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.

I awoke to the acrid scent of smoke. Cigarette smoke. The heavy, cloying aroma of expensive tobacco.

I peeled my heavy eyes open.

The room was swathed in darkness, illuminated only by the city lights bleeding through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Dante sat in the velvet armchair in the corner, a silhouette cut from the shadows.

He was watching me. The cherry of his cigarette burned like a singular, unblinking eye in the gloom.

He hadn't been home in weeks.

I knew, without asking, that he had been staying at the apartment he bought for Sofia.

I sat up slowly, gritting my teeth as a sharp pain lanced through my lower back.

Dante stood up. He crossed the room and loomed over the bed, radiating the chill of the outdoors and the sharp tang of whiskey.

He reached out, his fingers closing around my wrist like a manacle. His grip was bruising. He hauled my arm up, inspecting it under the dim light.

"You're skin and bones," he said.

I tried to pull away, but my strength was a fading memory. "Let go," I whispered.

He didn't. Instead, he ran his thumb over the protruding bone of my wrist, a tactile reminder of my frailty.

"Are you anorexic?" he asked, his tone mocking. "Is that it? Trying to get attention?"

A laugh bubbled up in my throat, escaping as a dry, cracking sound. "Yes, Dante. That's it. I'm starving myself for your attention. Because you give it so freely."

He dropped my arm as if my skin had burned him. Turning away, he reached for the bedside lamp. He flipped the switch, and sudden, harsh light flooded the room, blinding me.

"Look," he commanded.

I squinted against the glare.

There, resting on the bedside table, was a white box. A bakery box.

He flipped the lid open. Inside sat a strawberry cake. It was pristine. Exorbitantly expensive.

He had actually bought it.

I realized it hadn't been a dream. That phone call with him had been real.

I stared at the glossy red berries, and nausea rolled violently through my gut.

My stomach had rejected solid food for days; I needed morphine, not sugar.

I looked up at him. He was waiting.

He was waiting for me to smile like the girl I used to be on the fire escape.

He was waiting for gratitude. He actually thought a cake could fix three years of hell.

Summoning the last of my energy, I picked up the box. I walked unsteadily to the trash can in the corner of the room and let the box fall from my hands. It landed with a heavy, wet thud.

Dante went perfectly still.

"You ungrateful bitch," he whispered.

He crossed the distance in two predatory strides and slammed me against the wall. His hand wrapped around my throat.

He didn't squeeze, but the threat hung heavy in the air.

"I drove across the city for that," he snarled, his face inches from mine.

"You asked for it."

"I was dreaming," I choked out, the lie tasting like ash. "I didn't mean it."

"You played me," he hissed. "You wanted to see if I would jump."

I looked into his eyes. They were wild with rage, but beneath the anger lay something else. Hurt.

He was hurt because I threw away his cake. He didn't care that he had thrown away my life.

"You're pathetic, Dante," I said softly.

His eyes darkened to obsidian. He pressed his body flush against mine, the hard wall of his chest pinning me in place. I could feel the anger vibrating through his frame.

He buried his face in the crook of my neck, biting down on the sensitive skin there. It hurt. But the pain was a spark in the darkness, jolting my dormant nerves.

He inhaled deeply. "You smell like medicine," he muttered against my skin, sounding almost offended.

His hand slid down my body, resting over the heavy coat I still wore.

"Take this off," he commanded. He began to undo the buttons himself.

He wanted to claim me. He wanted to prove he owned me. He wanted to hate-fuck the defiance right out of my soul.

I didn't fight him. I didn't have the strength left to fight. I just went limp.

He pushed the coat off my shoulders, letting it pool on the floor. His rough hands found the thin silk of my nightgown, his fingers grazing my ribs.

He paused.

He felt them. The sharp, skeletal ridges of my ribcage.

He pulled back slightly, looking down at my wasted body with a furrowed brow.

"Why are you so—"

His phone rang. The shrill sound sliced through the heavy atmosphere like a knife.

Dante froze. He looked at me, then down at his pocket. He pulled the device out.

Sofia. The name flashed bright on the screen.

He looked back at me, his eyes searching my face for something. A reason to stay.

"Beg me," he rasped. His voice was hoarse with conflicted desire. "Beg me to stay, Elena. Just once. Fight for me."

I leaned my head back against the wall, closing my eyes.

"You aren't worth it, Dante," I whispered.

The words were a lie.

He was worth everything. That was why I was dying alone.

His face hardened into stone. He answered the phone.

"Sofia?" he said.

I could hear her frantic crying on the other end, tinny and pathetic. "Help me, Dante! There's a man at the club... I'm scared!"

Dante didn't look away from me.

"I'm coming," he said to her, though his eyes were still locked on mine.

He did not want Sofia; he wanted the noise of her apartment, the mindless chatter of her television—any distraction to fill the vacuum of silence and guilt I now offered him.

He hung up. He stepped back, the loss of his body heat leaving me shivering. He snatched up his jacket and cast one last look at the trash can where the cake lay ruined.

"Happy birthday, Elena," he said coldly.

He walked out of the room. He walked out of the penthouse.

He left me alone in the dark with the ghost of a strawberry cake and the crushing silence of a dying house.