Sofia's long, acrylic nails drummed against the glass desk.

Click. Click. Click. It was a staccato rhythm calculated to grate on the nerves.

"Can I get you anything?" Sofia asked suddenly. "Tea? Coffee? Vodka?"

"No, thank you," I said.

"Oh, come on," she sighed, standing up.

She sauntered over to the small kitchenette in the corner of the waiting area, moving with a hip sway so practiced it looked choreographed.

She poured a cup of tea and brought it over, placing it on the low table in front of me with a delicate clink.

"Dante hates keeping people waiting," she said, perching on the arm of the chair opposite me. "But he's in the War Room. Dealing with... you know, the heavy stuff. He hates interruptions when he's looking at maps."

She smiled, clearly understanding nothing of the blood spilled for those maps, only that it sounded important to be near it.

It was a specific kind of smile. It reached her eyes, crinkling the corners.

It was innocent. It was the exact same smile I used to give Dante ten years ago.

Before I broke his heart to save his life.

That was when I realized why he kept her.

It wasn't just the sex. It wasn't even to humiliate me.

It was because she was a ghost of the girl I used to be. He was trying to recreate the past with a cheaper substitute.

"He treats me so well," Sofia continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "He bought me a villa in Tuscany. He says he wants to take me there next summer."

Next summer.

I wouldn't be here next summer. I would be nothing but ash in a ceramic urn.

"That sounds lovely," I said.

She frowned, visibly disappointed by my apathy.

"He loves me, you know," she pressed, her voice harder this time.

I looked at her hands. They were smooth, unblemished by worry or time.

"Sofia," I said softly.

She blinked, startled by the use of her name.

"Why do you settle for this?" I asked.

"Settle for what?" She scoffed. "Being the Queen of Chicago?"

"Being a mistress," I corrected gently.

Her face flushed a violent red.

I wasn't trying to be cruel. I was simply tired. My bones felt like they were grinding against each other with every breath.

"If you think you have his heart," I said, leaning forward slightly, "then convince him to sign the divorce papers."

I had signed them a year ago. They were sitting in his safe, gathering dust.

He had refused to sign them.

He told me I didn't get to walk away until he was finished playing with his food.

Sofia stood up abruptly.

"You think you're so superior," she hissed. "You're just a washed-up princess, Elena. You're barren. You're cold. You're nothing."

"You abandoned him when he had nothing, didn't you?"

She was shouting now, her voice shrill.

"Look at you! You're withering away. You look like an old hag. No wonder he never touches you. No wonder he spends every night in my bed."

A sharp pain lanced through my chest.

Not from her insults, but from the phantom memory of Dante's touch.

It had been three years since he had touched me with anything other than anger.

"You're right," I said.

Sofia stopped mid-breath, her mouth hanging open.

"I am withering," I admitted quietly. "So take the advice. Get him to divorce me."

Her hand trembled with rage.

She wasn't used to a target that didn't fight back. She wanted a scream. She wanted a catfight.

But I had long ago promised myself I wouldn't get angry for Dante, wouldn't get sad for him.

And I certainly wouldn't fight over him with another woman.

Sofia didn't throw the tea at me.

She was too smart for that.

Instead, she hurled the cup at the floor directly between us. The porcelain struck the marble with a sharp report, like a bone snapping, and flew apart into jagged splinters.

Then, in a fluid motion, she threw herself onto the ground, landing on her hands and knees amidst the wreckage.

"Ah!" she screamed.

She gripped her own hand, squeezing a microscopic cut on her palm until she forced a single, dramatic drop of blood to the surface.

The heavy oak doors of the conference room burst open.

Dante Cavallaro stepped out.

A giant of a man, he wore a bespoke black suit that likely cost more than most families earned in a decade.

His dark hair was slicked back, severe and sharp, revealing a face hewn from granite.

His pupils were black, like chips of obsidian that absorbed all light and reflected nothing.

He took in the scene in a heartbeat. The broken cup. Me, seated on the sofa, a study in stillness. And Sofia, arranged in a tableau of manufactured distress upon the floor.

"Dante!" she wailed.

Dante did not so much as spare me a glance.

He crossed the room in two long strides, rushing to Sofia. This man, who they called the Reaper, now moved with extraordinary tenderness.

"Let me see," he murmured.

He took her hand. It was a scratch. A papercut. But he treated it like a bullet wound.

"Who did this?" he growled.

He looked at Enzo.

Enzo opened his mouth, his face draining of color.

"I did it," I said coldly.

Dante turned his head slowly to look at me. He did not erupt. Instead, he fixed me with the cool, appraising gaze one might grant a piece of filth stuck to the sole of a shoe.

There was no fire in it, only a heavy, suffocating disgust.

"You threw a cup at her?" he asked. His voice was so low it was nearly a vibration in the air.

