Elena POV

The wind whipping off the West End Docks tasted of brine and diesel fumes.

The sky was a bruised purple, heavy and low, threatening a storm that matched the tightening in my chest.

I stood next to Dante. Beneath my coat, the Kevlar vest dug into my ribs-a secret weight. He thought I was wearing the cashmere sweater he'd bought me yesterday, a trinket for my good behavior.

"It's a big day," Dante said, scanning the labyrinth of rusted shipping containers. "This secures our legacy."

"Your legacy," I corrected him gently.

He glanced at me, his jaw tightening, but before he could speak, the sleek profile of a black limousine cut through the industrial gloom.

My stomach turned.

Sofia stepped out. She was a vision of absurdity in heels far too high for the uneven pavement and a white trench coat that screamed for attention against the harbor's grime.

"I wanted to see you work," she cooed, picking her way over to us. She slipped her arm through Dante's, staking her claim right in front of me.

Dante looked irritated, but he didn't shake her off. "It's dangerous here, Sofia. You should have stayed at the estate."

"But I'm safe with you," she said, gazing up at him with wide, manufactured adoration.

I looked at Enzo, who was standing by the car. He gave me a barely perceptible nod.

It was time.

Tires screeched against concrete as three SUVs tore around the corner, boxing us in.

Men poured out like oil, AK-47s raised. They wore the distinct tattoos of the Bratva.

"Ambush!" Dante roared, shoving Sofia behind him.

His men drew their weapons, but the odds were fatal. The Russians had the high ground on the containers.

Nikolai Volkov stepped out of the lead vehicle. He was a mountain of a man, his face a map of scar tissue and malice.

"Dante Moretti," Nikolai boomed. "You built a nice kingdom here."

"Volkov," Dante snarled. "You're violating the truce."

"The truce is boring." Nikolai signaled his men.

Two mercenaries lunged forward. In the chaos, hands grabbed me. Rough, bruising hands. Two others seized Sofia.

Dante raised his gun, but he froze. He had two targets to save and only one line of fire.

Nikolai laughed. He strolled over and pressed the cold steel of his barrel against my temple. One of his soldiers held a serrated knife to Sofia's throat.

"Let's play a game, Reaper," Nikolai said. "I'm feeling generous. I'll let one go. You choose."

The silence on the dock was absolute, broken only by the slap of dark water against the pilings.

"Don't do this," Dante said, his voice tight.

"Choose!" Nikolai shouted. "The Queen or the Ward? The wife or the charity case? You have five seconds."

Sofia started to scream. "Dante! Please! He's going to cut me! Dante!"

I didn't make a sound. I simply looked at my husband.

I looked at the man who promised to burn the world for me. I looked at the man who had waterboarded me three days ago because I dared to upset the girl currently screaming his name.

"Three," Nikolai counted. "Two."

Dante's eyes darted between us. He looked at me and saw my calm. He saw the steel he had forged. Then he looked at Sofia, sobbing and shaking, fragile as spun glass.

He made the calculation. He always made the calculation.

Elena can survive. Elena is tough. I can get her back later. Sofia dies now.

"Let the girl go," Dante said.

The words hung in the damp air like a death sentence.

Nikolai grinned. He shoved Sofia toward Dante. She scrambled across the pavement, throwing herself into Dante's arms.

Dante caught her, but his eyes were locked on me.

"I'll come for you," he mouthed.

"No," I whispered. "You won't."

Nikolai pulled the trigger.

The impact was a sledgehammer to my chest. I let the momentum take me.

I fell backward, off the edge of the world.

The cold, dark water swallowed me whole.

Dante POV

She didn't scream when she fell.

That was the worst part. Sofia was screaming. My men were shouting. The gunfire was erupting around us. But Elena went into the water in total, damning silence.

"Elena!"

The scream tore out of my throat, raw and bloody.

I shoved Sofia aside so hard she hit the pavement. I sprinted to the edge of the dock.

The water was black. Oily. Churning.

There was nothing. No surfacing. No gasping for air.

