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.

The morning sun was an assault. It glared off the pristine drifts of snow, piercing my eyes like shards of glass.

I stepped out of the lobby of my apartment building, in want of fresh air.

I needed to feel something other than the lingering imprint of Dante's teeth on my neck.

The moment my boot hit the pavement, the world was rent by a volley of flashing lights.

Cameras. Dozens of them. They swarmed the entrance like vultures spotting a carcass.

I froze.

Usually, the guards kept them back. But this morning, the men were sluggish, their movements uncertain.

Maybe they had seen the news, too. Maybe they knew I was falling out of favor and therefore no longer worthy of their protection.

"Mrs. Cavallaro! Over here!"

"Is it true Dante spent the night with Sofia?"

"Are you getting a divorce?"

The questions were bullets. I pulled my coat tighter.

A young woman pushed her way to the front, brandishing a microphone like a weapon.

I recognized her at once. Jessica. Sofia's friend from university.

"Elena!" she called out. Her voice was sharp, cutting through the din. "How does it feel to be the third wheel in a true love story?"

The crowd quieted down. They wanted blood.

I looked at her. She was smiling—the cruel, triumphant arc of her mouth.

"Sofia says you trapped him," Jessica continued, advancing on me. "She says you used a contract to steal a man who belongs to her. Do you have any shame?"

I felt a familiar pressure in my sinuses.

Not now.

Please, not now.

I tried to step around her, to no avail; she blocked my path.

"Answer the question! Are you just holding on for the money? Is that why you look so haggard? Is the guilt eating you alive?" She shoved the microphone into my face. It struck my cheek.

The impact was light, but it was enough. The dam broke.

I felt the warmth before I saw it. A thick, hot liquid gushed from my nose. It dripped over my lips.

It splashed onto the microphone. It stained the snow on the collar of my white coat a stark, arterial red.

The crowd gasped. Camera shutters clicked furiously, capturing the spectacle of my ruin.

Jessica recoiled, looking at the blood on her equipment with disgust.

"Ew," she said, her own lip curling in revulsion. "That's disgusting. Stop acting for sympathy."

I reached into my pocket for a tissue. I didn't have one.

I used my gloved hand to wipe my face, which only served to smear the red across my pale skin.

I looked at Jessica. My vision was blurring at the edges.

"I'm not acting," I said. "I'm dying."

Jessica rolled her eyes.

"Oh, please," she scoffed. "That's the oldest trick in the book. You're pathetic."

"Gold digger."

"When he was poor, you dumped him. Now that he's rich, you married him."

I didn't argue. I didn't have the energy to convince her.

I just turned around and walked back into the building, leaving a trail of red drops on the marble floor.