"Sure," I said.

Why defend myself? I didn't care.

Sofia buried her face in Dante's chest. "She called me a whore, Dante! She said I was trash!"

Dante stood up, pulling Sofia with him.

He wrapped an arm around her waist, protective and possessive.

"Don't cry, baby." He kissed away her tears.

I thought, maybe she really was different to Dante. Three months and he hadn't replaced her—his longest-kept mistress.

I lowered my eyes, not watching their intimacy.

"I came here for my allowance, Dante," I said.

He laughed.

"Of course," he said. "Greed. You smell money like a shark smells blood."

Gold digger. That's what he meant to say.

"I need fifty thousand," I said.

Fifty thousand dollars. That would buy enough morphine to carry me to the end, to let me drift gently into nothingness.

Dante smirked.

"Fifty thousand?" he repeated. "For what? A new coat to hide those bones?"

"Expenses," I said.

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a checkbook. He scribbled something on a check. Then he ripped it out.

But he didn't hand it to me. He held it out to Sofia instead.

"Here, cara," he said to her. "Go buy yourself something nice to make up for this distress."

It was a check for two hundred thousand dollars.

Sofia took the money, her tears instantly drying. She looked at me and smirked.

Dante turned back to me.

"You want money, Elena?" he asked.

"Yes," I whispered.

"Then apologize to her," he said, pointing at his mistress. "Lower your high-born head and say you're sorry. Then maybe I'll give you enough for a cab ride home."

I looked at him.

I looked at the man I had saved.

The man for whom I had destroyed my own soul to protect.

He was selling my dignity for cash. And he was enjoying it.

A current of pain, sharp and electric, shot through my body. I didn't have time for pride. But I still had limits.

I looked Dante in the eye.

"Then so be it, Dante," I said.

I didn't apologize. I turned around.

"Wait!" he barked.

I didn't stop.

I could feel his gaze upon my back, a palpable, burning weight between my shoulder blades.

I was suddenly curious.

If someday Dante found out that this money could have let me live longer, suffer less pain—

What would he feel then?

The penthouse was unnervingly silent.

I didn't bother with the lights. I walked straight to the bedroom and collapsed onto the mattress.

I didn't even take off my coat.

I curled into a tight ball, pulling my knees to my chest to preserve whatever heat I had left.

I dry-swallowed two over-the-counter sleeping pills, letting my mind grow foggy.

I closed my eyes and let the darkness swallow me whole.

I dreamt of snow.

The memory pulled me back ten years.

We were in the Little Italy district. Dante wasn't a Don then. He was just a soldier. A nobody.

He wore a threadbare jacket, and his knuckles were raw and split from a fresh fight.

We were standing in front of a bakery window, our breath misting against the glass. It was Christmas Eve.

Inside, there was a cake. A pristine white cake topped with strawberries. It looked like a cloud suspended on a platter.

I pressed my face against the cold glass.

"It looks like snow," I whispered. "But sweet."

Dante looked from the cake to me.

Slowly, he reached into his pocket and counted the crumpled bills there.

He didn't have enough.

I saw the realization hit him, and I knew he didn't have enough.

I laughed, tugging sharply on his arm to break the spell.

"I hate strawberries anyway," I lied, forcing a bright smile. "Let's go get pizza."

Three days later. I was sitting on the rusted fire escape of my father's building.

Dante climbed up to meet me. His face was fresh with bruises. His hands were red, bitten by the cold.

But he held a box.

He opened it. It was the cake. Or at least, a version of it.

It was smaller, the frosting smashed on one side. He had worked three extra shifts at the docks just to buy it.

"For my Princess," he said.

He looked so proud, it broke my heart.

I ate it with my fingers, ignoring the cold. It tasted like cheap sugar and stale cream.

It was the best thing I had ever eaten.

I cried in the dream.

I cried because I knew what was coming.

I knew that, eventually, I would have to kill that sweet boy to save the man.

A harsh noise jolted me awake.

My phone was ringing.

I groaned, turning over. My body felt like lead, weighted down by the memory.

I fumbled for the device on the nightstand, not bothering to look at the caller ID.

"Hello?" I mumbled. My voice was thick with sleep and lingering pain.

"Elena." It was Dante. His voice was rough, stripping away the softness of the dream.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"I'm in bed," I rasped.

"It's only eight o'clock," he said.

"I'm tired, Dante."

Silence stretched over the line. I drifted back toward the dream, unable to anchor myself in reality.

The snow. The bakery.

"Dante..." I whispered.

"What?" he asked, his tone sharpening.

"It's snowing," I murmured, my eyes fluttering closed. "I want the cake."

"What?"

"The strawberry one," I said, my consciousness slipping. "The one that tastes like snow."

I let the phone slip from my hand onto the pillow. I fell back into the dark before he could answer.