Dante POV

The wedding was supposed to be today.

Instead, the Great Hall stood silent and empty. The flowers were already wilting in their vases, drooping like heads bowed in mourning. The guests had been called and told there was a delay due to the bride's health.

Sofia was recovering well. Too well.

She was sitting up in bed, flipping through bridal magazines, complaining about the scar the surgery would leave on her arm.

"It ruins the symmetry," she whined, tracing the bandage with a manicured nail.

I stood by the window, looking out at the lawn where the tent was supposed to be. I felt... hollow.

It wasn't the panic of almost losing Sofia. That had faded the moment the doctor said she would live.

This was something else. A gnawing, cold emptiness in the center of my chest. It felt like I had forgotten something important, like leaving the house without your keys, but a thousand times worse—like waking up and realizing a limb was missing.

I walked into my study and poured a drink. The amber liquid hit the glass with a heavy splash. Matteo was standing there, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.

"You're back," I said.

"Yes, Boss."

"Is everything handled?"

Matteo nodded. He knew I wasn't talking about his family emergency. I was talking about the loose end. The Rat.

"She's gone?" I asked.

Matteo hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second. "She's gone, Dante. She took the money. She left the country. You won't see her again."

I took a sip of the scotch. It burned, but not enough.

"Good."

"We need to reschedule the date," Matteo said, shifting topics. "Sofia wants a spring wedding now."

"No," I said abruptly.

Matteo looked up, startled. "No?"

"Not here," I said, my voice tight. "I don't want it here. The estate... it smells like smoke. It smells like the past."

"Where then?"

"Aspen," I said. The word came out before I even thought it.

Matteo went rigid. "Aspen?"

"Yes. The mountains. Clean air. Snow," I listed, needing the cold to numb the fire in my head. "We'll do it there. Next month. Book the lodge."

"Dante," Matteo said carefully. "Are you sure? That's... far."

I slammed the glass down, the sound echoing like a gunshot. "Just do it, Matteo! Why does everyone question me?"

I walked to the window again. My reflection stared back at me—a man who had everything. Power. Money. The beautiful fiancée. The revenge complete.

So why did I feel like I was bleeding out?

"Where did she go, Matteo?" I asked quietly, my back to him. "Specifically?"

Matteo didn't answer for a long time. When he did, his voice was as cold as the grave.

"She went to the sky, Dante. She just... took to the sky."

Dante POV

I told myself I was looking for a contract.

That was the lie I fed my conscience as I unlocked the bottom drawer of the mahogany desk in my study.

It was 3:00 AM. The penthouse was silent, save for the distant, lonely hum of the city far below.

Sofia was asleep in the master bedroom, likely dreaming of a wedding I had just exiled to the mountains.

I slid the drawer open. There was no contract inside.

There was only a small velvet box.

The velvet was worn at the corners, the blue faded to a dull, lifeless gray. It looked like trash. In this room dominated by Italian leather and imported marble, it looked like a mistake.

My hand trembled as I reached for it.

I shouldn't open it. I should toss it into the fireplace and watch it turn to ash, just like the rest of my life seemed to be doing.

Yet, I opened it.

The ring inside was pathetic by Vitiello standards. It was a thin silver band with a diamond chip so small you had to squint to see it shine.

I had bought it with money scrounged from stealing hubcaps when I was twenty. Before I was the Capo. Before I was a monster.

I remembered the day I bought it.

It had been raining.

I had been soaked to the bone, shivering outside the pawn shop, terrified that someone from my father's crew would spot me buying a promise for the maid's ward.

"I'm going to marry you, Elena," I had whispered to the empty air that day.

"We'll go to the mountains. We'll build a cabin. We'll name our kids after stars."

I stared at the ring now, the metal feeling freezing against my skin.

The memories hit me like a physical blow.

Elena laughing as we ran through the sprinklers. Elena bandaging my knuckles after my first kill. Elena looking at me with eyes so full of trust it made my chest ache.

And then came the blood.

My mother's body on the pavement. Elena's confession.

"I did it. I killed her."

The memory turned sour, curdling in my gut like poison. I slammed the box shut.

Why did I keep this? Why did I hoard a token of the woman who destroyed my family?

Because I was weak.

I stood and strode to the window. The reflection staring back at me belonged to a stranger. Dark circles under the eyes. A mouth set in a permanent line of cruelty.