"No," I said. "No, no, no."

I fumbled with my holster. I was going in. I had to go in.

"Boss! Get down!"

A heavy weight slammed into me from the side. Marco tackled me to the concrete just as bullets chewed up the spot where I had been standing.

"Let me go!" I roared, striking him. "She's in the water!"

"She's gone, Dante! Look at the water!" Marco shouted, pinning my arms. "She took a round to the chest! Point blank! She's gone!"

I looked. The surface was undisturbed, save for the indifferent ripples of the current.

Gone.

The word didn't make sense. Elena wasn't gone. Elena was permanent. She was the steel in the foundation of this house. She couldn't be gone.

I just... I just made a choice. A tactical choice.

I chose Sofia because Sofia is weak. Elena is a survivor. Elena always survives.

"Get him in the car!" Marco ordered.

Two more soldiers grabbed me. They dragged me away from the edge. I fought them. I kicked and clawed, desperate to get back to the black water.

"Elena!" I screamed her name until my voice broke.

They threw me into the back of the armored SUV. Sofia was already there, huddled in the corner, shaking.

"Oh my god, Dante," she sobbed. "He shot her. He just shot her."

I looked at her.

For the first time in five years, looking at Sofia Russo didn't make me feel protective. It made bile rise in my throat.

The car sped away, leaving the docks behind. Leaving my wife in the freezing dark.

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.

I had saved the girl. I had kept my promise to Luca.

But as the distance between me and the water grew, a cold, terrifying realization settled in my gut.

I had saved the girl.

But I had killed the only thing that mattered.

Dante POV

The whiskey didn't burn anymore. It tasted like nothing.

I sat in my study. The lights were off. The only illumination came from the streetlamps outside, filtering through the heavy velvet curtains like moonlight on a grave.

It had been two weeks.

We dragged the harbor. We hired divers. We bribed the Coast Guard.

Nothing.

The current at the West End is a monster. It drags everything out to the open ocean.

She was gone.

I poured another glass. My hand brushed a stack of papers on the desk. Separation papers. The ones she tried to give me. The ones I tore up. I had taped them back together last night in a fit of drunken madness, tracing her signature with my thumb until the paper wore thin.

The door creaked open.

A silhouette stood there, backlit by the hallway light.

"Dante?"

It was a woman. She was wearing a silk robe. Her silk robe. The emerald green silk I had draped over Elena's shoulders in Milan.

My heart stopped.

"Elena?" I whispered. I stood up, the chair scraping violently against the floor.

She stepped into the room. "Dante, you need to sleep. You haven't slept in days."

The voice was wrong. It was too high. Too pitchy.

It wasn't Elena.

It was Sofia.

She walked toward me, the oversized robe trailing on the floor. She had styled her hair differently. Straighter. Darker.

"I thought..." she started, reaching for my arm. "I thought maybe you needed comfort. I know you're hurting. I miss her too."

She touched my chest.

A red haze exploded behind my eyes.

I grabbed her wrist. Hard.

"Take it off," I snarled.

Sofia flinched. "Dante, you're hurting me."

"Take it off!" I roared. "That is not yours! You do not touch her things!"

I shoved her away. She stumbled, crashing into the bookshelf.

"I'm just trying to help!" she cried. "She's dead, Dante! She's dead and I'm here! I'm the one who needs you now!"

"You are nothing," I said, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "You are a ghost of a mistake I made."

"How can you say that?" She pulled the robe tighter around herself. "You chose me. At the docks. You picked me."

The words hit me like a physical blow.

You chose me.

"I didn't choose you," I said, the truth tasting like ash. "I gambled with her life because I thought you were too pathetic to survive. And I lost."

"Dante..."

"Get out," I said. "Get out before I forget who your brother was."

She ran out of the room, sobbing.

I sank back into the chair. I looked at the empty doorway.

The house was huge. It was a fortress. But without the click of her heels in the hallway, without the scent of her perfume lingering in the air, it wasn't a home.

It was a mausoleum. And I was the corpse sitting at the desk.