Matteo POV

I told Dante I needed forty-eight hours.

A personal matter. A family emergency.

He didn't even question me; he was too busy hovering over Sofia's recovery bed, playing the devoted fiancé to perfection.

I took the company jet. Not for business, but for a funeral of one.

Secured in the cargo hold was a plain wooden box containing the ashes of Elena. I couldn't bring myself to bury her in the family plot. Salvatore would unearth her just to spit on her bones.

She deserved better than that. She deserved the sky.

We landed in Aspen as the sun was just rising over the peaks. The air was crisp and thin, biting at my lungs with every inhale.

I rented a jeep and drove to the coordinates on the brochure I had found in her pocket.

It was a high ridge, accessible only by a narrow, winding trail.

I hiked the last mile, carrying the box against my chest. My breath plumed in the cold air like smoke.

It was silent up here. Profoundly silent. No city noise. No gunfire. No accusations.

A man was waiting for me. He wore simple robes, not quite a priest, but a guide.

"You are the one for Xiang Wanning?" he asked.

"Yes."

He nodded and gently took the box.

"She wrote to me months ago," he said softly. "She said she wanted to be where the snow never melts. She said she was tired of the heat."

He opened the box. The ash was gray and impossibly fine.

The wind picked up, howling through the crags. The guide began to chant something low and rhythmic, a sound that vibrated in the thin air. He stepped to the edge of the cliff.

With a fluid motion, he cast the contents of the box into the air.

The wind caught her.

For a moment, the ash hung suspended, a gray cloud against the blinding blue sky. Then, it dispersed.

She was everywhere. And she was gone.

"She had a pure soul," the guide said, watching the dust settle on the snow far below. "To give oneself to the wind requires a heart that holds no weight. No hate."

I felt a lump harden in my throat.

No hate.

After everything we did to her. After the beatings, the insults, the servitude. She died saving Sofia. She died saving Dante's happiness.

I stood there for a long time, watching the eagles circle the void.

I realized then that we were the villains in her story.

We thought we were the righteous punishers, the avenging angels. But we were just monsters breaking a dying saint.

Eventually, I turned back to the trail. I had to go back to New York. I had to go back to the lie.

"Goodbye, Elena," I whispered into the wind. "You're finally free of us."

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.