," I repeated. The word tasted like copper on my tongue. "Is that what we're calling her now?"

Steven didn't answer. He simply adjusted his glasses and fled the room as if it were on fire.

I stared at the lilies. Stark white. Funeral flowers.

"Nurse," I called out, my voice raspy.

A young woman in blue scrubs poked her head in.

"Take these," I commanded. "And the fruit basket. And the chocolates. Get them out."

"Are you sure, Mrs. Moretti?"

"I don't want anything in this room that I didn't pay for myself."

By day five, my phone began to buzz. Anonymous numbers. No text, just images.

Dante and Isabella at a café. Dante pushing Isabella in a wheelchair through a private park, despite the fact she could walk perfectly fine. Dante hand-feeding her a pastry.

The caption on the final image was simple: *Reclaiming what is ours.*

I didn't block the number. I needed to see it. I needed the evidence to cauterize the wound, to burn the hope out of my system.

When the doctor finally cleared me for discharge, I stood on the curb outside the hospital entrance. I had called the car service myself. The Family driver was supposed to be there, but I didn't bother checking the schedule.

A black SUV screeched to a halt. It was a Family car, but not Dante’s. It was a generic fleet transport.

The driver didn't exit to open the door for me. I climbed in, wincing as my healing ribs protested the movement.

The estate was silent when I arrived. It felt less like a home and more like a mausoleum of marble and velvet.

I walked up the grand staircase, my breath hitching with every step. I needed painkillers, but I refused to dull the edges of reality. Not tonight.

I reached the landing and saw light spilling from the cracks of the library door.

Voices drifted out.

"You need to go home, Boss. You've been awake for three days."

It was Marco.

"I can't." Dante’s voice was slurred. Thick with whiskey and exhaustion. "She needs me, Marco. She wakes up screaming."

"Mrs. Moretti was discharged today," Marco said. His voice was quiet, respectful, but firm. "She came home alone."

There was a heavy pause. The clink of glass against crystal.

"Elara is strong," Dante muttered. "She’s built for this life. Her father raised a soldier in a dress."

"She’s your wife, Dante. She took a bullet meant for you."

"I know!" Dante roared. The sound vibrated through the wood, making me flinch. "I know what she is. She is duty. She is honor. She is the promise I made to a dying man."

"She is a good woman," Marco insisted.

I leaned against the wall, closing my eyes against the sting.

"She is a saint," Dante whispered, the anger draining out of him, replaced by a bleak, drunken honesty. "She does everything right. She never complains. She never asks for more than I give."

He laughed, a dark, humorless sound that scraped against the silence.

"But Marco... you can admire a statue. You can respect a monument. But you don't fuck the monument. You don't bleed for stone."

I heard the sound of liquid pouring.

"She can be a saint," Dante said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper that carried through the door. "But she will never be *her*."

I looked down at my left hand. The diamond on my finger felt heavy, like a shackle forged in cold blood.

He didn't hate me. That would have been easier. He just didn't see me as a living, breathing creature. I was a contract he honored. A bill he paid on time.

I pushed away from the wall. I didn't enter the library. I didn't confront him.

I walked down the hall to the guest room I had been sleeping in for months.

I opened the ledger lying on the desk.

*Minus ten.*

Thirty-five points.

I stared at the number. It felt too high.