Matteo said she was gone. She had taken the money. She had left.

She was probably laughing at me right now. Living it up on a beach somewhere with my money, happy to be rid of the Vitiello burden.

I felt a surge of rage so hot it scorched my throat.

I walked to the metal trash can in the corner of the room. I held the box over the opening.

Three months.

I gave myself a deadline. The wedding was in a month. The honeymoon would last two weeks. By the time I returned from the mountains, I would be a husband. I would be a father soon after.

I would scrub her from my veins.

I dropped the box.

It hit the bottom of the bin with a hollow thud.

"Goodbye, Elena."

I killed the light and walked out of the study, leaving the only pure thing I had ever owned in the garbage.

Dante POV

The invitation had been gathering dust on the counter for weeks.

*St. Jude’s Academy. Class of 2014. Ten Year Reunion.*

I hadn't wanted to go. I had no desire to look into the faces of people who used to fear me in the hallways. But Sofia had insisted. She said it was good for our image. She wanted to show off the ring. She wanted to show off the Don.

So, inevitably, we went.

The ballroom was suffocating. The air smelled of expensive perfume and quiet desperation. Men in rented tuxedos clapped me on the back, their palms sweating against my jacket. Women eyed Sofia with a sharp jealousy that made her preen like a peacock.

"You look tense, darling," Sofia whispered, running a manicured hand down my arm as if smoothing out a wrinkle in her favorite accessory.

"I'm fine."

I wasn't fine. I felt like a caged animal. Every corner of this room held a ghost. Over there, by the punch bowl, was where I had first kissed Elena. By the exit, that was where we had once planned our escape.

"Attention, everyone!"

The Class President, a man whose name had long since faded from my memory, tapped a microphone on the stage.

"Ten years ago, we all wrote letters to our future selves," he announced, beaming. "Tonight, we open them."

A murmur of excitement rippled through the crowd. Waiters began circulating with baskets of envelopes.

"I didn't write one," I said to Sofia, my voice flat.

"Of course you did," she said, grabbing an envelope with my name on it from a passing basket. "Look. Dante Vitiello."

She tore it open before I could stop her.

"Read it to me," she giggled, leaning in, her breath sweet with champagne. "Let's see if the great Don achieved his dreams."

She pulled out the sheet of notebook paper. Her smile faltered.

I ripped the paper from her hand.

The handwriting was messy, rushed. I remembered writing it in detention, while Elena sat two desks away, pretending to study Chemistry.

*To Future Dante,*

*If you are reading this, you better be in Aspen. You better be sitting on the porch of that cabin with Elena. You better have a ring on her finger. Don't let your father turn you into him. Marry her. She is the only world you need.*

The words blurred before my eyes.

*She is the only world you need.*

Sofia was staring at me. Her face was pale. She had seen the name.

"Give it to me," she hissed, reaching for the paper with claw-like fingers.

I crumpled it in my fist. "No."

I turned and walked away. I needed air. I needed a drink. I needed to punch something.

"Dante?"

A hand grabbed my elbow. I spun around, ready to strike.

It was Luca. A guy I used to play football with a lifetime ago. He looked nervous, his eyes darting around the room as if expecting a hitman to jump out from behind the curtains.

"What?" I snapped.

"I... I heard about the fire," Luca said quietly. "At the estate."

I stiffened. "Yeah. Sofia saved me."

Luca frowned. He looked down at his drink, then back at me, conflict warring in his gaze.

"Dante, I was there. I was driving past the estate when it happened. I saw the smoke. I stopped to call 911."

"So?"

"I saw who dragged you out," Luca said.

My heart stopped. It didn't beat. It just froze in my chest.

"It wasn't Sofia," Luca whispered, his voice trembling. "It was the girl. The one with the dark hair. Elena."

I stared at him. The noise of the party faded into a dull, distant buzz.

"You're lying," I said, my voice low and dangerous. "Sofia had the burns. She had the smoke inhalation."

"I saw her, Dante. She dragged you onto the lawn. She was... she was on fire. Her back... a beam must have hit her. She pushed you toward Sofia when the sirens started. Then she ran."

He paused, looking terrified of my reaction.

"She looked bad, Dante. Really bad."

I backed away from him. I couldn't breathe.

The burns. The scars on the floor of her apartment. The way she flinched when I touched her back.

*I did it for the money,* she had said.

Liar.

I turned and ran out of the ballroom.